Struggle of Social Construction and Policy Design. The Case Study of Inclusive Education in the Czech Republic.

Social Construction Framwork expects strong connection between policy design and social construction of target population. On the one hand, policy design reflects the images of different groups in the society as policymakers anticipate the reaction to public policy of both the target population itself and other voters. On the other hand, policy design sends signals to different groups about their social positions through distributions of benefits and burdens. The feedback (feed forward) mechanisms cause, that policy design tend to reproduce the same kinds of social structure from which it emerged. Nevertheless, social constructions of target groups can change, and policy design is one of the important force for its change. Public officials are not only passive receivers of signals about social constructions from the electorate, but they also actively create new target population or shape their social constructions, e.g. by making finer distinctions and subdividing a particular group into more and less deserving subgroups. However, such attempt of construction change is not allways succesful. In the focus of my paper is just such attempt of changing the construction of target population driven by change of policy design. The paper examines a case of educational reform in the Czech Republic focusing on education of children with special educational needs (i.e. learning disabilities, physical and mental handicaps, social and cultural handicaps and so on). The new conception of inclusive education, which came into force in 2016, has included also a new definition and a new construction of the population of pupils with special educational needs. Nevertheless, the policy change was not rooted in societal mood, but it was driven by expert knowledge and international pressure as well. Therefore, the new construction is in conflict with prevalent social construction in the society. The paper focuses on the dynamic after the policy change and examine the development of the policy design (both legislative framework and street-level practice) and images of target groups (news content analysis).