Special Education for Learning: Professional Agency over the Desperate Search for a Target Group

Abstract

Special education for learning in Germany is marked by a persistent paradox. It is expected to define a specific target group while lacking coherent, valid, and equitable criteria for doing so. Diagnostic practices for identifying special educational needs in learning remain inconsistent, regionally variable, and strongly influenced by systemic and social factors rather than clearly identifiable individual characteristics. As a result, categorization is arbitrary, often stigmatizing, and primarily serves bureaucratic functions of resource allocation rather than educational improvement. This position paper argues that the continued search for a clearly delineated target group should be abandoned. Instead, special education for learning should be reoriented toward professional agency, defined as teachers’ capacity to design, implement, and evaluate effective support for students with learning difficulties of any kind. Drawing on international frameworks such as Response to Intervention and Multi-Tiered Systems of Support, the paper advocates a systemic shift from eligibility-oriented diagnostics toward continuous progress monitoring, preventive intervention, and needs-oriented resource allocation. Support should be organized according to pedagogical measures at the individual, group, and school level rather than deficit-oriented labels. Such a reorientation requires embedding special education resources directly within schools and fundamentally reforming teacher education to emphasize research informed decision making, collaboration, and instructional competence. This approach positions special education as a driver of inclusive, preventive, and responsive practice rather than an administrator of categories.