PhD Programme in Special Needs Education

The field of Special Needs Education has historically focused on learning and development conditions for children, adolescents and adults with special needs. The structure of the PhD programme in Special Needs Education at UiS seeks to go beyond the traditional division of work between Education and Special Needs Education through strengthening the scope of the subjects included in the Research Training Programme. The PhD programme is linked to two special education centres: the Centre for Behavioural Research and the National Centre for Reading and also to the Inclusive Education Group of the Department of Education. This means that the PhD programme in Special Needs Education works in an area between the challenges related to specific needs in children, adolescents and adults on the one hand and perspectives based on the common arenas of the educational system, with focus on the students’ interaction and participation, on the other hand.

In Special Needs Education Research, a distinction is usually made between individual, relational and social/cultural methods of approach in understanding children, adolescents and adults with special needs and their learning/education. Individual methods of approach have been based on medically inspired views, with emphasis on diagnosis and treatment. Relational methods of approach place decisive emphasis on understanding disability in relation to the requirements, conditions and opportunities of the environment and the situation. Social/cultural methods of approach focus on culture and society as being decisive in understanding disability. All these perspectives are represented in the Special Needs Education Research at UiS.

The Special Needs Education research has been based on problems that are common to various disciplines. Interdisciplinary co-operation is therefore an important characteristic of the research activity. For many years, the University of Stavanger has played a leading role in Special Needs Education research into reading and writing difficulties and social and emotional problems. For example, research within the field of reading and writing difficulties unites linguistics, education, psychology and medicine. Research in the field of social and emotional problems studies various factors that are significant to children and adolescents’ behaviour and well-being: kindergarten and school related factors, contextual factors outside kindergarten and school, interaction between kindergarten/school and the home, school development and innovation work, development of teachers’ competence, etc.

Key aspects in the field of Inclusive Education are related to teaching – learning, education – curriculum and participation – democracy. The studies are based on the various common arenas in the field of education and focus on diversity and variation and on appreciating and taking care of each individual. Specific research projects relevant to development of Inclusive Education focus on children, adolescents and adults’ conditions for socialization, identity and belonging, for meaningful learning and knowledge development and for development of competence and authority. In the research activity, emphasis is placed on understanding including/excluding as simultaneous social processes. The object of the research is twofold: firstly, to understand inclusion processes and what helps to support such processes in the various learning arenas. The research also involves gaining an insight into institutionalized marginalization and exclusion processes and how these may be reduced.

Specialist environments linked to the PhD programme at UiS have close ties with the field of practice in the kindergarten and the school system and the school psychological services (SPS). This provides good opportunities for implementation of doctorate work that has practical relevance. The environments represent a broad scientific background and will be able to give guidance in a wide variety of dissertations. Relevant problems in dissertation work may span from genetics and diagnosis, via studies on how contextual factors are significant in behavioural learning and education, to a critical spotlight on the field of Special Needs Education research.