Ethical Dilemmas in Rural Special Education: A Call for a Conversation about the Ethics of Practice

Abstract

Education and human services by their very nature imply an ethical imperative (Kelman & Warwick, 1972; Becker, 2005) as these areas of endeavor represent work designed to alter the development and other characteristics of the children and their family members who are being served. The ethical imperative is an ideal based upon an assumption that we must both do good and do good well. In this article, we begin with several ethical dilemmas applicable to rural special education; these are dilemmas similar to those special educators must face but are idiosyncratic, in part, to rural locales. We follow these dilemmas by petitioning special educators to develop a language of ethics, and, perhaps, too, a commitment to social justice, since the legislative policy stimulating and requiring the development of such services has its foundation in social justice. Still, even in the presence of codes of ethical conduct developed to guide professional practice, we believe there is a higher calling, a need to move toward ideals in the work done by special educators. This calling must be absent any consideration of sanctions for not acting ethically that seem to be at the center of discussions of ethical codes—typically taking the form of this question: What happens if I do not adhere to the ethical code of conduct of my profession? For us, this petition for moving toward ideals in the work we do, and the development of a language of ethics, should be at the core of answering two essential queries throughout our professional careers: Why we do what we do? Why do we care?

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