Where does mainstreaming collide?

In special education, mainstreaming is the practice of placing students with disabilities in regular classrooms, in whole or in part, rather than segregating them in separate special classes. Dunn's 1968 article questioning the value of self-contained special classes for mildly disabled children is widely credited with catalysing the movement toward integrated placement. The referent is the integration of exceptional learners into general instruction, judged by their academic and social outcomes, and it is a different construct from a message pattern in mass media or a strategy for embedding equity concerns in policy.[1]

Unit

The degree to which students with disabilities are taught in general classrooms

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Evaluated by placement rates and by the academic and social outcomes of integrated versus segregated students

In cultivation theory, mainstreaming names a convergence effect of heavy television viewing: groups that would otherwise hold very different outlooks come to share the medium's common view of the world, so that heavy viewers across backgrounds cluster toward a cultivated "mainstream." Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, and Signorielli introduced the idea in their 1980 violence-profile report, where heavy viewing narrowed differences that lighter viewers still showed. The referent is a homogenising shift in beliefs produced by sustained media exposure, measured across viewer groups, and it has nothing to do with classroom placement or policy design beyond the shared image of a mainstream.[2]

Unit

The convergence of heavy viewers' outlooks toward a shared television view

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Detected by comparing the attitudes of heavy and light viewers across subgroups that otherwise differ

In public policy, mainstreaming is a strategy of embedding a cross-cutting concern, most prominently gender equality, into the design and assessment of all policies and programmes rather than confining it to a dedicated unit or add-on. True and Mintrom's 2001 study traced how gender mainstreaming spread rapidly across national bureaucracies through transnational networks. The referent is the integration of an equity lens throughout the policy process, measured by uptake across agencies and by changes in how decisions are appraised, and it is a distinct construct from classroom integration or a media convergence effect.[3]

Unit

The extent to which an equity concern is built into all stages of policymaking

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Tracked by adoption of mainstreaming machinery across agencies and by whether appraisals routinely apply the equity lens