Talet om specialpedagogiken : En analys av utbildningspolitiska texter

Special education is a course in the mutual nucleus for all teacher educational studies in Sweden. In this degree project, political texts are deconstructed in an aim is to clarify how special education is constituted and articulated in the speech about special education on a political arena. Inspired by Laclau & Mouffe’s theory on discourse quotes in political texts are analysed in regard to the following two questions: 1) What content is established in regard to the nodal point, special education in a political educational discourse? 2) What possible tensions can be acknowledged within the discourses about special education? Some analytical concepts are being used to explore how the text is constructed. Special education is considered a hub in the texts and is treated as a nodal point, which functions as a centre that fixes other words and concepts, so called signs and elements. This will, in turn, help define the discourse in which the nodal point is a part. By doing so the ambiguity in the text is decreased and the discourse becomes fixed. The words and concepts that are particularly open to ambiguity are so called floating signifiers and play an important part in the analysis since they influence how a text can be read and understood. The results show that the flying signifiers are meaningful because of how they influence the nodal point and its various significances. Furthermore, the results display how they have an impact on the readers understanding of the discussion about special education in political texts. One important conclusion which can be ascertained is that these political texts can be interpreted as instable and vague