Towards Inclusive Schools?

Catherine Clark, Alan Dyson, Alan Millward

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138603202
• eBook ISBN: 9780429889691
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica generale

First published in 1995. Notions of 'inclusive schools' and 'schooling for diversity' are rapidly gaining currency across the developed world as alternatives to traditional approaches to special needs education. This book explores the advances in our understanding of how schools can change and develop in order to include a wider range of students. By bringing together some of the foremost international writers and researchers in the field, it makes available to policy makers, practitioners and researchers the experiences from Australia, Europe, New Zealand, the UK and the USA.

Chapter 1

Inclusion, Paradigms, Power and Participation

Keith Ballard

Inclusive schools deliver a curriculum to students through organisational arrangements that are different from those used in schools that exclude some students from their regular classrooms. These two approaches to education derive from different paradigms, each of which defines students and defines teacher responsibilities in different ways.

A paradigm, as Thomas Skrtic (1986) suggests, is the way in which we ‘unrandomise’ our experiences and impose some order on the complexities of our lives. It is a world-view constructed by agreement among a community of people. The understandings of the paradigm are communicated through language.

An inclusive school defines ‘differentness’ as an ordinary part of human experience, to be valued and organised for. Schools that practise exclusion define differentness as not ordinary, as outside their area of responsibility and, by implication, as not as valuable as ‘ordinariness’. These two perspectives construct student populations in different ways. This leads to organisational arrangements that then create disability in different ways. Inclusive arrangements create disability as an experience to be addressed within a context of diversity. Exclusive arrangements create disability as sickness, personal tragedy and object of charity (‘special’ needs may not be met as of right, but only on application for ‘special’ help) within a context that privileges some human characteristics over others. In such ways do paradigms and the language of paradigms construct and create different kinds of human relationships.

Paradigms are not just about what we know but also about how we know. Exclusion has been maintained within a positivist model of science using concepts of pathology, from medicine, and of normative assessment, from psychology (Skrtic, 1986). Professionals have been the group articulating this position, using ‘clinical judgement’ to locate learning and other difficulties within the individual student (Biklen, 1988). This has allowed schools to disclaim responsibility for some students and has helped industrial economies to manage people who are seen as less productive (Branson and Miller, 1989). Inclusion has emerged from a knowledge base that is less clearly defined. It has emphasised equity in human relationships and has been accepting of ways of knowing that may not be verifiable by positivism’s limited version of science. Disability groups, parents of children with disabilities and their allies have advocated this view, identifying disability as a ‘social and political category’ involving ‘practices of regulation and struggles for choice and empowerment’ (Barton, 1992, p. 5).

Who gets to determine the world-view that drives school organisational arrangements is a key issue. It is important to know who is organising whom and why. If a paradigm is made by a relatively small set of people, for example, professional educators and psychologists, it may suit those powerful enough to use it to organise their world, but it may be harmful to others whose experiences are then excluded. How might people who have less power within a particular situation create understandings and organisations that value them and are of value to them? It is this issue that I will reflect on in this chapter, using some experiences from two research studies. But, first, I want to suggest that to achieve inclusion we cannot simply modify exclusionary ideas and organisational strategies. The two world-views are so different that they cannot coexist. Either the exclusionary paradigm will colonise, assimilate and destroy inclusion, or inclusion – the right of every child to the same classroom and curriculum as any other child of their age (but acknowledging that some may choose not to be included) – will displace the exclusionary world-view and practice of segregation in schools and classrooms.

The kind of organisation needed to respond to student diversity

From inclusive schools in New Zealand (Ballard and Ballard, 1989), Canada (Porter and Richler, 1991) and America (Biklen, 1985), we know that the one key issue underpinning effective school organisation is a value system that, in Douglas Biklen’s (1985) terms, sees integration as ‘a moral question...a goal, indeed a value, we decide to pursue or reject on the basis of what we want our society to look like’ (p. 3). Organisation for inclusion is based around the mainstream curriculum (Wood and Shears, 1986), mainstream teaching methods (Murray, 1991) and mainstream teachers supporting one another (Porter, 1991). Teachers get advice on a student’s communication, sensory or other needs just as they would seek expertise on mathematics or other curriculum areas (Stainback and Stainback, 1989). However, I do not think that how schools organise inclusive practice and what they do to cater for diversity are the major organisational issues at present. What is critical, it seems to me, is why within the state school system in New Zealand, for example, some schools are inclusive while others actively exclude students on the basis of disability.

The key is in the paradigmatic assumptions that lie behind the organisation. It is a powerful world-view that allows some schools to be dis-ablist when overtly racist or sexist policies and practices would not be tolerated.

