Inclusive Education, Politics and Policymaking

Anastasia Liasidou, Simon Pratt-Adams, Richard Race

• Publisher: Continuum
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781441159694
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Physical Education

This title offers a critical overview on the history of inclusive education policy and practice developments, with suggestions for possible ways forward. "Inclusive Education, Politics and Policymaking" provides a critical and up to date overview on how far we have come in educational policy and practice in regards to inclusive education, and suggests possible ways forward. The author brings together and critically analyses a wide range of theories and research in exploring inclusion in education. To make this text fully engaging for the reader, activities are presented which have been used on Education Studies courses to encourage students to reflect on their own experiences enabling them to position themselves within the theory and research in this field. These activities are transferable to primary, secondary, further and adult education contexts. "Inclusive Education, Politics and Policymaking" serves as an ideal introduction to this contemporary issue and provokes a critical review and engagement with study in this field for students of Education Studies and MA Education courses. This series presents an authoritative, coherent and focused collection of core texts to introduce the contemporary issues that are covered in Education Studies, and related programmes. Each book develops a key theme in contemporary education, such as: multiculturalism; the social construction of childhood; urban education; eLearning and multimedia; and, language and literacy. A key feature of this series is the critical exploration of education in times of rapid change, with links made between such developments in wider social, cultural, political and economic contexts. Further, contextualised extracts from important primary texts, such as Bourdieu, Piaget and Vygotsky, will ensure students' exposure to dominant contemporary theories in the field of education. Grounded in a strong conceptual, theoretical framework and presented in an accessible way with the use of features such as case studies, activities and visual devices to encourage and support student learning and the application of new concepts, this series will serve well as collection of core texts for the Education Studies student and lecturer.

1

Perspectives on Inclusion: Discourses, Politics and Educational Practice

Chapter Outline

Introduction

Defining inclusion: a semantic chameleon

Inclusive education and the question of change

Perspectives on inclusion

Summary

Introduction

The chapter explores the different theoretical and policy interpretations of inclusion and analyses the ways in which a vast array of ideological and institutional dynamics are played out, contested and struggled over during the policymaking process. Given the multiplicity of the dynamics underpinning inclusive education policymaking, inclusion has been conceptualized and construed in varied ways, and has engendered multiple theoretical tensions and vexed dilemmas (Wedell, 2005; Norwich, 2008a).

Current versions of inclusion and implications for educational practice are discussed and analysed against the backdrop of broader theoretical discussions and debates. For instance, policy initiatives in the United Kingdom promote versions of inclusion aligned to the standards agenda, aimed to provide educational excellence irrespective of educational placement (Dyson, 2001, 2005). This contradictory policy terrain, which foregrounds both ‘inclusion’ and ‘excellence’ (the latter seen to be denoted almost exclusively by exam results and subsequent school league table rankings), creates tensions for schools in attempting to integrate two different and inherently contradictory agendas, namely the standards and inclusive education agendas (Barton and Armstrong, 2007). Related to this, the notion of social inclusion is used as a means to maximize the economic and social usefulness of ‘docile bodies’ (Foucault, 1979: 138), thereby ignoring the cultural politics of inclusion and special educational needs (Armstrong, 2005). New forms of inclusion, conjured up in terms of a deficit based approach, are discussed and critiqued. It is argued that these new forms of inclusion consolidate and perpetuate the notion of ‘special educational needs’ and the paraphernalia of assimilationist approaches of cure and remedy associated with it, thereby ‘collapsing inclusive education into a concern with special educational needs’ (Slee, 2011: 122).

The reduction of inclusive education to a special education subsystem has to be questioned and destabilized if we are to acheive transformative change based on a human rights approach to disability and difference (Liasidou, 2007). Critical and action oriented approaches to greater inclusive education policy and practice (Lingard and Mills, 2007) should be constructively combined in order to challenge the conceptual and pragmatic vestiges of special education status quo. A key element within this process is to recognize the emancipatory potentials of pedagogy, which can be used both as a practical and conceptual tool (critical pedagogy) for transformative change (see Chapter 2).

