People with intellectual disabilities (IDs) are often recognised as suffering from “social exclusion”. Attempts aimed at combating this exclusion include support in finding employment and preparing them for living independently. Unfortunately, for a large group of people with intellectual disabilities the aforementioned strategies of promoting social inclusion are unattainable, and thus alternative areas of social inclusion are sought after. The arts/artistic work may be one of them. Due to the fact that the study was conducted as participatory action research, the main areas of social exclusion of people with intellectual disabilities were exposed. This allowed for attempting to prevent this phenomenon. In this study, artistic work has become a laboratory of social practices toward people with intellectual disabilities and the solutions created in the realm of the arts may serve as an example for designing a normalising model of support for people with intellectual disabilities in other areas as well.

The Constitution of the Republic of Poland mentions as one of the principles of electoral law its universality. This means that anyone who meets the requirements of law is entitled to vote. The admissibility of exclusions from this principle is also expressly defined by the law. One of the limitations in the exercise of electoral rights is an intellectual disability resulting in the incapacity of the individual. Meanwhile, Poland’s international obligations resulting e.g. from the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities provides with a necessity of a deeper reflection on the present solutions. The ratification by Poland of the UN Convention has stimulated discussion on the political rights of people with intellectual disabilities, extending the field of debate on the legitimacy of the current form of institution of incapacitation. The aim of this article is to reflect on the current solutions in the exercise of electoral rights by people affected by intellectual disability but not being incapacitated.

The aim is to analyze what characterizes the work of special needs teachers and what collaborations they engage in in schools for students with intellectual disability. Special needs teachers with degrees from three different universities in southern Sweden participated in the survey. The results show that a majority of the respondents had long experience before they started the special needs training program and they describe the direct encounters with students in the classroom as an important part of their work. Supervision and subject-development also exist, but not to the same extent as classroom teaching.

Creating an impaired identity of the Other in the educational environment (psychiatricization)

The aim of the article, based on a qualitative study, is to identify and interpret the meanings parents assign to messages conveyed by school personnel about the behavior of students with moderate and severe intellectual disabilities coupled with autism. The main research objective is to present the mechanism of impairment of the identity of pupils in special education, known as psychiatricization. The phenomenon of psychiatricization occurs in situations where school staff abuse and misinterpret the behaviour of people with intellectual disabilities, looking for mental illness in the behaviours they present. One of the reasons for this phenomenon is the misunderstood, behavioural-coded communication of pupils perceived as mentally ill by teachers who are convinced they should be diagnosed and treated with appropriate psychotropic drugs in order to subdue and quieten the awkward pupil. A consequence of the activities and discourse of school staff, i.e. psychiatricization, including stigmatization, harm, abuse of power-knowledge, is falsifying the identity of students, depriving them of opportunities and opportunities for optimal development and satisfying their special educational needs. The presented qualitative research is located in the constructivistinterpretative paradigm, and the mainstream of the scientific narrative is the critical theory.