It is also a powerful alternative world-view that drives other schools to organise their resources and activities in ways that support all students. Such schools work with the idea that there are not ‘distinct types of students – special and regular’ who require different teaching methods and separate facilities (Stainback and Stainback, 1984, p. 102). They do not use the separate strategies, separate thinking or the separate language of ‘special’ education. Language is the carrier of culture, and the culture of separate special education will continue for as long as the term ‘special’ is part of the vocabulary of education. Integration leading to inclusive schools cannot be about renegotiating the roles of ‘special’ educators to meet the needs of ‘special’ children in ordinary classrooms (Stainback, Stainback and Forest, 1989, p. ix).

One of the ways in which the dominant paradigm of special education is resisting inclusion involves an attempt to assimilate the language of mainstreaming and inclusion into special education discourse. In New Zealand, for example, policy development has been influenced by the British model of the Wamock Committee Report (1978) and by the American concept of the ‘least restrictive environment’ (Ballard, 1990). Gillian Fulcher (1989) has analysed the Warnock Report as a discourse emphasising professionalism, difference and deficit, providing a ‘conservative and politically expedient notion of integration’ (p. 165) which in effect legitimises existing practices of segregation. Similarly, Steven Taylor (1988) has shown how the idea of the ‘least restrictive environment’ involves a discourse that appears to support mainstreaming but in fact legitimates restrictive environments by focussing not on whether children should be segregated, but to what extent. The use of these ideas in educational policy and administration has meant a lack of commitment to inclusion which the chief executive of the Assembly of People with Disabilities (DPA New Zealand), David Henderson, has described as ‘appalling and creating life-long disadvantages for people’ (cited in Morrison, 1993). This is disability as disempowerment and, for the individuals involved, this is the personal experience of oppression. As a parent, Elva Sonntag (1994) has said, ‘to cope implies silencing our inner selves’ (p. 185). For Mãori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, such a silencing of the self is part of the experience of colonisation. Mãori writers and researchers identify disability issues similar to those of pakeha in terms of access and resources, but different in terms of the need for Mãori culture to be part of all policy and practice (Bevan-Brown, 1994; Tihi and Gerzon, 1994).

An issue of voice and power

In terms of minority group experience, mine is not an authentic voice presenting this chapter, and this issue must be addressed. In New Zealand, Mark Cahill (1991) has said that ‘people maintain their power over us [people with disabilities] by allowing society to explain and articulate our experiences for us’ (p. 31). A similar issue has been identified by Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1991) for Mãori people who, she says, still live with the damaging consequences of early research written by Europeans about Mãori, and written ‘within a context of colonisation, evolutionary theory or deficit or cultural deprivation theory’ (p. 55). Acknowledging such positions, I believe that my work is relevant only to the extent that those with an authentic voice deem it to be so. At present, my justification for involvement is that I cannot be uninvolved. Disability, and, in New Zealand, Mãori issues (see Walker, 1990, p. 234), are community issues, and so are issues for all citizens. We can either try to be part of the solution or remain part of the problem. In that context, I have recently worked in an action research project in which the issues of power and control were addressed directly as part of the research process. A second project, which I refer to as ‘research as stories’, developed a forum for authentic voices. Both studies were about inclusion in schools and in the community, and about who has the power to have their paradigm/world-view reflected in the organisation of education and other services.

Research as action: learning with parents

Our action research project involved families of children who have disabilities working together with professionals (Ballard et al., 1992). Across four years (from 1988 to 1992), the project involved 143 families and 74 professionals and centred around issues in education, health and welfare. It was parent-driven. The role of the researchers was to access and provide resources and to be participants in the reflection-action cycle that is an essential part of this approach. The Family Network activities focussed on information, support, advocacy, networking and training professionals. Beyond the research period, we have continued as a newly constituted group of parents and professionals working together as The Family Network (Inc.)’.

Action research involves collaboration in order to solve organisational or community problems (Bogdan and Biklen, 1982) and is designed to provide ‘conditions for the empowerment of participants’ (Codd, 1991, p. 1) through a process of action-reflection-action within democratic dialogue. One action of the Otago Family Network, which continues today (six years on), involved parents of children with disabilities contributing to professional training in education, nursing, medicine, physiotherapy and occupational therapy. The parents decided and controlled the form (e.g. one parent interview; three weeks or more of regular contact) and content (what is discussed, what is revealed and how) of the students’ involvement with their family. In the research report there is evidence from students that this was a valued, and often transformative, experience in terms of perspectives on disability, inclusion, families and parent-professional relationships.

Action on early intervention services in our region was another task that involved us in extensive discussion, analysis and involvement with health and education agencies. Here there emerged a majority view on some issues. For example, the establishment of an early intervention trust as an agency that was independent of present health and education structures was recommended by many parents. On other issues, however, the complexity and diversity of parent knowledge, experiences and wishes suggested the need for flexible services with, for example, both home-based and centre-based options. Mãori parents wanted services that acknowledged their culture. Some of their proposals, such as the presence of extended family when important information was being presented, were also seen as valuable by some European families. Professionals need to hear these diverse views. Such diversity is often lost in surveys or other research that present a quantitative, summary picture. Ongoing, democratic, reciprocal contact between parents and professionals (the research included professionals stating their positions and problems) may help people to reflect critically on the assumptions that direct their actions.

