Presentation for the ESA Sociology of Education stream, 28th August – 1st September 2001, Helsinki, Finland
Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova, Saratov Technical University, Russia
Address:
Polytechnicheskaia 77 Email: iarskaia@yahoo.com
Saratov 410054 Russia
The system of education in Russia undergoes deep changes and the schools experience transformation being influenced by governmental reforms and market economy. Yet the philosophy of inclusion is shadowed in public policy agenda. The paper analyzes peculiarities of hidden curriculum in a Russian boarding school for children with disabilities, and discusses the ways how special education constructs the students’ identities. In particular, practices of socialization in an educational institution for children with motor impairments are considered using the qualitative methodology of ethnographic observation and interviews.
Method
Method includes ethnographical case study (Bassey 1999) of an institution in
frameworks of a concept of hidden curriculum that, according to R.M.Hall and
B.R.Sandler, is understood as verbal and non-verbal communication practices in
education (Hall, Sandler 1982) and depicted by M.Stubbs as meta-communication
which is a means of social control (Stubbs 1976). Hidden curriculum includes
following elements (Wood 1994): (i) organizational culture of an institution, (ii)
content of subjects, and (iii) teaching style. These three dimensions of hidden
curriculum not just reflect stereotypes of gender and disability, but also
reinforce social inequality by constructing identities according to symbolic
classifications of feminine and masculine, disabled and able-bodied.
Context and case
In Russia special education is a complex system of different types of school,
vocational colleges and institutions. It includes kindergartens for children
three to six years old, special boarding schools with ten years of study for
children aged seven and above, vocational schools, with three years of study.
There are also nursing homes for children and adolescents considered
“non-educable” due to the diagnosis of severe mental retardation, as well as
psycho-neurological nursing homes for children and adolescents with diagnosis of
severe mental disorder – both these institutions belong not to the system of
education but to the system of labour and social development.
In S. region (2 mln population) there are about 1,5 thousand (1479) schools
including 29 special schools (8 types of special schools) for children with
intellectual and physical disabilities. All school students 362 658
(about 600 thousand – incl. vocational schools ‘PTU’), 4206 children with
special educational needs. Comparing to 1999 the number of such students in 2000
increased by 4%. The number of link classes (special classes in mainstream
schools) decreased by 18%. Comparing to 1999 (9,100) by 2000 there were 9,300
thousand disabled children in Saratov region (since 2000 the age for the
definition of ‘child with disability’ is considered 18). The biggest
proportion of the disabled children 59% are 8-14 yrs old, the second big group
21% are children 4-7 yrs, 59,9% of the disabled children are boys. Among the
population of the disabled children with disabilities 90% are in families.
A boarding school in focus of our study includes both elementary and secondary
levels. The school was founded in 1960 as a residential educational facility for
children who were affected by polio disease. That polio epidemic happened in
Russia in early 1950s. Today school accepts children from 7 years old who have
motor impairments of different kinds – mainly the polio and cerebral palsy.
Among the students today there are orphans, children whose parents have lost
parental rights, as well as kinds from well-to-do families. There are two
types of groups in the school: A and B. The ‘A’ group is for children with
developmental delays (intellectual disabilities). The ‘B’ group is for
children without intellectual delays. There may also be cases of speech-language,
hearing and visual impairments. In such cases children will be placed into A or
B group according to their intellectual ability.
Some children stay over the weekend, some – overnight several days per week,
others are here only during the day. The more children stay
overnight, the more likely they are coming from lower income families. The
orphans live in the boarding school. Anyway, the population of students is very
diverse in terms of social class. This situation is unlike the Russian
educational system in general where the schools become more and more
differentiated according to the status of families of the students. In a
boarding school the factor of child’s disability plays more important role
than the social status of his or her parents. At the same time, this does not
equate the social chances of children as the families with higher income invest
additional money into home tutoring and they also use their social capital in
getting for their child access to higher education.
Gender and disability at the school
Hidden curriculum is analyzed in aspects of organizational structure and culture,
content of lessons, and methods of communication. Gender and disability are
embedded into organizational structure and culture. All teachers except for the
principal, electrician and mechanic all teachers and mentors (mentors work with
residents) are female. Authoritarian style of management and discourse of
power contributes to the creating sense of hierarchy, discipline and
military-like institution. We discovered the absence of big mirrors in
bedrooms and toilets. The girls bedrooms are located on the second floor with
the class rooms located between them which contributes to the lack of privacy.
