Capability Approach to Disability
Beyond the Dilemma of Difference:
The Capability Approach to Disability
and Special Educational Needs
LORELLA TERZI
In her recent pamphlet Special Educational Needs: a new look
(2005) Mary Warnock has called for a radical review of
special needs education and a substantial reconsideration
of the assumptions upon which the current educational
framework is based. The latter, she maintains, is hindered by a
contradiction between the intention to treat all learners as the
same and that of responding adequately to the needs arising
from their individual differences. The tension highlighted
by Warnock, which is central to the debate in special and
inclusive education, is also referred to as the ‘dilemma of
difference’. This consists in the seemingly unavoidable choice
between, on the one hand, identifying children’s differences in
order to provide for them differentially, with the risk of
labelling and dividing, and, on the other, accentuating the
‘sameness’ and offering common provision, with the risk of
not making available what is relevant to, and needed by,
individual children. In this paper, I argue that the capability
approach developed by Amartya Sen provides an innovative
and important perspective for re-examining the dilemma of
difference in significant ways. In particular, I maintain that
reconceptualising disability and special needs through the
capability approach makes possible the overcoming of the
tension at the core of the dilemma of difference, whilst at the
same time inscribing the debate within an ethical, normative
framework based upon justice and equality.
INTRODUCTION
The publication in 1978 of the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the
Education of Handicapped Children and Young People, known as the
Warnock Report (DES, 1978), marked a watershed in the educational
provision for disabled learners in the UK, whilst at the same time
establishing a new fundamental framework for special education. The
Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol. 39, No. 3, 2005
r The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2005. Published by Blackwell Publishing,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
Report importantly highlighted the commonality of educational aims for
all children, irrespective of their abilities or disabilities, and introduced the
concept of ‘special educational needs’ in order to identify learners who
experience difficulties at any time during their schooling. Further, it
recognised disabled learners’ entitlement to be educated in mainstream
schools, providing their needs could be met with additional support, thus
opening the way to the idea of inclusion (Riddell, 2002, p. 6; Warnock,
2005, p. 18).
Recently, and more than thirty years after the publication of the Report
and the enactment of its recommendations through the 1981 Education
Act,1 Baroness Mary Warnock, the then chair of the Committee, has called
for a radical review of special needs education. In her pamphlet Special
Educational Needs: A New Look Warnock argues for a substantial
reconsideration of the assumptions upon which the current educational
framework is based. The latter, she maintains, is hindered by a contradiction between the intention to treat all learners the same and that of
responding adequately to the needs arising from their individual differences (Warnock, 2005, p. 11).
The tension highlighted by Warnock is indeed central to the debate
in special and inclusive education, where it is also referred to as the
‘dilemma of difference’. The dilemma of difference consists in the
seemingly unavoidable choice between, on the one hand, identifying
children’s differences in order to provide for them differentially, with
the risk of labelling and dividing, and, on the other hand, accentuating
‘sameness’ and offering common provision, with the risk of not making
available what is relevant to, and needed by, individual children (see
Dyson, 2001; Lunt, 2002; Norwich, 1993, 1994). Subsumed in the
dilemma are two interrelated aspects: a theoretical dimension, concerned
with issues of conceptualisation and definition, and a political one, which
refers to questions of provision in order to meet the equal entitlements of
all children to education.
Conceptualising differences among children, and in particular differences related to disability and special needs, is a complex educational
problem. What counts as disability and special needs, and how this relates
to learning difficulties, is not only still much debated in education but also
the subject of contrasting and often opposed views. The debate is
characterised, on the one hand, by positions that see disability and special
needs as caused by individual limitations and deficits, and, on the other, by
positions that see disability and special needs as caused by the limitations
and deficits of the schooling systems in accommodating the diversity of
children. A further crucial aspect of this debate concerns the use, in
general terms, of classificatory systems for educational purposes and the
use, more specifically, of classification in relation to disabled students.
The debate on this issue tends to be polarised between, on the one side,
perspectives that endorse the use of categories and classification systems
seen as necessary to ensure differential and appropriate educational
provision, and, on the other side, perspectives that critically highlight the
possible discriminatory and oppressive use of these systems.
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In this paper, I suggest a possible, initial answer to Warnock’s call for a
reconsideration of the framework informing special and inclusive
education. More specifically, I argue that a philosophical framework,
based on the capability approach as developed by Amartya Sen, provides
an interesting perspective for re-examining the dilemma of difference
in significant ways. The capability approach is a normative framework
for assessing inequality. It claims that social arrangements should be
evaluated in the space of capability, that is, in the space of the real
freedoms people have to promote and achieve their own wellbeing.
Considerations of human diversity in terms of the interrelation between
individual, social and circumstantial factors are central in the Assessment of
people’s capabilities and, therefore, ultimately, of their wellbeing.
