Struggles for Equity in Education

The selected works of Mel Ainscow

Mel Ainscow

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317420460
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación general

In the World Library of Educationalists series, international experts compile career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces – extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, major theoretical and practical contributions – so the world can read them in a single manageable volume. Readers will be able to follow the themes and strands and see how their work contributes to the development of the field.

Spanning Mel Ainscow's accomplished 30 year international career in education, the texts in this book trace his efforts to find ways of fostering more equitable forms of education. This has involved a series of struggles as he has experimented with different approaches - in a variety of contexts - to find new possibilities for responding to learner diversity. Over the years this has related to a variety of headline themes, starting from special education, through to integration, on to inclusive education, and then, more recently, educational equity.

The readings have been chosen to illustrate the changes that have occurred in Ainscow's thinking and practices and a short introduction is provided for each chapter that is intended to help readers to understand the significance of what is presented and how this relates to other chapters in the book. The writings in this text reinforce the idea that the promotion of equity in schools is essentially a social process that has to occur within particular contexts.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION: THE COLLECTIVE WILL TO MAKE IT HAPPEN

Over the years my work has been related to a variety of headline themes, starting from special education, through to integration, on to inclusive education, and then, more recently, educational equity. Drawing on the formulation used by OECD, I take this latter theme to have two interconnected dimensions (OECD, 2007). First, it is a matter of fairness, which implies ensuring that personal and social circumstances – for example, gender, socio-economic status or ethnic origin – should not be an obstacle to achieving success in learning. Second, it is to do with inclusion, which is about ensuring a basic minimum standard of education for all.

Bearing this formulation in mind, this introductory chapter provides an overview of the evolution of my ideas regarding how to foster fairness and inclusion within education systems. In particular, it explains how my thinking has moved in the following directions:

• From a narrow focus on special education to a much wider concern with processes I have called school improvement with attitude.

• From efforts to achieve integration for particular groups of learners towards the development of inclusive forms of education that focus on the presence, participation and achievement of all children and young people.

• From an analysis of the characteristics of individual learners to the analysis of barriers and resources that exist within particular learning contexts.

• From an emphasis on the development of individual schools towards efforts to achieve system-level reform through a focus on levers for change.

The chapter also provides an overall timeline of my career development that pinpoints key events, projects and publications that have informed these changes in thinking. A pattern emerges from these accounts. This involves periods of uncertainly as my thinking is challenged by new experiences and different contexts, through a process I have described as ‘making the familiar unfamiliar’. What also becomes evident is the way that working with colleagues has helped me to cope with these disturbances, such that they often became critical incidents that led to developments in my ideas.

Pathways to learning

In selecting the readings I have tried to provide an illustrative map of the development of my thinking and practice as a teacher, researcher and activist. The varied styles of the readings reflect efforts to reach different audiences: practitioners, administrators, policy makers and researchers, in the UK and overseas. Inevitably there are some overlaps between the various texts, as earlier ideas are revisited, refined and, sometimes, replaced with new thinking. Together, they illustrate my on-going struggles to find forms of education that can make sure that all children and young people get a fair deal. These struggles have also involved attempts to convince others that this is in everybody’s best interest.

Over many years I have argued that the most important factor that will enable us to achieve this goal is the collective will to make it happen. Occasionally, those who have heard this have suggested that it is an unrealistic aspiration. As I understand it, their point is that in unequal societies – such as Australia, Chile, the UK and the USA – it will never be possible to get everybody pulling in the same direction. While recognising the power of this argument, I remain convinced that it should be possible to mobilise everybody who has an interest in education to work together for the common good. Perhaps somewhat idealistically, I also take the view that a system of schools that treats every child fairly is, ultimately, in the interests of everybody – an argument that is made so convincingly by Wilkinson and Pickett (2009) in their influential book The Spirit Level.

Inevitably, my commitment to this way of thinking is related to my own life experience. I was born into a working-class Manchester family that had an instinctive view that more education was a good thing. However, they had little or no understanding of what was involved in ensuring children found an appropriate pathway through a highly selective education system. Consequently, while I enjoyed my time at school, I lacked any real sense of direction or understanding of how to move forward.

At the age of eleven, like other children in the city, I took the examination that would decide which type of secondary school I would attend: grammar (for those seen to be academically able), technical (for those whose future would involve forms of practical knowledge), or secondary modern (for the rest). The decision was made that it was appropriate for me to go along the technical route. Those who know me will recognise how laughable this is, in that I still struggle to change a plug. To further reinforce how farcical it was, attending the same school was John Thaw, who was eventually to become an internationally known actor, not least because of his role in the TV series Morse. I am not sure if he could change a plug either.

