Mainstreaming in the middle school

I. Mainstreaming in the middle school may have little to no effect on non-impaired students.

A. General teachers resist adaptation of teaching resources; non-impaired students continue to receive on-level instruction.

1. Individualization in the classroom may be impractical.

2. The greater the impaired student's disability, the more likely s/he is to "fall through the cracks."

B. General teachers attend to the middle ground of students' abilities; non-impaired students still comprise the "target audience."

1. Teachers may not know what special students are doing with the special education instructor.

2. Teachers monitor their teaching strategies according to the overall class reaction.

C. General teachers interpret textbook material, but do not adapt it for the impaired student; non-impaired students model more advanced thought processes rather than basic skills.

D. General teachers are sympathetic to their mainstreamed students in theory; practical considerations win out over the theoretical; the status quo prevails for non-impaired students.

II. Mainstreaming (tending toward a model of full inclusion) in the middle school may have a considerable impact on non- impaired students, while loosely monitored mainstreaming may have no impact.

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ed later, inclusionists would maintain that socialization skills are lacking, much to the detriment of both non-impaired and impaired students alike. In Vaughn and Schumm's (1994) study, a driving concern behind teachers' planning at the middle school level was maintaining a classroom environment that was peaceful and allowed the teacher to proceed with the lesson with as few unpleasant interruptions as possible (p. 159). Vaughn and Schumm (1994) realize that the level of interaction experienced by the teachers in their study is unlikely to reflect those middle school settings where collaborative, consulting, or peer tutoring models are used (a fully inclusive environment) (p. 159). The authors also infer that at the middle school level, teachers do not feel that it is in the students' best interest for the teacher to plan to meet special learning needs; in other words, "the teachers in this study, as well those in other studies previously performed by Schumm (in preparation), felt that if students who are mainstreamed are going to make it in the general education classroom, they will have to meet the expectations set by the teacher for all students in the classroom" (p. 159). In their study of instruction and learning in midd

Category: Psychology - M