Additional funding granted? : A discourse analysis on school experiences on SEN needs in applications for additional funding

The purpose of this paper has been to highlight how discourses on disability are portrayed in two different applications for additional funding for students with special educational needs (SEN) of hearing impairment, and two regarding neuropsychiatry. The paper studies a total of 328 applications for additional funding and chosen four of these for a further in depth analysis. The aim of the paper has been to highlight and pinpoint how the four different applications, describes different discourses and perspectives on disability from a perspective of ableism and audism. This ergo in turn creates different fields of transferred discourses from each individual application. The paper has also analyzed what discourses results in granted additional funding from the two municipalities. The paper has used an applied method of Sara Ahmed’s perspective on discourse analysis (2012) and Sara Ahmed’s Queer phenomenology (2006) as a theoretical framework. The purpose of this has been to distinguish use of governmentality and documentality, in order to highlight discourses on ableism and audism. The conclusions drawn from this paper are that the categorical perspective dominates applications regarding neuropsychiatry while the compensatory perspective dominates applications regarding hearing impairment. This in turn points to that the Swedish state should take control of assessing applications for SEN needs from the municipalities. This would possibly lead to increased equivalence and allocation of resources regarding decisions on additional funding for SEN needs. The results show that ableism, audism, governmentality and documentality are predominant discourses in the written applications for additional funding, which works to construct and whole fully connect the SEN need to being the identity of the student.