Addressing Tensions and Dilemmas in Inclusive Education

Living with uncertainty

Brahm Norwich

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136309779
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Based on extensive research, Addressing Tensions and Dilemmas in Inclusive Education presents a contemporary and critical analysis of the interaction between different perspectives and positions in the field of inclusive education.

Referring to existing attitudes on the education of children and young people with learning difficulties and disabilities, Professor Norwich argues that despite the appeal of inclusion as a single powerful position, its practical realisation involves tensions and dilemmas that have to be addressed and resolved. This core analysis is illustrated by a review of relevant national and international concepts, principles, research and practices drawing on literature in areas of current interest and concern, such as:

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• identification and classification;

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• current national and international conceptions;

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• pedagogic and curriculum issues;

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• organisation of schooling;

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• parental and student perspectives;

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• the contribution of research to policy and practice.

Engaging with the fundamental issues in the field and providing a coherent perspective that recognises and justifies the inter-connection between specialised and general school provision, this accessible and timely book will be of interest to all researchers and students of inclusive education.

1

Setting the Agenda

Introduction and context of the book

The field of inclusive education has developed internationally into a very influential position on the education of children and young people with difficulties and disabilities. The aim of this book is to present a broad contemporary and critical analysis of the field. Though inclusive education has a strong intuitive ethical appeal, and has been called a ‘passionate intuition’ (Pirrie and Head, 2007), it involves tensions and dilemmas that have to be addressed and resolved. However, this is not a book about inclusion in its most general sense of going beyond disability and being about education for all (UNESCO, 2001; Ainscow et al., 2006). It is specifically about how such generalised ideas about inclusive education deal with issues in the education of children with disabilities and difficulties, what has come in recent decades to be called in some countries special needs education. The outcome of this analysis will then reflect back on the coherence and usefulness of more generalised ideas about inclusive education. The book will therefore analyse some of the key areas: models of disability, identification and classification of disability, curriculum, pedagogy, organisation of provision/placement, philosophical issues (about rights, needs, knowledge and research) and pupil participation and parental choice. The analysis will draw on literature from across different disciplinary perspectives, including sociological, psychological, philosophical, health and educational theory. Although grounded on policy and practice in England, the book refers to and draws on the Scottish and international literature about other countries as well as the international United Nations-based system.

The approach that I take has several features. First, the analysis draws on the different disciplinary traditions in the field in an open and even-handed way. Second, the analysis will question some distinctions, while making other important ones and reflecting on core basic issues. For instance, there is often a tendency to assume uncritically certain distinctions as oppositions (medical versus social model, integration versus inclusion); I aim to examine such distinctions and consider more nuanced and refined assumptions. Third, the analysis highlights the links between diverse and sometimes opposing perspectives and argues for the value of recognising these links. But, the primary feature of the book is its recognition of several key values and philosophical tensions that permeate the education of those with disabilities and difficulties, as part of wider tensions about values within education, and the importance of addressing these tensions. More will be said about these tensions later in this chapter. The book examines theoretical rather than practical matters in the field, but it does so in the expectation that the conclusions will frame how practical issues are approached and decisions made.

There has been a considerable growth of interest in inclusive education since the 1990s (UNESCO, 1994; UNESCO, 2001; Armstrong et al., 2010). In many countries the use of ‘inclusive’ language has followed the UN conventions and declarations, though some Scandinavian ones, who were pioneers in provision for children with disabilities and difficulties, have tended to use other terms. For example, Sweden has used the term ‘school for all’ and Denmark ‘differentiation’ (EADSEN, 2011). In Chapter 6 there is a brief examination of how the term ‘inclusion’ came to be used, but it is important to note that its use is fairly recent. For example, the terms ‘inclusion’ and ‘inclusive education’ came into use in the UK following the UNESCO Salamanca Statement (UNESCO, 1994). This is shown by the lack of any entries for the terms ‘social inclusion’ or ‘inclusive education’ in the title or abstract of academic papers and entries between 1977 and 1991 in the British Education Index (BEI; a leading UK database of academic and research publications in education). After the Salamanca Statement in 1994 there was a gradual growth of publications about social inclusion and inclusive education, with 90 per cent of the BEI publications published after 2000. However, though the use of inclusion/inclusive is recent, it is based on old and established values. Inclusion can be seen to represent a contemporary mixture of the values of equal opportunity, social respect and solidarity. Along similar lines, Ameson et al. (2010) identified the values associated with inclusion in a European context as: 1) access and quality, 2) equity and social justice, 3) democratic values and participation and 4) the balance between unity and diversity. It is this mix of values that can lead to significant ambiguities in its meaning and use (Barton, 2003) and to the tensions that will be examined in this book.

