Louise Bøttcher - Böcker

This book offers theoretical and practical discussion on the inclusion of students with disabilities and learning impairments within the learning environments and beyond. It explores how social relations and social activities can support the personal and social transitions of children, young people and adults in need of specialized support. Written by academics based in Australia, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK, the contributors take a cultural-historical and dialectical approach as a starting point for special pedagogy. This approach enables special pedagogy to rise above biological-essentialist, environmental-social-training and purely sociological approaches and to focusing on development as a psychological as well as a social phenomenon. The chapters cover a range topics including deaf education, primary and secondary disabilities, play, mediation, incarcerated youth and mental illness. The contributors draw heavily on psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s work and his notion of the zone of proximal development.

This book offers theoretical and practical discussion on the inclusion of students with disabilities and learning impairments within the learning environments and beyond. It explores how social relations and social activities can support the personal and social transitions of children, young people and adults in need of specialized support. Written by academics based in Australia, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK, the contributors take a cultural-historical and dialectical approach as a starting point for special pedagogy. This approach enables special pedagogy to rise above biological-essentialist, environmental-social-training and purely sociological approaches and to focusing on development as a psychological as well as a social phenomenon. The chapters cover a range topics including deaf education, primary and secondary disabilities, play, mediation, incarcerated youth and mental illness. The contributors draw heavily on psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s work and his notion of the zone of proximal development.

This book addresses the central issue of children’s social situation of development in relation to sustainability, care and imagination.

This book introduces current theories and research on disability, and builds on the premise that disability has to be understood from the dialectical dynamics of biology, psychology, and culture over time. Based on the newest empirical research on children with disabilities, the book overcomes the limitations of the medical and social models of disability by arguing for a dialectical biopsychosocial model. The proposed model builds on Vygotsky’s cultural-historical ideas of developmental incongruence, implying that the disability emerges from the misfit between individual abilities and the cultural-historical activity settings in which the child with impairments participates. The book is a theoretical contribution to an updated understanding of disability from a psychological and educational perspective. It focuses on the first years of the life of the child with impairment, and travels through infancy, toddler, preschool and early school age, to track the developmental trajectories ofdisability through the dialectical processes of cultural, social, individual, and biological processes. It discusses a number of themes that are relevant for the early development and support for children with various types and degrees of disability through the lens of Vygotsky’s cultural-historical developmental theories. Some of the themes discussed are inclusion, mental health, communication, aids and family life.

This book introduces current theories and research on disability, and builds on the premise that disability has to be understood from the dialectical dynamics of biology, psychology, and culture over time.