The theoretical foundations of professional development in special education - Is sociocultural theory enough?

The purpose of this article is to consider the relevance and contributions of sociocultural theory and multicultural and critical pedagogies to profes sional development in special education. To this end, a brief review of the major tenets of sociocultural theory is presented. The position taken in t his article is that an adequate and a sufficient theoretical framework for professional development in special education must explicitly and directly address the issues of power, discrimination, and relative status that. we a rgue, underlie many dilemmas of application of practice. Vignettes illustra ting such dilemmas, with reference to the 1998 Council for Exceptional Chil dren professional standards, are presented. Multicultural pedagogy and crit ical theory are suggested as potentially complementary and important additi ons to sociocultural theory, as applied to the professional development of special educators.