Parents, Politics and the Public Purse: Activists in the special education arena in Germany

Abstract

A BSTR AC T U sing a`social interest' approach, this paper details the advocacy strategies of parents of children with disabilities in the Federal Republic of G ermany during the 1980s. Parents developed grass-roots organizations beginn ing in the 1970s in the former W est G ermany in response to the stigma and isolation of the well-developed system of Sonderschulen (special schools). Parent groups described here include both those with children already in the Sonderschulen working to ensure its promise of special help for their children and those working to bypass the Sonderschule system by establishing m odel integration programs in the general schools. The collective actions that led to local successes for both these parent advocate approaches are documented, but so, too, are the obstacles the parents encountered in the broader political arena. Politicians continue to cite limited education budgets, especially following the uni® cation of the two Germanys, and they also raise concerns which some parents share: that signi® cant expansion of special educational support into the general schools could underm ine the viability of the Sonderschulen. Thus, one political response to the integration m ovement has been to ® nd places for some children with disabilities in the general schools, but accompanied by only m inim al special education support.

Entrepreneurial Exit Response to Dissatisfaction With Public Services

“…After the Second World War, learning handicapped, speech handicapped, behaviour disordered, mentally retarded, physically handicapped, sight impaired, hearing impaired, and the multiply handicapped were excluded from the mainstream public schools in most of the Western democracies, including, for example, the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom (Heyl 1998; Katsiyannis et al 2001; Powell 2003). Their exclusion was practiced either by placing them in special institutions or by isolation within public school facilities (Katsiyannis et al 2001).…”

“…They received financial support from the city. However, they took full responsibility for organising the programme, finding the space, cooking the food, and choosing the full-time staff (Heyl 1998).…”

Barriers to Inclusion

“…Given the dearth of comparative-historical studies, large country-specific literatures will be melded together here, including social histories and studies that both critique and champion special education. While books by Günther Opp (1993) and Martina Jülich (1996) focused on contemporary American special education from a German perspective, contemporary analyses of German special education in English are even less common (Heyl 1998). This study goes beyond those mentioned in the time span covered and in systematizing the comparative dimensions of special education's institutionalization.…”

The Globalization of Disability Protests, 1970-2005: Pushing the Limits of Cross-Cultural Research?

“…Scholars who have investigated disability protests in one country include Sharon Barnartt and Richard Scotch (2001) about the US, Catherine Barral (2007) about France, Mpingo Ahadi Bugg (2001) about South Africa, Reiko Hayashi and Masako Okuhira (2001) about Japan, Barbara Heyl (1998) and Katharina Heyer (2002a) about Germany, Joan Tucker (2007) about Jamaica, and Michael Oliver (1990 about the UK. (However, not all were using event history analysis.)…”