How can the capability approach address the tensions at the core of
the dilemma of difference? I maintain that this approach provides an
innovative theoretical and normative framework for re-examining disability and special needs. In particular, reconceptualising disability and
special needs through the capability approach allows the overcoming of
the duality inherent in current understandings, whilst at the same time
inscribing the debate within an ethical, normative framework substantially
aimed at justice and equality. Thus, the capability approach allows the
theorisation of a unified framework that sees the interplay of the
theoretical level of defining disability and special needs in education with
the political level of determining a just educational entitlement.
The paper is divided into three sections. The first section is a critical
summary of current perspectives on disability and special educational
needs. It briefly highlights how the juxtaposition of individual and social
elements as causes of learning difficulties leads to definitions that do not
capture the complexity of disability and special needs. This results in
partial and theoretically limited educational perspectives. The second
section outlines elements of the capability approach. It highlights how this
approach allows for an understanding of disability as the interrelation of
individual and circumstantial elements, thus overcoming the duality of
current perspectives. The final section of the paper reconceptualises
disability and special educational needs through the capability approach
and shows how this approach provides new and fruitful answers to the
definitional part of the dilemma of difference, whilst keeping firmly in
sight the equal educational entitlement of disabled learners as a matter of
justice.
1. CONCEPTUALISING DIFFERENCES IN EDUCATION:
DISABILITY AND SPECIAL EDUCATION NEEDS
Educational approaches to definitions and causes of disability and special
needs, however much they may contrast, can all be substantially subsumed
under different understandings of the relation between children’s diversity
and the school system. The theoretical core of the contention lies not only
in the definition of children’s diversity with respect to school but also, and
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more specifically, in the factors causing the difficulties experienced by
some children either throughout or at any time during their school career.
As I mentioned earlier, the debate is characterised, on the one hand, by
perspectives that causally relate children’s difficulties to their individual
characteristics, often seen as individual limitations and deficits. These
perspectives suggest the adoption of medical categories of disability and
concepts of learning difficulties. On the other hand, other positions,
mainly in sociology of education, locate the causes of children’s learning
difficulties within schooling institutions characterised by their inability to
meet the diversity of children’s learning. While opposing the adoption of
any form of category or classification of children’s differences, seen as
inherently discriminatory, these positions promote instead ‘the recognition
and appreciation of all aspects of diversity in education’ (Barton, 2003,
p. 15).
I maintain that the duality between individual and social elements, an
artificial causal opposition, leads to limited and unsatisfactory conceptualisations of disability and special needs. More specifically, I argue that
perspectives emphasising individual limitations end up overshadowing the
role played by the design of schooling institutions in determining learning
difficulties. Conversely, perspectives that identify schooling factors as
causes of learning difficulties tend to overlook elements related to
individual characteristics. Let me proceed to substantiate these claims.
Perspectives that explain children’s learning difficulties as causally
linked to their personal features adopt concepts of disability as related to
individual impairments. Here the distinction between impairment, seen as
a physiological disorder or limitation, and the related disability, in terms
of restriction of activity, is fundamental. These perspectives rely on the
use of classificatory systems mainly based on medical or psychological
categories—for example, ‘sensory impairments’ or ‘intellectual difficulties’. Categories are seen as part of the ‘attempts to understand learners’
individual characteristics’ (MacKay, 2002, p. 160) and to provide the
specialist support assumed as fundamental to their education. Proponents
of these views criticise perspectives based on the social model of
disability—the model supported by disabled people’s organisations—for
failing to analyse the complexity of disability and for simplifying it under
the ‘neat umbrella of disability’ as socially constructed (MacKay, 2002,
p. 160). For instance, MacKay expresses concern about the fact ‘that many
cohorts of experienced teachers . . . have been taught that impaired hearing
is not a barrier to learning, because real barriers have to be construed
socially’ (ibid.). Whilst agreeing with some terms of this critique of the
social model of disability,2 I maintain that these perspectives present
limits in their understanding of children’s difficulties. Impaired hearing,
to return to the example mentioned, can certainly become in itself a barrier
to learning, and hence a disability, when teaching is not provided to
accommodate children with hearing impairment. If teaching were conducted in diverse ways, for instance by specific methods of facilitating
language development (see, for instance, Gregory, 2005), then hearing
impairment would remain an impairment, but would probably not become
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a disability, thus not resulting in a barrier to learning. As I shall explain
in more detail later on, a disability is relational both to impairments
and to the design of educational arrangements. In particular, impairments
become disabilities—that is, functional limitations—in certain educational
arrangements but not in others. Consequently, a disability implies impairment, but the opposite does not hold in all cases. This distinction is subtle
but worth making. Ultimately, what this example shows is how categorybased positions end up emphasising the ‘individual’ aspect of the relation
between children’s difficulties and school, thus seriously overlooking the
relevance of the schooling factor in determining learning difficulties and,
therefore, failing to express the complexity of determining what kind of
difference is to count as a learning disability.
