It's the fear of the unknown : an exploration of parents' experiences of early education transition for children with special educational needs

Abstract

The transition into early education is recognised as an important milestone for children and their parents and a successful transition is reported to impact positively on a child’s future social and educational outcomes. Whilst early education transitions are recognised as potentially challenging for all parents, literature suggests they may be particularly complex for parents of children with Special Educational Needs (SEN). This thesis aims to explore parents’ experiences of the transition to early education for their children with SEN across three chapters: a qualitative literature review, a piece of empirical research and a bridging document. The bridging document connects the literature review and the empirical research and offers commentary on my philosophical position, methodological decisions and ethical considerations. The qualitative literature review asks: What is known about parents’ experiences of early education transition for children with SEN? Using meta-ethnography, seven qualitative papers are reviewed and synthesised to create a model of parent experience. The meta-ethnography suggests that power is central to how a parent will experience the transition process for their child with SEN, which will subsequently impact on a parent’s emotions, important relationships with others and level of certainty. The central theme of power that emerges from the meta-ethnography suggests that parents of children with SEN often feel excluded from the transition process by professionals. In an effort to disrupt traditional parent-professional relationships, a participatory action research framework is adopted with three parents of children with SEN in the North East of England. This empirical research explores a more specific aspect of the transition process, focusing on the parents’ experiences of choosing a primary school. Data is co-constructed with the co-researchers over a six-month period and is underpinned by Bakhtinian dialogue and a narrative approach to create a rich understanding of parent experience. The dialogic interactions and the data generated then culminate in the production of individual short narratives of the parents’ experience of choosing a primary school for their child with SEN.