Table Of ContentLifelong Learning Book Series 31
Finn Ove Båtevik
Rune Kvalsund
Jon Olav Myklebust Editors
Life Course
of Special
Educational
Needs Students
Norwegian School Experiences and
Long-term Consequences
Lifelong Learning Book Series
Volume 31
Series Editors
Karen Evans, UCL, Institute of Education UCL, London, UK
Natasha Kersh, Education, Practice & Society, University College London,
London, UK
Editorial Board Members
Andrew Brown, Institute of Education UCL, London, UK
Chiara Biasin, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
Richard Desjardins, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Kitty te Riele, Peter Underwood Centre, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia
Yukiko Sawano, University of the Sacred Heart, Shibuya-ku, Japan
Maria Slowey, Dublin City University, Higher Education Research Centre,
Dublin, Ireland
Maurice Taylor, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Ann-Charlotte Teglborg, Ecole Supérieure Commerce Paris, Paris, France
Rebecca Ye Rongling, Stockholm University, Norrköping,
Östergötlands Län, Sweden
Dayong Yuan, Beijing Academy of Educational Sciences, Beijing, China
Competing visions and paradigms for lifelong learning co-exist at national as well
as international levels. The fact that one ‘official’ discourse may be dominant at any
one time does not mean that other ways of thinking about learning throughout the
life course have disappeared. They are alive and well in a range of critical traditions
and perspectives that retain their power to engage and persuade.
Lifelong learning is presented in this Series in all its versatility. Accordingly,
lifelong learning is referred to as an idea, a concept, an approach, a method, a
programme, a strategy, even a philosophy or worldview. Similarly, the approaches
to lifelong learning presented in the Series are sometimes philosophical, sociological,
economic, psychological or educational, and frequently multi-disciplinary. Common
foci are the practices of individual, organisational and collective learning as well as
the development of people, communities and societies.
The Series promotes critical, evidence-informed exploration of problems, themes
and issues in the evolving field of lifelong learning. Each volume is firmly based on
high quality scholarship and a keen awareness of both emergent and enduring issues
in practice and policy. Our mission is to engage scholars, practitioners, policy
makers and professionals with new insights from international research and practice,
and to provoke fresh thinking and innovation in lifelong learning. Contributions that
highlight previously under-researched groups, countries and territories are strongly
encouraged.
The Lifelong Learning Series aims to bring together established authors building
on a strong platform of previous work to develop their themes and positions, with
new generation authors bringing novel ideas and perspectives. We welcome
contributions from multi-disciplinary research collaborations that approach
contemporary and emerging global and local challenges in creative ways.
Through advocacy of broad, diverse and inclusive approaches to learning
throughout the life course, the series aspires to be a leading resource for researchers
and practitioners who seek to rethink lifelong learning to meet the challenges and
opportunities of the 21st Century.
Finn Ove Båtevik • Rune Kvalsund
Jon Olav Myklebust
Editors
Life Course of Special
Educational Needs Students
Norwegian School Experiences
and Long- term Consequences
Editors
Finn Ove Båtevik Rune Kvalsund
Faculty of Social Science and History Faculty of Social Science and History
Volda University College Volda University College
Volda, Norway Volda, Norway
Jon Olav Myklebust
Faculty of Social Science and History
Volda University College
Volda, Norway
ISSN 1871-322X ISSN 2730-5325 (electronic)
Lifelong Learning Book Series
ISBN 978-3-031-24246-5 ISBN 978-3-031-24247-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24247-2
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2023
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar
or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
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The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
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This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Series Editors’ Foreword
Lifelong learning is presented in all its versatility in this Book Series and in the
related Springer International Handbooks of Lifelong Learning. Lifelong learning is
an idea, a concept, an approach, a method, a programme, a strategy, even a philoso-
phy or worldview. Accordingly, the approaches to lifelong learning presented in the
Series are sometimes philosophical, sociological, economic, psychological or edu-
cational, and frequently multi-disciplinary. The practices of individual, organisa-
tional and collective learning are explored alongside the development of people,
communities and societies.
In compiling and curating Volume 31, ‘Life Course of Special Educational Needs
Students’, Rune Kvalsund, Finn Ove Båtevik and Jon Olav Myklebust have drawn
on the unique intellectual and empirical resources generated through a longitudinal,
multi-disciplinary research project that started more than 25 years ago. This long-
term research programme has enabled the researchers to bring a life course para-
digm to the internationally significant theme of the transitions to adulthood of young
people with disabilities. Connecting dominant perspectives in American and
European life-course sociology, the contributors have elaborated an approach that
analyses the interplay of structure and agency over time and shows how individuals
and structures alternate between relative stability and change.