Similar considerations apply to the concept of special educational needs,
as this was adopted in the UK following the Warnock Report (DES, 1978)
and the 1981 Education Act (see above). Whilst aiming at emphasising the
relational aspect of learning difficulties, and bringing the theory and
practice of special education beyond the use of categories, the concept of
special educational needs not only remains inscribed in a ‘within-child
model’, but also substantially introduces a new category, that of special
needs. This category still presents special needs as essential to the
individual child and de facto separates children with special needs from
others (Norwich, 1993, p. 45). Furthermore, the concept of special educational needs appears theoretically unspecified and practically
unworkable. This leads, on the one hand, to a conceptual proliferations of
needs—for instance, in ideas of exceptional needs, defined as ‘arising
from characteristics shared by some, e.g. visual impairment, high musical
ability’ (Norwich, 1996, p. 34), or notions of ‘individual needs’ (Ainscow,
1989), related to the full and irreducible diversity of individuals. On
the other hand, the unspecified nature of the concept leads to the
reintroduction of the medical and psychological categories it aimed
to abolish, like ‘sensory impairment’ or ‘emotional and behavioural
difficulties’. Ultimately, therefore, the notion of special needs remains
conceptually a ‘within-child model’ and fails to capture the complexity of
disability.
Let us now consider those perspectives that identify the learning
difficulties experienced by some children as related to the limitations of
the schooling systems in meeting their diversity. These perspectives hold
the view that it is indeed how schools deal with the issue of difference that
determines the correlation between diversity and difficulties. In this sense,
disabilities and special needs are considered wholly socially constructed,
thus neither inherent nor essential to the child.
For some educationalists (for example, Tony Booth, Alan Dyson)
difficulties and needs are caused by the inflexibility of the school system
and by its inability to meet the diversity of children. It is, therefore, the
limitation of schooling that causes special educational needs. Brahm
Norwich notes that, although on this view difficulties are seen as arising
from the relation between the diversity of children and the school system,
critical attention is specifically directed only to the limitations of the
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school rather than to a comprehensive understanding of how this relation
takes place. In this sense, for instance, Dyson comments: ‘Special needs
are not the needs that arise in a child with disabilities with regard to a
system that is fixed. Rather they are needs that arise between the child and
the educational system as a whole when the system fails to adapt itself to
the characteristics of the child’ (Dyson, cited in Norwich, 1993, p. 50). As
Norwich has rightly pointed out, there seems to be an inconsistency in
arguing for an interaction between child and school, and then asserting
only the limitations on the part of the school (Norwich, 1993, p. 50).
Some sociologists of education influenced by the social model of
disability maintain that disability and special needs in education are
socially constructed in the sense of being the products of disabling barriers
and of exclusionary and oppressive educational processes (see Armstrong,
Barnes, Barton, Corbett, Oliver, Tomlinson). They see disabilities and
difficulties as caused by institutional practices, which marginalise and
discriminate through the use of labelling procedures and disabling
categories and methods. These positions criticise the use of categories
of disability for their arbitrary, socially situated and discriminatory use.
The use of categories is seen as aimed at separating and, until recently,
segregating children on the basis of their presumed ‘abnormality’, and as
labelling and devaluing disabled children and children with special needs.
Consequently, and in line with the social model of disability, according to
proponents of this perspective, ‘difference is not a euphemism for defect,
for abnormality, for a problem to be worked out through technical and
assimilationist education policies. Diversity is a social fact’ (Armstrong
and Barton, 2000, p. 34). Differences and diversity, therefore, instead of
constituting a ‘dilemma’, have to be promoted and celebrated.
I argue that this position, while highlighting possible limits of medical
and social practices of categorisation, nevertheless involves relevant
theoretical problems. First, stating that difficulties and disability in
education are socially constructed betrays obvious and exaggerated
assumptions regarding socialisation and significantly overlooks the
individual factors related to impairments. To resume the example
mentioned above, a hearing impairment has to be recognised and
acknowledged if provision is to be made in order to avoid educational
barriers. Hence, simply stating that individual differences have to be
celebrated does not seem to be a sufficient basis upon which to determine
the ends of educating the child, and even less so when the aim is the
enactment of equal educational entitlements. This becomes more evident
in the case of severely disabled children or children with multiple
disabilities. Second, the abandonment of any use of categories and
classifications of disability and special needs in favour of a generic
celebration of differences is in itself a problematic and, to a certain extent,
counterproductive position. How can policies be designed to celebrate
differences, and specifically differences related to impairment and
disability, in the absence of any specification of the concept of difference?
Ultimately, therefore, educational perspectives that advocate the abandonment of categories of disability and special needs and assert that they are
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solely socially constructed seriously overlook the relevance of individual
factors and the importance of the relation between the latter and the design
of schooling systems in determining learning difficulties.
Let us now recap the main elements of the educational debate on
disability and special needs addressed so far. Positions in education can be
identified in terms of the contrast between, on the one hand, asserting that
difficulties are caused by factors essential to the individual child and, on
the other, maintaining that they are caused by the limitations of schools
and by institutional barriers. As we have seen, the opposition between
individual and social elements presents consistent theoretical limits, which
are mainly related to the assumptions of unilateral causality and of a fixed
dichotomy that are made. According to Norwich, ‘Individual difficulty
versus the organizational inflexibility is a false causal opposition. The
social and the individ

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