Defining inclusion: a semantic chameleon

Emanating from the social model of disability (Oliver, 1990), which puts the emphasis on disabling social barriers rather than individual deficits, inclusive education refers to the restructuring of social and, by implication, educational settings in order to meet the needs of all learners irrespective of their diverse biographical, developmental and learning trajectories. Inclusive education constitutes a radical paradigm shift and by no means should be considered as a linear progression from a special educational needs discourse. This said, inclusive education

[S]hould never be a default vocabulary for Special Educational Needs. The moment we allow inclusive education to be special education for new times is the moment we submit to collective indifference. . . . Inclusive education is code for educational reform at all levels. A new social imagination and congruent vocabulary is required that delivers us from the fortification of outdated traditions and practices of schooling. (Slee, 2011: 121–2)

Arguably, inclusion constitutes a response to the flawed ways in which the education of disabled students has been so far predicated, as it emanates from new theorizations of disability, whereby disability is not solely attributed to individual deficits. Rather, it is predominantly attributed to material and ideological disabling barriers that undermine the social, intellectual and emotional development of certain individuals. Within an inclusive context, children’s atypical and diverse developmental trajectories are recognized and valued through a positive appreciation of difference for a socially just and fair society.

Nevertheless, despite its indisputable moral and ethical standing, the rhetoric advocating the realization of inclusion has been vociferously contested and characterized as a utopian pursuit (Croll and Moses, 2000) or a ‘passionate intuition’ (Pirrie and Head, 2007), while other analysts have pointed out the necessity to promote ‘responsible inclusion’ (Vaughan and Schumm, 1995).

Inclusion is a highly elusive notion whose interpretation, as well as implementation, are contingent on a vast array of discursive dynamics that give rise to varied and contradictory discourses, the latter defined as being the material effects of language-use, which constitute a coherent ensemble of ideas/regimes that exert social control by ‘rendering some things common sense and other things nonsensical’ (Youdell, 2006: 36). These discourses have according to Armstrong (1999: 76):

Multiple meanings, used by different people in different contexts, and are commonly used in ways which mask the attitudes, social structures and processes which produce and sustain exclusions.

The ideological melange underpinning inclusion is extremely diverse, nebulous and occasionally contradictory, something that is subsequently reconfigured and regenerated through the social and institutional arrangements that purport to promote the realization of an inclusive discourse. As Graham and Slee (2008b: 83) aptly put it, inclusion is ‘troubled by the multiplicity of meanings that lurk within the discourses that surround and carry it’. It is not surprising then that some commentators talk about inclusion in the plural in order to denote its multiple facets and perspectives (Dyson, 1999).

Different people implicated in the debates around inclusion, as well as in the processes of policy formulation and implementation, have different understandings of inclusion and special educational needs. The field has been dominated by different theoretical camps holding diverse verdicts as to the feasibility of inclusion and its effectiveness to meet diverse needs. Quoting Clough and Corbett (2000: 6), ‘ “Inclusion” is not a single movement; it is made up of many strong currents of belief, many different local struggles and a myriad of practices’. In a similar vein, Slee (2006: 111) suggests that: ‘The theoretical and pragmatic imprecision of this thing we, and it is a very broad we, call inclusive education has permitted all manner of thinking, discourse and activity to pass of as inclusive’. The above statements denote the variegated nature of ideologically, culturally and historically grounded dynamics that bring to bear a prodigious impact on the ways in which inclusive education is conceptualized and acted upon.

The debates attract a disciplinarily heterogeneous group of people, who attempt to theorize inclusion according to their perceived optimal ways in which the latter can effectively meet learner diversity. Various models of inclusion are suggested and theorized in alignment with the ways in which difference is conceptualized and envisaged to be dealt with in mainstream schools (Booth and Ainscow, 1998; Rustemier, 2002; Farrell, 2009). In parallel with the debates around the social model of disability and the ways in which it can sufficiently explicate disability (Corker and French, 2001; Thomas, 2004), the debates have subsequently revolved around the different interpretations of inclusion, and the optimal educational arrangements that can effectively meet the needs of students designated as having special educational needs (Norwich, 2008a).

