Learning Outcomes
This course is designed to enable students to:
• acquire basic knowledge concerning the various interpretations of disability, special education and Early Intervention.
• detect and differentiate between the crucial issued of “normalization” approach and “social construction of disability” approach
• detect crucial educational issues of special education and understand how they relate to current problems of general education
• comprehend the importance special education has for the pedagogical training of general classroom teachers
• experientially analyze and contemplate on the all the above issues through field work assignments
Course Content (Syllabus)
The course is designed to provide students with an overview of the field of special education on the following topics:
• development of special education through the years
• sociological approaches to the interpretation of disability
• symbolic interaction approach to social construction of disability
• Vygotsky’s contribution to the shaping of current trends in special education
• development of special education in Greece
• from institutionalized education to the inclusive school: social demands and pedagogical contradictions and inconsistencies
• early intervention and the role of preschool education
Students are also offered the opportunity to participate in an initial field activity in special education. In groups, students have to study a certain institution that implements educational programs for disabled children. The institutions under study cover the whole spectrum of deficits and disabilities that provide educational services for disabled children in the vicinity of the city of Thessaloniki. Students either participate themselves in the programs they have to study or do it by interviewing the people in charge with the use of Mitchell’s assessment scale, after prior training.
Keywords
special education, integration, inclusion, intellectual disability, social construction of disability
Course Bibliography (Eudoxus)
Μ. Τζουριάδου, Παιδιά με ειδικές εκπαιδευτικές ανάγκες, «Προμηθεύς», 1995, Μέρος Α΄, σελ. 15 – 95
Μ. Τζουριάδου (επιμ.), Πρώιμη Παρέμβαση, σύγχρονες τάσεις και προοπτικές, Προμηθεύς, 2001, Κεφάλαιο Α΄, σελ. 21 – 76, Κεφάλαιο Β΄, σελ. 78 – 85 & 103 -138, Κεφάλαιο Γ΄, σελ. 184 – 198 & 209 – 232