Schools were often a ‘site of struggle’ for the Network, and the project attained a public and political profile in the area of mainstreaming. The research report records that:

Newspaper accounts throughout 1990–92 reflected a growing commitment to ‘mainstreaming’ amongst a large group of Network parents as well as a realisation that, as parents, they do have power to effect changes in attitudes and practice. (Ballard et al., 1992, p. 164)

Some school principals reacted in the media with claims that parents were being ‘brainwashed’ by ‘academic zealots’. Parents denounced these claims, asserting that the push for mainstreaming was ‘parent-driven’. The Network established a mainstreaming special interest group as a forum for parents and professionals to work together to explore issues at both the local and national levels.

Interviewed toward the end of the research, a senior education professional commented on the ‘very high proportion of kids [in Dunedin] who are in regular early childhood settings’ and attributed this, in part, to Network assistance in ‘the creation of a climate where it’s accepted that this [inclusion] is the case’. This professional credited much of the change in community attitudes toward mainstreaming in the local school system to the ‘people that actually work in the Network. They serve as an irritant and make people rethink and reappraise’ (p. 164).

Professionals in areas other than education also stated that Network parents had prompted professionals:

to re-evaluate their current brand of service provision and explore ways they relate to parents. Specifically, they have learned that parents have both a need and a right to be listened to and consulted over decisions professionals may be making about their child’s educational/medical future. (p. 165)

Professionals who worked with parents in the team co-ordinating the project were also influenced by their interactions with parents. As one project team member commented, she had broadened her own understanding of parent experience in significant ways:

You never cease to be humbled and a bit embarrassed by some of the things parents have had to work through just to get a listening ear – get their message across...sometimes they are such simple or straightforward real life stories – that’s their very power. You know, it’s right under your nose and you don’t see it. (p. 169)

Participating with others and analysing various experiences with them was also valued by parents. When asked, ‘What have you got from the Network?’, one parent said that what had been important for her was:

the political lobbying [and to] feel comfortable about having your say. This is personally empowering as it clarifies what you think by hearing other people and sharing ideas. (p. 226)

Aspects of the Network project could be identified as ‘practical’ action research (Carr and Kemmis, 1986) in that participants were involved in articulating their concerns and undertaking action for change. Other aspects of the work, however, involved parents and professionals in critical reflection that ‘clarifies what you think’. Here the project achieved what Carr and Kemmis (1986) referred to as an ‘authentic analysis’ of practices, understandings and situations which was ‘central to action research as critical social science’ (p. 202). This could be seen as genuinely emancipatory in that it helped people overcome oppressive ideas and practices (McTaggart and Garbutcheon-Singh, 1988) so that they might influence the paradigms and organisational arrangements that affect their lives.

Research as stories: learning from experience

The focus of the ‘research as stories’ project (Ballard, 1994) was on intellectual disability, an area of disability which historically has involved a high level of exclusion from school and community settings. The work involved self-advocates and other adults who had intellectual disabilities, parents and whãnau (extended family) of children who had intellectual disabilities, and Mãori and European researchers. Our goal was to write personal accounts of the lived experience of disability in New Zealand, with my own story being that of a researcher in this area. We thought that this might lead to understanding and action on policy and practice in the disability area, especially as regards inclusion in schools and community settings.

Some of the issues that were dealt with by the writers (who mostly live in the North Island of New Zealand) were similar to those addressed by the Otago Family Network project (located in the South Island). But the presentation is different. While the Network report provides an account focussing largely on specific issues and struggles, the stories present individuals describing and analysing their lived experiences of disability within the broader personal, social, historical and political context of their lives. It is important to stress the analysis in these accounts because it involved authentic, critical appraisal of their situation by people whose voice should have value in the development of policy and practice.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Inclusion, Paradigms, Power and Participation
• 2 Stress, Morale and Acceptance of Change by Special Educators
• 3 Inclusive Education: From Policy to School Implementation
• 4 Integration Policies, School Reforms and the Organisation of Schooling for Handicapped Pupils in Western Societies
• 5 The Resources for Regular Schools with Special Needs Students: An International Perspective
• 6 Special Needs through School Improvement; School Improvement through Special Needs
• 7 Dialectical Analysis, Special Needs and Schools as Organisations
• 8 Mapping Inclusion and Exclusion: Concepts for All?
• 9 Using School Effectiveness Knowledge for Children with Special Needs – The Problems and Possibilities
• 10 The Aftermath of the Articulate Debate: The Invention of Inclusive Education
• 11 Effective Organisational Instructional and Curricular Practices in Inclusive Schools and Classrooms
• 12 Towards Inclusive Schools: Mapping the Field
• References
• Index