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Mainstreaming and Labelling: An Assumption Challenged?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2015

Narelle McDonald  and
Alan Hayes
Narelle McDonald
Affiliation:
Fred and Eleanor Schonell Special Education Research Centre, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld 4067
Alan Hayes
Affiliation:
Fred and Eleanor Schonell Special Education Research Centre, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld 4067
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Abstract

A key assumption of the mainstreaming movement is that exposure of young children to their disabled peers provides opportunities for the formation of accurate views of the characteristics and attributes of children with disabilities. Essentially, it is argued that experience enables children to transcend labelling, stereotyping and stigmatization. Prospective data are reported on the mainstreaming of two preschool aged children with spina bifida, based on the content analysis of records of speech, collected over a school year, on 22% of the times when children had opportunities to interact socially. The data indicate that the children seemed to generate their own labels, disability terms and developmental mythologies, which endured across the year. The study highlights the limited attention that has been paid to the collection of data on the social-cognitive processes of children and their disabled peers in mainstreamed settings and emphasizes the scant consideration of evidence from psychology in the mainstreaming debate.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Educational and Developmental Psychologist , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , May 1988 , pp. 37 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © Australian Psychological Society 1988

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