Resolving disputes about special educational needs: Cross-border comparisons and reflections

This book’s initial chapters provided a conceptual overview of grievances, disputes and educational rights in the field of special educational needs, followed by discussion of methods of dispute resolution. Subsequently, the book analysed approaches to dispute resolution in special educational needs in four developed countries, England, Scotland, the Netherlands and the US. These countries were chosen deliberately in order to illustrate particular approaches to special educational needs policy and practice, with a focus on the dispute resolution methods available in each jurisdiction. This concluding chapter pulls together and offers some reflections on key themes developed in the various chapters. It begins with a brief overview highlighting and analysing the central characteristics of each system and then considers their underpinning models of procedural justice. It reflects on the extent to which the judicial and non-judicial dispute resolution methods are capable of safeguarding parents’ and children’s rights against a background of socio-economic diversity and inequality.