Theoretical concerns about inclusive education

Not only has inclusive education become internationally pervasive (e.g. United Nations Conventions of the Rights of Persons with Disability: Article 24: United Nations, 2006), but it has also come to be seen as self-evidently a ‘good thing’ in a similar way that democracy or human rights have come to be self-evidently good (Fagan, 2005). Its adoption has occurred despite the ambiguity that can be seen in the analysis below of the key themes in various definitions or characterisations of inclusive education (Clarke et al., 1995; Thomas, 1997; Rouse and Florian, 1996; Farrell, 2000; Barton, 1997; Sebba and Sachdav, 1997; Barton, 2003; Mittler 2000):

• accepting/valuing/extending scope to all;
• not leaving anyone out;
• school reorganisation/problem-solving organisation;
• promoting fraternity;
• enhancing equal opportunity;
• listening to unfamiliar voice/empowering;
• active participation in school life;
• a road without end;
• not an end in itself but a means to inclusive society.

It is often unclear which combination of themes defines what is inclusive education and whether some themes are inconsistent with other ones. Some inclusion theorists have recognised this ambiguity and suggested that we talk about various inclusions rather than inclusion (Dyson, 1999). Ainscow et al. (2006) in their discussion of inclusive education also recognise tensions over the definition: whether to keep an open mind about the meaning of inclusion and how we can know what it is and support it without a clear definition. But though admitting that ‘we faced this tension directly as we began our work in schools’ (p. 22), these authors had no more to say about this tension.

Nevertheless, these authors have developed a useful typology that shows the progression from defining inclusion in terms of narrower learner characteristics (SEN/disability and behaviour) to more inclusive characteristics (groups that are vulnerable to exclusion) and then by reference to ‘all’ and finally to value principles (see Chapter 6 for more details). The effect of defining inclusion, as they do, as about everybody’s learning guided by abstract values, is that it distances inclusive education from the specific circumstances of disability and difficulties. Disability becomes one amongst various facets of diversity, such as ethnicity, gender, second language learning and socio-economic disadvantage. This can have the effect of oversimplifying the differences between the various facets of diversity (Shakespeare, 2006); what has been seen as a homogenising effect on differences (Cigman, 2007b).

This is where a gap also develops between ideals and practices. The prescriptive definition of inclusive education (for instance, UNESCO, 2009 guidelines on inclusive education) departs from the common usage of inclusive education as predominantly associated with SEN/disability. Some inclusion theorists have noted and regretted this (Slee, 2010). It was also evident in an analysis I conducted for this book of the proportion of all papers and entries about ‘inclusion’ in English language education databases that are about SEN/disability, gender or ethnicity. In an analysis of the UK BEI, Australian education index and US (ERIC) databases between 3 and 15 times as many papers on inclusive education or inclusion were about SEN/ disability as about gender or ethnicity. Though this shows that gender and ethnic issues are studied much less in terms of the language of inclusive education or inclusion than disability/SEN, it does not imply that inclusion cannot be used in this wider ‘for all’ sense. However, doing so carries the risks of not recognising that different education approaches and considerations may apply across these areas of difference. There is also the risk that the interests of those with disabilities might be secondary to or overlooked when pursuing other less minority interests; for example, gender and socio-economic class interests (Miles and Singal, 2010).

The move away from learner characteristics in definitions of inclusive education is partly about avoiding the definition of differences in terms of challenge or ‘difficulties’, what is often presented as the rejection of the ‘deficit model’. For example, Slikwa (2010) presents the progression of ideas about difference as going from homogeneity to heterogeneity to diversity. In homogeneity, learners are seen as similar and treated as such; in heterogeneity, adjustments are made for ‘difficulties’; in diversity (the inclusive notion), difference is seen as a resource and opportunity. So, the language of diversity deliberately turns away from ‘difficulties’ even though some research shows that for some people disability is experienced as ‘difficult differences’ (e.g. Rogers, 2007). This reflects a tendency in some versions of inclusive education to deny the challenges and difficulties associated with disability, as will be examined further in Chapters 2 and 3.

Inclusive education has its basis in the social model of disability (Barton, 1997; Thomas and Loxley, 2001). This has been defined in opposition to the medical or deficit model and as having educational implications for the transformation of the school system. In this position, inclusivity comes to be seen as opposed to providing special provision, defined as additional provision to what is generally provided (Florian, 2010). This is the assumed opposition between inclusivity, which relates to a social level of analysis, and additionality, which relates to an individual level of analysis. Here is an example of the point made above about how from an inclusive education position there are different and opposing perspectives: inclusivity versus additionality. What follows is an argument to show how links between perspectives can be made, an example of a more general position developed in this book. What counts as additional provision (for children with disabilities/difficulties) is relative to what is generally provided. As will be discussed in Chapter 5, if generally provided teaching for most children already involves what a child with a disability requires, then there is no need for additionality. From this it follows that the more a school or class has inclusive provision, the less additionality is required. This is one way in which additionality links to inclusivity. But inclusivity also links to additionality in another way. Inclusivity is a principle of adapting the general system to the diversity of learners. If designing education for diversity means design for the range of differences in a group of learners, this also has to take account of the individuality of learners. This implies that inclusivity requires a response to individuality. In this way, inclusivity requires extending general provision which some may call adding to or adapting provision. This is an example of the kind of links between social and individual levels of analysis to be discussed further in Chapter 7.

