The Affirmation Model

The beliefs of some SLs aligned with the premises of the AM, a model in direct opposition to the PMM’s ‘personal tragedy’ and critiques of the SM in excluding impairment (body) as an unobservable attribute of the disabled students (Johnstone, 2005; Hodkinson &

Vickerman, 2009). The AM repudiates the idea of ‘normality’ promulgated by the PMM (Frederickson & Cline, 2009); it is also unlike the SM, which sees disability as a social phenomenon but ignores the individual (Shakespeare & Watson, 2001; Hughes, 2007).

However, it recognises that barriers still need to be removed before disabled students can access services. The primary difference between the AM and SM is that, while the AM advances the idea that disabled students can enjoy their lives, like the SM does, it contrasts with the SM in that it does not ignore their personal characteristics, including their social and academic performance.

156 For example, one SL said:

‘Normal life’ is a broad term…I don’t want to push the students to be just like their mainstream peers. If I do, their lives will be destroyed… Aldamj is when the society and community accept the student [different characteristics] as normal…Such students won’t be odd, they will be treated normally.

This SL did not want to push the students labelled with ID to be like their peers, suggesting that students labelled with ID need a place that respects their progress while providing stimulating education. She explained that her school measured the students’ progress according to individualised standards. From this, and by her explicit comment that

‘normal life is a broad term’, I can infer that her view is that each person always already has a normal life—the one she/he is living.

According to this SL, Aldamj aims to help students labelled with ID feel normal; she illustrated that, when mainstream students see and interact with something every day, eventually they no longer perceive it as strange. The key element in her view of disability is that, as long as one treats them normally—viewing their differences as a part of them—

these students will live a normal life.

Another SL commented,

I need to focus on how they view themselves...We have a girl whose right hand is deformed. When she arrived, she was afraid to show her hand, but supported by her teachers, she eventually stopped caring…When she tried to draw a hand during an art lesson, her teacher asked her to draw both hands and show her friend what her hand looked like.

This SL explained how the teacher helped the girl accept her disability and not feel nervous to ask for help when she needed it. In her view, she wanted to demonstrate that her disability merely distinguished her and that it was acceptable to need more assistance than her friends did. The critical part, in her view, was that although other students saw

157 that she was different, this should not be a problem. It was clear that she wanted to reach the idea that students labelled with ID are put in difficult situations only when they are discriminated against.

Another interesting point raised by an SL was as follows:

Well, the classification is helpful. The teachers would come into my office to ask me about a girl, and I’d explain...she needs to be supported by the SEN teacher or else she will be neglected...Not all students with ID need the same things.

Some need more, while others can achieve more things more quickly.

I asked, ‘What about the parents? Do they reject that?’ She responded,

We don’t intend to minimise them when we categorise them. The parents are more comfortable this way. They are able to talk about their children’s needs without feeling ashamed, and they are willing to ask for support because they know that their children should have it.

This SL had a positive opinion of classification; in her view, it helped the teachers understand the students’ situations and enabled them to provide the most relevant support.

From her comments, I can infer that, since schools speak in a language that differs markedly from the traditional ways of talking about SEN (PMM), parents can discuss their children’s supported needs more confidently, without feeling ashamed, and feel safe when they know that their children will not be removed. Green (2003) states that some mothers her study indicated that they coped with the everyday difficulties, but were irritated by the pity stemming from stereotyping, caused them to view their children as burdens and left them feeling depressed, ashamed, guilty, and isolated.

It is useful to carefully study the language used to describe disabilities. In the AM,

‘impairment’ includes physical, sensory and cognitive differences, and these differences should be respected as a part of society’s natural diversity. The SLs who held an AM perspective expressed how ID can be seen as an ordinary characteristic, not an

158 extraordinary one, and as a result, students labelled with ID can accept and be pleased with who they are, away from a definition of disability in which they are stigmatised.

To clarify the SLs’ perspectives, in the PMM and NM, the understanding of disability and normality produces stigma that reinforce the view of students labelled with SEN as tragic and pathetic. Link and Phelan (2001) defines stigma as the labelling, separation, stereotyping and discrimination created and existing together within a power structure in a social setting and applied to stigmatised groups. In the SM, the role of the disability oppressively affects how a person labelled with SEN/ID interacts with the world and how a student’s disability is related to the social environment (Shakespeare & Watson, 2001).

However, the AM encourages students labelled with ID to develop a strong sense of self-identity, stressing that they should have control over their lives. As Hodkinson and Vickerman (2009) argue, the problem is not impairment, but rather, it is the stereotypical attitudes linked with it. This model stresses that the individual’s life should always be valued, regardless of any impairments (Johnstone, 2005), and it shows how impairments can become a vital part of a person’s identity (Cameron, 2014). In Green’s (2003) study, she noted that, in her neighbourhood, people initially thought that her daughter was strange. However, after regular interactions, people began to view her as different, but not strange, indicating that new discourses of disability were created. This is apparent, where, due to some people feel uncomfortable interacting with a person labelled with SEN as a condition consisting of helplessness, a lack of productivity, and even not accepted behavior.

From the above, it is clear how AM values criticise the effect of psycho-emotional disablism on identity. Psycho-emotional disablism is another dimension of disability where the emotional welfare of disabled students are undermined (PMM and NM),

159 particularly through discrimination, exclusion and prejudgment (Reeve, 2002). As Reeve (2002) states, the concepts of self-surveillance and the gaze are powerful, moulding how disabled bodies are controlled, as well as the influence on emotional wellbeing, causing individuals to feel useless and unappealing. Thus, a disability identity highlights the adaptation of a diverse experience of disabled students and a resistance to the psycho-emotional dimensions of disability as a political act,along with conceptions of power, at odds with preconceived ideas about disabled students.

Overall, as the previous examples suggest, my study’s results reveal that the AM is the answer to the question of how mainstream schools can provide extra support for students labelled with ID and still include them in mainstream classes. It explains that adopting the AM transforms a School Culture’s consciousness about the meaning of disability and asserts the worth and legitimacy of the life of a person with an impairment. Its overriding aims are to challenge the assumptions of what constitutes normality or fulfilment (Swain

& French, 2000). At the same time, it asserts that disabled students have the right to access the support needed as part of school services. This causes students who labelled ID to begin to accept their disability and request the support they need without experiencing stigma. As Swain and French (2000) argue, disabilities in education are viewed positively and education prioritises the development of a healthy self-image.

The next section is the FM as final disability model that has emerged.