The Assessment of Special Educational Needs and the Proletarianisation of Professionals
- 1 January 1993
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Informa UK Limited in British Journal of Sociology of Education
- Vol. 14 (4), 399-408
- https://doi.org/10.1080/0142569930140404
Abstract
This article reports our recent ESRC funded research on the identification of children with emotional and behavioural difficulties under the procedures of the 1981 Education Act. It is argued that the concepts of ‘deskilling’ and ‘proletarianisation’ provide a useful framework of analysis when examining the role of teachers and other professionals involved in the assessment process. However, we discuss evidence suggesting that negotiations between these professionals may focus upon teachers’ attempts to define the nature of their professional activity as ‘skilful’. One consequence of this may be the deskilling of outside professional ‘experts’.Keywords
This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit:
- Assessing Special Educational Needs: the child's contributionBritish Educational Research Journal, 1993
- Decision‐making in Psychologists’ Professional InterviewsEducational Psychology in Practice, 1991