Inclusive education and the cultural representation of disability and disabled people within the English education system: the influence of electronic media in the primary school

This paper examines the picture of disability portrayed within the electronic media presented to primary‐aged pupils in England. The study employed proto‐text analysis to examine 494 separate electronic resources which contained 4485 illustrations, 930 photographs and 59 video clips. The major finding of the research is that the media examined contained a limited picture of disability, one contextualised within medical deficit. The study highlights that the sample media examined promoted a social construction of disability based upon ‘inexact scholarship’ omission and imbalanced information. The research concludes that inclusive education must confront the resources and facilities that children encounter so as to overcome the current injustices which dominate the electronic media presented to primary‐aged pupils.