The least restrictive environment - A place or a context?

One of the fundamental values built in to current special education practic e is the notion of equity for students with disabilities. In a review regar ding the least restrictive environment (LRE). Yell (1995) said, "LRE is a p rinciple stating that students with disabilities are to be educated in sett ings as close to regular classes as appropriate for the child" (p. 193). Al though almost all stakeholders agree with these goals in principle, there i s significant and heated debate in the professional community about how to achieve these goals. Much of the discussion on LRE seems to reflect a speci fic place-a physical context such as the general education classroom. In th is article, we draw on a sociocultural framework to propose an expanded vie w of LRE. Specifically, we argue that a focus on the physical setting is no t the most appropriate unit of analysis. Rather, we suggest that the same p lacement or setting can be either facilitating or restrictive, depending on the social organization of specific activity settings that comprise a give n context. A different view is provided by sociocultural theory which propo ses a unit of analysis that includes the individual in interaction with a s pecific activity setting.