Another feature of inclusive education is its rejection of specialisation in the use of categories of disorder or difficulties, in curricula, teaching approaches and educational provision settings. This raises questions about when specialised or differentiated aspects of the system are excluding and humiliating and when they are not; when they serve the interests and requirements of people with disabilities and difficulties as seen from their own perspectives. This is one of the central issues and tensions addressed in this book, what has been called dilemmas of difference (Minow, 1990; Norwich, 2008). To resolve this dilemma in its various forms, as will be discussed in several chapters, is to combine, integrate or connect elements of the common and differentiated or generic and specialised elements of the system, what has been called a principle of connective specialisation (Norwich, 1996).

Some inclusive theorists have also expressed concerns about how inclusive education has become assimilated and neutralised by its policy adoption by national government and by international organisations. Allen and Slee (2008) describe inclusive education as ‘troubled and troubling’: ‘troubled because it has found respectability in policy and practice, while troubling because it is meant to be an intentionally bothersome ethical project’ (p. 99). Slee (2008) laments the resilience of the special educational needs system, while trying to renew his commitment to ‘critical confrontation’ by portraying inclusive education as part of a broader reform of regular schooling. To this end he presents the idea of an irregular school as a provocation to retrieve the adoption of the language of inclusion into a system that he sees as having lost touch with inclusive values. Armstrong et al. (2011) also identify a failure of inclusive education in an increasingly globalised world where inclusion is contested in both developed (North) and developing countries (South). For these authors the weakness of inclusive education has a theoretical and practical aspect. Theoretically inclusion is seen to have become weakened by the ‘pragmatic watering down of the underlying idealism of inclusion’ (Armstrong et al., 2011: 37) associated with the ‘escapism’ of postmodern thinking about inclusion. Practically, inclusion is seen as not engaging with the realities of education and schooling. These authors also recommend going back to the big picture of inclusion and to the radical beginnings of the movement. These perspectives represent a particular emancipatory stance that regards inclusion as a political and ethical movement. The issues arising from this stance are also addressed in various chapters of this book.

Practical concerns about inclusive education

Not only are there theoretical issues about inclusive education, but also the practical experiences of inclusion have presented many practical challenges. Progress towards inclusive education is often portrayed as a matter of identifying and removing barriers to participation and learning (Booth and Ainscow, 2011). The term ‘barrier’ has come to replace the language of special educational needs or difficulties in line with the social model of disability. But, as will be argued in several chapters, this is to oversimplify matters in terms of what ‘removal’ and ‘barriers’ mean. Attribution theory identifies several dimensions of judgements about the causes of specific events or circumstances (Weiner, 1985). Two of these dimensions are about the stability or alterability of causal factors (low–high) and about the location of factors (internal–external to the person). In much inclusive thinking it is assumed that barriers to participation and learning are external and alterable; for example, steps (external) that impede wheelchair access can be changed into ramps or lifts (alterable). In this kind of thinking it is also assumed that internal factors (e.g. impairments) are a given and not alterable; this might relate to why impairments in social model terms are not to be called barriers. However, it is possible that some internal factors (or ‘barriers’) are to some extent alterable or even compensatable; for example, a visual impairment by wearing glasses. Also, external factors may not be easily alterable – for example, basic written language literacy standards – because although they may not be accessible to some children with profound intellectual impairments, removing these standards would incur social costs and personal costs for the majority who can access them (Wolff, 2009a).

There have been many reports and studies of barriers to inclusion that need to be informed by the above analysis of the location of barriers, their interaction and whether they can be removed and if so, the consequences of doing so. Evans and Lunt (2002) found in a UK context that a range of professionals involved in the school system believed that there were limits to inclusion, implying that some barriers are not that easily removable. Hodkinson (2010), also based on an analysis of the UK (English) system, identifies barriers to inclusion as not only at a class teaching level, but also at teacher, teacher education/training, school, local authority and government levels. One of the main criticisms of the policy implementation of inclusion has been the distortion of inclusive principles to fit a ‘standards’-driven accountability system of schooling driven by neo-liberal policy principles (Allan, 2008a). But, when it is argued that a ‘standards agenda’ is a barrier to participation and inclusion (Benjamin, 2002: 56), it is unclear whether this means specific performance-based standards or any educational standards and what removal might imply. These are curriculum design questions about what is worth learning and what might be common–differentiated about curriculum goals – issues that will be examined in Chapter 4.

Book rationale and core ideas

There are two basic reasons for writing this book. The first is to further develop ideas about a range of tensions and dilemmas in inclusive education that include but go beyond my earlier work on dilemmas of difference arising from disabilities and difficulties. The other reason is to engage in dialogue with others who responded to my earlier work and who have related ideas.

I summarised in a previous book (Norwich, 2008) thinking about dilemmas of difference that brought together ideas from legal studies (Minow, 1990), political studies (Dahl, 1982) and political philosophy (Berlin, 1990) and integrated them with parallel ideas from education and special needs education. The idea of dilemmas of difference is best expressed in the words of Martha Minow who first used this term:

When does treating people differently emphasise their differences and...