The research underpinning the book enables a productive interplay of quantita-
tive and qualitative analyses. Quantitative analyses have been used to identify fea-
tures of the structural landscape that are significant for young people with disabilities
in the processes of developing independence and social integration in local com-
munities. Young adults’ journeys in these shifting terrains are explored through
complementary qualitative analyses that deepen our understanding of how individu-
als act in and through social networks and social spaces influenced by family, health,
education, social security and work. In this respect, the volume is also complemen-
tary to Volume 26 in the Series, which explored the changing situation of young
adults with vulnerabilities in a broader European context.
Throughout the volume, variations over place and time are critical to an under-
standing of the field, as the authors explain in the opening chapters. The book for-
mat has enabled the research team to connect specialist topics and insights and
v
vi Series Editors’ Foreword
situate them in a wider context, with the aim of reaching out to the multi-d isciplinary
research communities of lifelong learning and wider international readerships. The
chapters generate an extended dialogue between ideas and empirical evidence in a
way that promises to arouse interest and stimulate critical follow-up.
University College London Karen Evans
London, UK
University College London Natasha Kersh
London, UK
November 2022
Contents
1 Students with Special Educational Needs
and Their Life Course – Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Rune Kvalsund, Jon Olav Myklebust, and Finn Ove Båtevik
2 Life Course Perspectives on Adolescence
and Early Adulthood. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Jon Olav Myklebust
3 Some Methodological Challenges in Longitudinal
Research on Vulnerable Youths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Finn Ove Båtevik and Jon Olav Myklebust
4 Disabled, Vulnerable or Functionally Hindered?
Deviations and Normality Between Personal
Characteristics and Context Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Rune Kvalsund
5 Deviations and Normality – When the Time
Dimension Is Included . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Rune Kvalsund
6 From Numbers to Spoken Words: Former SEN Students
in the Transition to Adulthood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Emmy Elizabeth Langøy
7 Vulnerable Young Adults and Their Adaptation
to Working Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Gerd Skjong
8 Risk of Mental Illness Among Former Students
with Special Educational Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Vidar Myklebust and Rune Kvalsund
vii
viii Contents
9 Work for Life? Former Students with Special Educational
Needs in the Job Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Finn Ove Båtevik
10 Special Classes and Teacher Assistants as Support Measures
for Students with Special Educational Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Jon Olav Myklebust
11 Social Inclusion – When the School Lets Go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Rune Kvalsund and Irene Velsvik Bele
12 Social Inclusion: When ‘Social Media’
Invades the Life World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Rune Kvalsund and Irene Velsvik Bele
13 Internet-Mediated Relations: Are they Social?
Challenges and Discussion of the Validity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Rune Kvalsund
14 Lessons from A Longitudinal Research Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Jon Olav Myklebust
Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Chapter 1
Students with Special Educational Needs
and Their Life Course – Introduction
Rune Kvalsund, Jon Olav Myklebust, and Finn Ove Båtevik
This book is primarily written for researchers and students in the social sciences,
such as sociology, special education, and social work, but it is hoped that the various
chapters will also be of interest to a wider audience. The book presents selected
parts of a research project conducted over the course of more than twenty years.
(See the appendices on project history, author review, and publication list.)
1.1 Research Themes
This book is about young people at risk of ending up ‘at the lower end of the table’
in schools, and the consequences it will later have on their lives. As per expert
assessments, these students are granted specially adapted education because when
they began upper secondary school, they face difficulties of a medical, psychologi-
cal, or social nature. Compared with the so-called normal students in their classes,
these students are easily identified as not corresponding to the norm. In our study,
we picked such students who entered upper secondary school in the mid-1990s in
six counties in different parts of Norway. They can be arranged into different sub-
groups according to their characteristics – for example, having either one of general
or specific learning, reading and writing, mathematical, and behavioural difficulties
or a combination of them. Traditionally, young people have been referred to as spe-
cial students because of this, with an emphasis on them being different from others.
However, if we shift the spotlight to the situations these students find themselves in,
the students can also be classified according to the conditions they experience at
R. Kvalsund (*) · J. O. Myklebust · F. O. Båtevik
Volda University College, Volda, Norway
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1
Switzerland AG 2023
F. O. Båtevik et al. (eds.), Life Course of Special Educational Needs Students,
Lifelong Learning Book Series 31,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24247-2_1
