The Right to be Labelled: From Risk to Rights for Pupils with Dyslexia in ‘Special Needs’ Education

‘Community fear and harassment’: learning difficulties and hate crime incidents in the north-east of England

“…This is an important finding, since, although it might be useful to use the broad concept of disability to explain shared experiences of discrimination (Oliver 2009), it is also crucial to understand how people with particular impairments experience aspects of discrimination in different ways (Clement et al 2011;Shakespeare 2013). Although a disabling barrier approach is essential when conceptualising disability and hate crime, this paper implies that using impairment as a point of reference does not mean that disability research has to abandon a social model barrier-based approach (see Macdonald 2013). The data analysis from this study suggests that although there are shared experiences relating to types of hate incidents reported, there needs to be recognition of how people with particular impairments, such as learning difficulties, are at increased risk of experiencing hate crime within their communities.…”

“…In the data analysis, three significant themes (p ≤ 0.05) emerged in the bivariate data: the impact of impairment and hate crime incidence; police responses to incidents; and support received by victims. Although the author is influenced by a critical realist philosophy regarding disability and impairment, this paper employs the social model of disability in respect of the data analysis (for a wider debate, see Macdonald 2013). Hence the author applies the social model definition, which classifies 'disability' as disabling structural barriers and 'impairment' as biological/neurological variations (Oliver 2009).…”

“…Although a barrier-based approach is applied in this paper, it is also maintained that impairment must be acknowledged as disabling barriers are interlinked with impairment type (Macdonald 2013;Shakespeare 2013). This study confirms previous qualitative studies (Quarmby 2008;Gravell 2011), which suggest that people with learning difficulties 1 experience hate crimes in different ways from other groups in society.…”

Twice upon a time: Examining the effect socio‐economic status has on the experience of dyslexia in the United Kingdom

“…Although it was working‐class participants (55.6%) that reported the greatest impact on their educational journeys, very few participants, at 22.4%, suggested that dyslexia had no impact on their educational experiences. From a biomedical perspective, these findings would be conceptualised as resulting from the dyslexic child's inability to cope in mainstream education, although this study suggests that these difficulties in education are due to inaccessible teaching methods and a failure at a governmental‐level to achieve an effective inclusive education agenda (Collinson & Penketh, ; Macdonald, ; Riddick, ).…”

“…This was subsequently replaced with the Equality Act (), which gave disabled people, including people with dyslexia, legal rights in employment, education, access to services, and housing with an aim to protect them against disability discrimination. Therefore, the rise of disability policy over recent years, protecting the rights of people with dyslexia, and promoting awareness of the condition, is meant to have led to improvements in the identification of children and the inclusion of adults with dyslexia (Bartlett & Moody, ; Macdonald, ).…”