For instance, arguments in relation to inclusion revolve around its effectiveness, as well as its limitations, in meeting the individual needs of all students, and in particular, of those students with atypical developmental trajectories in terms of ability and attainment. The field has been an ongoing theoretical battlefield fraught with diverse perspectives and insights ranging from enthusiastic proclamations (e.g Stainback and Stainback, 1992; Thomas, 1997; Ainscow, 1997), to pessimistic and sceptical commentaries, as well as serious contemplations regarding the feasibility of inclusion as a means to providing the optimal learning environment for all students (Funch and Funch, 1994; Kauffman, 1995; Low, 1997; O’Brien, 2001; Farrell 2009). The contentious nature of inclusion and Special Educational Needs (SEN) has been recently reinforced in the United Kingdom by Baroness Warnock’s (2005, 2010) assertions regarding the position and future of segregated special provision whereby the author characterizes inclusion as a dangerous legacy.

While denouncing pessimistic and unsubstantiated allusions about the utopian nature of inclusion, by no means is it suggested that inclusion is an easy and uncontested pursuit. Inclusion is a complex concept embedded in what Norwich (2010: 93) calls ‘a plural values framework’ whereby contradictory existing and emerging values are juxtaposed, repositioned, contested and negotiated. The interactionist values framework, and the tensions accrued, need to be thoroughly explored and understood if we are to go beyond unilateral and deficit-oriented understanding of special educational needs that prevent us from developing and fostering an inclusive framework in meeting students’ capabilities and needs.

Inclusion has been debated and contested to such a great extent that it has been occasionally diluted to an empty linguistic construct (Benjamin, 2002a). As Armstrong et al. (2010: 29) write: ‘The reality is not simply that inclusion means different things to different people, but rather that inclusion may end up meaning everything and nothing at the same time.’ This said, in attempting to demystify and disentangle the conceptual complexity and semantic plurality of inclusion, it is important to theorize some of the ways in which inclusion has been conceptualized, theorized and enacted. This chapter will be given over to exploring the multiplicity of meanings ascribed to inclusion. These meanings are diverse and contradictory, as well as historically and contextually rooted.

Reflective Exercise

What does inclusion mean to you?

Inclusive education and the question of change

Notwithstanding their occasional terminological fusion, inclusion is inherently different from integration as the two notions emanate from different conceptual antecedents and pedagogical discourses. While integration denotes a normalizing process that is primarily concerned with the relocation of disabled students in unchanged, assimilationist and monolithic educational systems (Thomas, 1997), inclusion presupposes the radical organizational, curricular and pedagogical change of schools, in order to respond to learner diversity (Booth and Ainscow, 2000; Mittler, 2000). In many instances, due to misconception and ideological confusion, inclusive education is perceived and acted upon as ‘integration’ and, hence, as a sub-system of special education within which several disguised forms of marginalization, discrimination and exclusion are operating.

Educational change is at the core of the struggles towards greater inclusion and, therefore, all the parameters, those either facilitating or undermining change, should be critically examined and analysed. Given the interactive framework of reciprocal relations and consequential effects, inclusion rejects the assimilationist view of integration, whereby the focus has been on the normalization of disabled people, and advocates instead a rights-discourse approach (Barton, 1993; Kenworthy and Whittaker, 2000; Rioux, 2002), characterized by ‘a zero tolerance attitude to all forms of exclusion’ (Barton, 2008a, xvii).

Inclusion does not seek to normalize allegedly ‘defective’ individuals, but seeks to subvert exclusionary social conditions and disabling educational practices, which oppress and subjugate disabled students by violating their basic human rights and undermining their human subject positions. The apposite characterization of ‘maindumping’ (Stainback and Stainback, 1992) – a metaphor used in order to describe the uncritical placement of disabled students in unprepared mainstream schools and classrooms – has been attributed to the abortive attempts to integrate certain groups of students in unchanged and monolithic mainstream schools. These uncritical integrative attempts have been solely aimed at the normalization of presumed ‘defective’ and ‘abnormal’ individuals in order to respond to the existing institutional and educational structures and expectations. The ‘impaired self’ has been scrutinized and forced to adapt to the existing institutional arrangements of mainstream schooling, along with the disciplinary practices inherent in it, without attempting to challenge the educational status quo (Foucault, 1977a).

