A Sentimental Education

This article presents one set of results from research into professional practices in special education. The research involved an analysis of what is being done in practice in the specialised area of social support and in creation of the “individual.” It tried hard to construct what are the underlying principles of structuring practice and the discourse of these social workers, so as to understand the professional practice of these specialised educators. But above and beyond this description of such a socio-educational grammar, the analysis reported here tries to open up a reading of the area which, starting from practice, allows us to go beyond the normal alternative means of categorising social work, so allowing the researcher to choose within the interpretation of social action between respect for the client and domination, towards seeing whether there is more autonomy or control of individuals.