In later years I found myself reflecting on these experiences in relation to what happens to other young people who come from families with limited knowledge of how systems of education work. In particular, how do they acquire information that allows them to ensure that their daughters and sons get a ‘fair deal’? And, of course, how do processes of selection within education systems privilege young people who have certain backgrounds?

Having survived and, indeed, enjoyed my years in the secondary school, I chose to train as an art teacher. The main influence regarding this decision was a pupil in the year group above me who had decided to follow a similar direction. Such an option had never crossed my mind and the school provided little guidance on career pathways. Of course, my family was delighted, seeing the idea of being a teacher as something to boast about.

Becoming a teacher

My first teaching post, in the mid-1960s, was in a secondary modern school for boys. It was located in a poor, working-class district on the east side of Manchester, not far from my family home. This was a tough environment in which to work, dealing with boys who in many cases saw little purpose in going to school. And, of course, at that time there were plenty of jobs available that required no formal qualifications. The overall atmosphere was brutal, with frequent use of a leather strap as a form of punishment. Nevertheless, there were colleagues on the staff who were deeply committed to providing a rich educational diet for the boys.

I recall that during this period I started to think that I wanted to find ways of intervening in the education system in order to bring about some significant change, although I had no specific idea of what form this might take. Retaining my family’s instinctive commitment to the idea that more education was a good thing, I certainly had it in my mind that I would need to do further study.

After three years, during which my confidence as a teacher gradually developed, I took up a post in a newly opened special school in the then notorious Manchester district of Moss Side. There the students I worked with were all rejects of a mainstream school system that had limited tolerance of differences and, indeed, little capacity to support learners who experienced difficulties. I recall that going to this school was like starting my career all over again. Strategies that I had found to be effective in the tightly organised secondary modern school did not seem to work in this new, less rigid context. In addition, the bringing together of young people who had all been excluded from their former schools understandably had an impact on their attitudes to schooling. All of this made an impression on me that was to be influential to the work I was to do later.

At the same time, the informality of the special school opened up spaces for experimentation that were not much available in mainstream schools during that era. This idea of special education contexts providing opportunities for innovation was one that was picked up years later by the American scholar, Tom Skrtic, who argued that this was the gift that should be given to mainstream education in order to foster processes of integration (Skrtic, 1991).

After a period at this school, in 1970 I was fortunate to be seconded for a year to Liverpool University, where I gained an additional qualification as a special educator. This opened up a whole new world of ideas, including literature from a sociological perspective that certainly made me stop and think. In particular, it created a feeling of turbulence regarding the ways in which some children become categorised as deviant and are excluded from mainstream education opportunities. Having a chance to visit schools I also became increasingly troubled by what was offered to many of these learners in various forms of special provision. For example, a visit to what was called an ‘opportunity class’ attached to a primary school led me to comment rather sarcastically that the last thing the pupils were getting was opportunity. Similarly, I was staggered at what I saw in the classroom of an inner-city special school. On each desk there was a label with two numbers. The teacher explained that one was the child’s school number and the other was their IQ score. This was, she explained, so that she was able to pitch tasks at the right level.

At the end of the course I was left feeling better qualified and, at the same time, more confused as to where I stood in relation to the field of special education. Nevertheless, at the age of twenty-seven, I took up the post of deputy headteacher at a newly opened special school in Bedfordshire, in the south of England. The students at that school were far less challenging, and it was a pleasant environment in which to work and explore what is involved in managing an organisation. A feature of the school that was to stay with me was the emphasis we placed on team work. Each day began with a short staff meeting, some of which took the form of an informal case study discussion of a particular pupil. We also introduced a programme of staff development workshops that seemed to encourage a collaborative problem-solving atmosphere among the team of colleagues.

A centre of innovation

In 1974 I was successful in my application to be headteacher of Castle Special School in the West Midlands. Following my period in the relatively peaceful environment in the South, this took me back into an economically poor and socially troubled community of the sort that I had previously experienced. In addition, the school itself was troubled, having had years of poor management that had left the staff low in confidence and many of the pupils out of control. As one of the youngest members of staff, I faced what was to be the biggest challenge in my professional career. This included the requirement to bring order to a pupil population that was running wild – in classrooms and in the playground – and the need to lift the morale of staff in order to convince them that, together, we could turn the school round.

It is a complex story, the details of which are irrelevant to the argument I wish to make. Simply to say that I was able to pinpoint some key staff members who were able to help me in providing effective leadership. I also had some luck in that a few colleagues decided it was time for them to move on, which allowed me to bring in some new blood. Finding new teachers was difficult in those days, particularly for a school that had such a bad reputation. Indeed, I recall going round to the house of a newly qualified teacher to persuade him to join us.

