This research project carried out for the Danish Ministry of Education resonates significantly with the theme for this year EERA conference in general and the specific focus on innovation in Network 20. The research project presented here deals with testing new categories in special educational needs (SEN) as a way of supporting a contextual perspective as seeing ‘pupils in a risk position’ rather than viewing it in an individual perspective as ‘pupils with special needs’.

Hence this research deals with issues inscribed in this year EERA conference like:

‘… decision-making and action in the public interest as well as in the interest of professions, and implies discretionary judgement For educational researchers, being professionally responsible requires decision-making and action and relative autonomy’.

‘… a particular challenge for researchers within a policy environment that increasingly requires knowledge on ‘what works’.

‘They are faced with short-term and performance oriented forms of accountability and tendencies of privatization and commercialization in education research.

The presented research project exemplifies questions like ‘who and what can and should lead educational research, as a contribution to a quality education for all and at all levels’ and hence this paper is relevant compared to the theme for this conference as well as being relevant on many other levels.

The research presented here is a second pilot concerning the implementation of new referring categories in the Danish Compulsory School which relates not to what a specific child is diagnosed as but specifically focuses on which educational needs should be the optimal setting for the pupil, teacher and school, facing this challenge. In Denmark this focus is of great importance given that a law, The Inclusion Law from 2012, establishes inclusion is a common goal in school, and that at least 96 % of pupils have to receive lessons in their own home class. This political defined goal is then followed by a need for change in the way professionals understands, talks and acts about inclusion and supports inclusive processes and views in the world of school. 

With this frame for the research pilot project, the research questions are:

-          How is working with the new categories conceived and handled by teachers, school leaders, psychologists, consultants etc.  whilst uncovering, documenting and allocating support based on documented needs?

-          How are pupils with special needs or in position of risk receiving SEN in one way or another, categorized in the new categories compared to the former diagnose like categories?  

The tested new categories can be seen as a contribution to the shift from an individual perspective with a solely look at the pupil, to a wider perspective, related to theories stressing the importance of belonging to communities of practice (Wenger: 2001), acting in ecological learning and transition (Bronfenbrenner: 1979) and building on narratives of the involved (Bruner: 1993).

Hence focus in this research is matters of importance for learning and didactics such as the nature of the specific environment, technical, physical and human resources. This focus is equal to what is taking place in other European countries related to inclusion, as it is implemented in legislation for school, and how it is being transformed to inclusive pedagogical practice in school (Booth & Ainscow: 2011) .

Booth, T. & Ainscow, M. (2011). Index for Inclusion: developing learning and participation in schools. 3rd Revised edition Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education; Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The Ecology of Human Development. Experiments by nature and design. Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Bruner, J. (1993). Acts of Meaning. Four Lectures on Mind and Culture. Harvard University Press. Cambridge. Quvang, C. (2006). School and Special Education – Impact on identity and life trajectories. Side 265-283. Antikainen, A. & Harinen, P. & Torres, C. (Eds.). In from the Margins – Adult Education, Work and Civil Society. Sense Publishers, Rotterdam & Hong Kong. Quvang, C. (2008). Emotions and Self; learning and becoming through relations. http://www.canterbury.ac.uk/education/cisdp/docs/esrea/c%20quvang.pdf Wenger, E. (2001). Communities of Practice. Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge. University Press, Cambridge.