The rooms of girls differ from the boys rooms in that on the girls beds there
are toys – one doll or one stuffed animal to the right high corner (very
identically located on each bed).
Following peculiarities of a boarding school contributes to construction of
disability:
? Medical services are provided at school comparing to community health services
for ordinary children and a minimum of medical service at mainstream school.
? Individualised programs comparing to mass education at a mainstream school.
? Life skills classes, occupational classes comparing to a learning such skills
in everyday life by an ordinary child, special physical training (OT) comparing
to sport classes at mainstream school.
? Pre-school class to prepare a child for a school.
? Absence of high school group: after graduating 10 years in boarding school,
the child should go to vocational school, nursing home, or if the mainstream
school graduation is desired, to the 10th grade of mainstream school to study
for another two years.
? “Inclusive schooling” in terms of multiple disabilities in addition to the
motor impairments of different levels comparing to the “monoculturalism” of
the mainstream Russian school.
? The programme is relaxed – one may be out of school for three months for a
hospital and then be back and catch up with the program in a week.
We considered symbols which are exposed on the walls inside the buildings: the rules / principles of the school, sentences of the famous people, medical prescriptions, boards with hand-made objects. For example, we considered the “rules of the school” that are the commandments on display on the walls at every classroom and at the ground floor on the news board.
‘The rules of the school’
1. Do not let yourself down, keep your dignity
2. If you wish to be respected, learn to respect others
3. Be kind with the camrades, do not hurt anybody
4. Nurture your patience, learn to protect yourself
5. Nurture courage in yourself.
If you are guilty – do not hide yourself behind the others
6. With all your forces try to study and work,
and your life in the boarding school will be interesting
7. Strenghthen your body and character, learn to overcome hardships,
and you'll become a real person
8.Love and care for your boarding school – and it always will help you
The first principle is based upon the negation– it is assumed that the
student will shame his/her name. A similar commandment could be formulated
instead in the following way: “Be proud of your good deals, achievements. You
have human dignity”. The second principle needs to be compared with the
unconditioned respect of human rights that are inherent to any human being. The
third commandment is written in a masculine gender and again in negative
structure which could have been positively expressed so: “help each other”.
The fourth commandment corresponds with the violent practices existing among the
kids. Parents report about the fights among kids, that are considered as a norm
by the school Principal who, according to our interview with the mother of the
disabled child, at the first meeting asked her daughter not about her skills to
count but about her skills to fight: “it is necessary to fight because at our
school older children often hurt younger ones”. In the fifth commandment the
misbehaviour and dishonesty are assumed, and the feeling of guilt is imposed on
the child. A similar principle of conduct could be depicted in a simple “be
honest”. Interesting life of the students is limited to studies and work
inside the boarding school which in return demands loyalty from its students;
the circle of support is limited to the boarding school as well.
The content of lessons effects the construction of gendered and dis-abled
identity of a student. Gender is learned through manifest and latent translation
of stereotypes during and beyond the lessons. Science and math classes
demonstrate clear tendency to gendered teacher-student communication. In their
classes, teachers of history, Russian language and social skills use
gender-balanced communication model. It appears at the first glance that the
life skills and occupational skills classes are not gender-specific: both boys
and girls in young age are taught to brash their teeth and to take on clothes,
to use post office, to shop, and to cook, to sew clothes and stuffed toys, with
one exception: the girls are not taught carpentry. However, the occupational
skills class is taught separately for older boys and girls is conducted
separately for girls and boys and by different teachers. It is assumed the girls
will go on for vocational school for seamstresses or training for typing (computer
word processing – although such a chance will be very rare), while the boys
will get the training in shoemaking, carpentry, TV or radio repair. None of the
subjects in the boarding school addresses the issue of disability except for the
social skills class that is focused on vocational choices and practicing
everyday occupations such as using different services at post office, paying
bills, etc. However, the importance of open discussions of disability and gender,
sexuality, rights and supportive networks is obvious as the graduates of this
school are not prepared to live in the society after they have for years been
nurtured and fostered by the institution.
Gender stereotypes are expressed in everyday communication and in our interviews.