Inclusion requires educational systems to be radically restructured so as to provide quality education for all students, especially the most vulnerable ones, irrespective of their individual characteristics and diverse biographical and developmental trajectories. That said, inclusion constitutes the response to the oppressive and unidimensional ways in which the education of disabled students has been so far predicated, as it emanates from a new theorization of disability, whereby disability is not solely attributed to individual deficits. Rather, it is predominantly attributed to environmental and ideological disabling barriers and oppressive institutional and ideological regimes. The individualistic gaze and the paraphernalia of its normalizing practices, centred upon singling out presumed defective individuals, are superseded by an institutional gaze aimed at initiating educational change and promoting sustainable school development (Panther, 2007; Eckins and Grimes, 2009).

Norwich (2010: 86) places some of the problems, dilemmas and possibilities with regard to inclusive education within the context of a ‘transformed educational system’. Arguably, the concept of special educational needs is to a greater extent the result of an inadequate general educational system that significantly fails to cater to learner diversity. Special educational needs are thus used ‘as a euphemism for failure’ (Barton, 1996: 5) and as a way to justify schools’ failure in accommodating the needs and abilities of a great percentage of the school population. Understandably, attempts to implement inclusion without pursuing a radical system change are likely to be either short-term or may fail altogether resulting in what might be called an ‘inclusion backlash’ (Dyson, 2001). Criticism with regard to inclusion in terms of its feasibility should recognize the fact that inclusion entails a revolutionary system change (Ainscow, 2005).

Given the multidimensional and highly complicated character of educational change, educational restructuring attempts should be directed towards a polymorphous and reciprocally related network incorporating a vast array of macro and micro dynamics (Power, 1992), some of which might be quite impermeable to change. The co-existence and convergence of certain micro-political and structural factors occasionally consolidate and reinforce the special education status quo as they become naturalized and institutionally sacred (Liasidou, 2007).

Unless educational change is seriously concerned with questioning the status quo, inclusion will continue to be jeopardized and reduced to a special education subsystem. The struggles for inclusion (Vlachou, 1997) presuppose self-awareness, and necessitate an informed and serious recognition of the necessity to proceed to radical and fundamental educational and social restructuring. This venture entails reflexivity and critical engagement with the complexity of issues at hand, with a view to mobilizing transformative change. Towards this end, practitioners and researchers need to be willing to get actively involved in the process of change and become aware of their own significant contribution to the process of change (Barton, 2008a).

Notwithstanding the plethora of discursive and pragmatic impediments undermining transformative change, it is nevertheless a feasible pursuit when there is firm and unequivocal institutional, political and ideological convergence towards this end. As Oliver as early as in 1995 pointed out:

Such has been the extent of this failure that nothing short of a complete deconstruction of the whole enterprise of Special Education will suffice . . . nothing short of a radical deconstruction of special education and the reconstruction of education in totality will be enough, even if the journey takes us another hundred years . . . (Oliver, 1995: 35, cited in Thomas and Vaughan, 2004: 112–13)

The following sections are given over to the different interpretations and perspectives on inclusion, along with the ways in which they are interlinked with and emanating from the wider socio-political and historical dynamics. A robust understanding of the notion of inclusion necessitates forging links and establishing consequential explanations with regard to the ways in which the different perspectives on inclusion are reciprocally interrelated with the wider socio-political system. The analysis of these interrelations and consequential effects can potentially bring to the surface the varied nature of dynamics that give rise to and affect the different discourses underpinning inclusion.

Reflective Exercise

What aspects of educational change are prioritized by ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Introduction
• 1. Perspectives on Inclusion: Discourses, Politics and Educational Practice
• 2. Pedagogy for Inclusion
• 3. Special Education Policymaking: A Critique
• 4. Understanding Inclusive Education Policymaking
• 5. Defining the Notion of Ideology: The Interplay of Ideas
• 6. Inclusive Policies and Institutional Conditions
• 7. Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Inclusive Education Policymaking
• 8. Conclusions
• Bibliography
• Index