Having gradually established stability in the school, we began the process of creating what came to be seen as a centre of innovation. Building on strategies that I had experienced elsewhere, particularly the idea of staff collaboration, Castle School became known nationally for its work on curriculum development. A key factor in all of this was the contribution of the educational psychologist attached to the school, Dave Tweddle. Seeing the opportunity to be involved in something that was potentially ground breaking, he gave the school an enormous amount of his time, collaborating with me and working with the staff in supporting the development of their skills in designing and implementing the new curriculum. Chapter 2, which is an extract from my book Understanding the development of inclusive schools published in 1999, provides an account of what this involved.

It is worth noting that all of this was going on during a period when the world of special education was subject to considerable criticism, particularly with respect to curriculum thinking and assessment practices. This was part of a wider concern about the purposes and quality of schooling, leading to demands for greater accountability. In addition, there were other, more specific pressures that seemed to draw attention to the need for an examination of what happened in special schools. The influential Warnock Report had suggested that the quality of education offered to pupils in special provision was unsatisfactory, particularly with respect to the curriculum opportunities provided, and that many special schools underestimated their pupils’ capabilities (Department for Education and Science, 1978). A number of other publications were also critical of existing practice (e.g. Brennan, 1979; Tomlinson, 1982).

As the work of the school developed, I found myself returning to my concerns about the way the education system categorised and marginalised some groups of learners. With this theme in mind, Tweddle and I set out to develop Castle School as a support hub for teachers working in local mainstream schools. We did this by offering intensive workshops on how to design what we referred to as individualised programmes for children experiencing learning difficulties. All of this signalled a move away from what some have called a medical model – where the main focus of special education practices was on analysing learner characteristics – towards an emphasis on analysing tasks so that learning objectives could be designed to suit the level of achievement of each pupil.

During this period, Tweddle and I were fortunate to have the advice and encouragement of two eminent academics at the University of Birmingham, Ron Gulliford and Klaus Wedell. Their involvement and encouragement added to our feeling that we were involved in something significant, and, at the same time, contributed to the promotion of the approach we had developed.

Our work at Castle led Tweddle and I to write the book Preventing Classroom Failure: An Objectives Approach, which was published in 1979 (Chapter 3 reproduces two short chapters from the book). At that time getting a book published was extremely difficult, not least because of the cost implications. Consequently, there was limited literature available regarding the education of children in special provision. As I have noted, there was also considerable pressure on the field to address the challenges provided by various national reports. Perhaps as a result, the book became a big seller and had an enormous influence on thinking and practice in the field.

From special education to integration

After five years as headteacher of Castle School, I was fortunate to be offered another opportunity to study. This time it involved a year at Birmingham University, studying for a master’s degree. This interlude provided me with a timely opportunity to reflect on what I had experienced and to consider where I might go next with my struggle to make education fairer for all children and young people. This led me in 1979 to take up the post of Adviser for Special Needs in the Coventry local authority.

This move opened up wonderful new opportunities for me to reposition myself and to take my thinking forward. Alongside my specialism, the role included providing general advice on school development matters to a group of primary and secondary schools. For somebody who had spent so much time in special provision, this presented a set of new challenges. At the same time, it opened up splendid opportunities to explore how mainstream schools could develop ways of working that could promote the integration of children who might otherwise be placed in special provision.

At that time, the Coventry authority had an enormous commitment to encouraging innovation in its schools and to providing professional development for teachers in order to encourage improvements in practice. As I got involved with some of these developments, I formulated a proposal for a large-scale initiative to promote integration across the authority’s schools. Working with another committed and innovative educational psychologist, Jim Muncey, we designed what came to be known as the Special Needs Action Programme (SNAP) – a detailed account of this is provided in Chapter 2. In order to take SNAP forward, we asked each school to designate a member of staff as the special needs coordinator, somebody who could act as the lead for developments across the staff. Later this approach was to become part of national policy. Linked to this, our mantra was ‘every teacher a special needs teacher’.

The initial phase of SNAP concentrated on the primary sector (Ainscow and Muncey, 1989). The core activity was a staff development pack called ‘Small Steps’, which involved helping teachers to design the sorts of individualised lea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Contributors
• 1 Introduction: The collective will to make it happen
• 2 Rethinking the agenda
• 3 An objectives approach with Dave Tweddle
• 4 A new perspective with Dave Tweddle
• 5 Improving the quality of education for all with David Hopkins
• 6 Learning from differences
• 7 The Index for Inclusion
• 8 Using collaborative inquiry with Tony Booth and Alan Dyson
• 9 Future directions for special schools
• 10 Levers for change
• 11 Leadership and collaboration with Mel West
• 12 Education for all with Susie Miles
• 13 The power of networking
• 14 Using evidence to promote equity in schools with Alan Dyson, Sue Goldrick and Mel West
• 15 Towards self-improving school systems
• Index