According to teachers, the girls must be obedient, assiduous, accurate, not
intellectual: Interviewer: “May we talk to the children concerning the
graduation party?” Respondent: “You’d better come next week, because now
there are only two girls. Boys are more active, more intelligent, they have more
humour. The girls unlikely will propose you something worthy”; “In her
situation, she must be even more accurate”; “a boy can find somebody to take
care for him, while the girls – they must be clean, neat!”
The disability discourse is hidden. A teacher never says to a child ‘you are
disabled’. The words ‘disability, disabled’ never sound in this school.
However, disability is being communicated, taught and learned through
micro-practices of everyday life in this school. For example, although every
teacher encourages children to do the job but their attitude is not a demand: if
the children do not prepare homework (which happens all the time), the teachers
do not insist. The level of academic demand is rather low. As a result the
curriculum does not correspond to the program of mainstream school which makes
it very difficult for the student to catch up if (s)he would like to transfer
there in order to continue for higher education. The standards for education in
this school have been even lowered since previous years according to the
teachers who work here for a long time.
In the interview with a female student, 17 years we see the effect of stigma (Goffman
1986) of disabled identity which is imposed on children not just by institution
and system of special education but also by the societal attitudes towards
disability in Russian society: “What are you saying? An institute? I won’t
be able to go there. Why? Why should I? I sew very good!” Teachers in the
interviews are focused on impossibility or unlikeness of personal lives or
professional careers of children in the future.
Conclusions
In context of social and economic transformation of the last ten years in Russia
a school for the children with motor impairments experience changes but at the
same time it reproduces Soviet stereotypes and educational discourses. We
observed cultural forms which support positive identities and friendships but at
the same time nurture patriarchal and disabling structures of communication and
socialization.
One cultural form is an inside world and organizational culture of the boarding
school with its features of isolation, power hierarchy, social segregation which
is contributes to the life style of the disabled. Sometimes this segregation is
reinforced through a stronger social control, through the hidden curriculum.
Close and familial relations within the classroom are joined by a strong social
control, lack of privacy at the school and deficit of parental involvement into
their children’s education. While classroom babysits, the school polices (Hurst
1991: 187), and the separation of the family from the classroom and school
reflects wider processes of isolating the disabled from the society.
Another cultural form which is reproduced among the students: the difference in
social class, urban/rural background, presence or absence of a family, different
plans for the career. It is likely that such differences effect children’s
conflicts. Conflicts exist between parents and teachers, teachers and children,
among the teachers as well as violent relations among the children.
Peculiarities of special education have both positive and negative effects on
children. As it is seen at the boarding school, centralization of services –
educational and medical services at one place – means cost-effectiveness for
the state, as well as time and energy savings for children and parents. At the
same time it leads to medicalization of special education (Bart 1984), and all
problems in children’s academic development are considered from the point of
view of medical experts who have a big power here. Physical environment at the
school which we studied is not adjusted to the needs of children with severe
motor impairments and they are getting home-based educational services.
Comparing to mainstream school the number of students is less, boarding school
it is not overcrowded which decreases the risks of trauma. Besides,
student-staff ratio here provides much more possibilities for individualized
teacher-student interactions. The boarding school has a special curriculum –
it is individualized, adjusted to the needs of every child but at the same time
the paternalistic attitude towards children with disabilities leads to the low
demands on the academic side of the school program while the everyday skills and
occupational skills are also taught insufficiently. Social interactions are
limited here to the contacts among the disabled children and their tutors and
teachers; friendships with non-disabled peers are very rare cases. The teachers
report, the children from surrounded houses do not come to play together with
residents due to the recent decline in the neighbourhood culture (yard games) in
Russia.
The politics of special education for children with disabilities marginalize
children and limits their social orientations and perspectives. The latent goal
of this system is to form such individuals which can survive on everyday base,
who can cope with daily needs. The liberal democratic vision of education as the
vehicle for individual development and greater social equality does not
correspond with separate school system which develop a problem of educational
inequality. The individuals who are recipients of education cannot be identified
as the source of the problem, rather, the special education system itself
demonstrates its inadequacy with the notion of human rights.
Note
The research was supported by the John and Catherine MacArthur foundation,
grantholder Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova, grant number ?00-62616-000. The author
thanks Pavel Romanov and Janna Tsinman for their contribution into this work.
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07/03/2002