Contextualizing Inclusive Education

Evaluating Old and New International Paradigms

David Mitchell, David Mitchell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781134366415
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación general

Inclusive education is a complex and problematic concept that raises many questions. A team of prominent academics present fresh and critical perspectives on these issues, drawing upon their global resources and knowledge.The over-arching theme of this book is that social, political, economic and cultural contexts play a central role in determining whether or not inclusive education is implemented in a range of regions and countries around the world. A series of original and provocative conclusions is presented, such as:

• inclusive education means creating a single system of education, which serves all children
• inclusive education is a site of conflicting paradigms of children with special needs, centering on a psycho-medical model and a socio-political model
• while many countries seem committed to inclusive education in their rhetoric, legislation and policies, in practice this often falls short.

This major landmark resource is suitable for educational policy makers, researchers, teacher educators, students and international agencies with interests in education.

Chapter 1
Introduction

Sixteen propositions on the contexts of inclusive education

David Mitchell

Educational inclusion requires careful consideration of every aspect of schooling and the social context in which it finds itself. Innovative approaches to educational inclusion will need to address issues at the macro, micro, personal and interpersonal levels and to recognise and engage with the political implications of working at these levels. Connections between school and community cultures have to be drawn, as well as between educational and community programmes of inclusion.

(Sayed et al., 2003, p. 245)

The theme of this book is that the characterization, purpose and form of inclusive education reflect the relationships among the social, political, economic, cultural and historical contexts that are present at any one time in a particular country and/or local authority. As Sayed et al. (2003) suggest in the above quotation, inclusive education is embedded in a range of contexts and consideration should be given to the relationships among them. The authors in this book present varying views on these relationships as they pertain to students with special educational needs, especially, but not exclusively, those with disabilities. They explore a range of issues, including: definitions of inclusive education; types of provisions for students with special educational needs; various forms of segregation or exclusion; paradigms of special needs; historical developments; the impact of contexts, including the role of economic considerations; the need to look beyond schooling; the justification for inclusive education; the ways in which indigenous and foreign values are blended; the relationship between inclusive education and education reforms; the gaps between rhetoric, policy and practices; and future trends. This chapter will provide a brief synthesis of these issues under a series of sixteen propositions. In developing these propositions, literature in addition to the chapters will be drawn upon.

Proposition 1

Inclusive education extends beyond special needs arising from disabilities, and includes consideration of other sources of disadvantage and marginalization, such as gender, poverty, language, ethnicity, and geographic isolation. The complex inter-relationships that exist among these factors and their interactions with disability must also be a focus of attention.

Many commentators on inclusive education argue that inclusion should be concerned with making schools responsive to all students, not just those with special educational needs arising from disabilities. As Booth (1996) asserts, ‘It makes little sense to foster the inclusion of some students because they carry one label, whilst ignoring the lack of participation of others’ (p. 89). In a similar vein, Sayed et al. (2003) lament the fact that ‘the complex inter-relationship of race, class, gender and other pivots of injustice means that programmes promoting equality often tend to focus on one of these at the expense of the others and so, loses the thread connecting the others’ (p. 240).

Three chapters in the present volume relate to these points. First, in Chapter 9, Fletcher and Artiles point out that social inequalities in Latin America mirror educational exclusion worldwide and place those at a social disadvantage based on gender, disability, poverty, language, and ethnicity on the margins of society. They note that in accordance with this view, many countries in Latin America have extended the concept of ‘special education’ beyond traditional disability categories, adopting instead the much broader definition of a student with special educational needs as one who, in comparison to his or her peer group, has difficulties learning the established curriculum content, and as a result requires additional or different resources. In Mexico, for example, in the 2001–2002 school year, special education personnel provided some type of educational service for 525,232 pre-school, elementary, and secondary students, of whom only 112,000 were identified with a disability. Second, in Chapter 7, Slee argues that inclusive education can best be understood by examining the experiences, conceptualization and struggles of other marginal identities that arise from factors such as socio-economic disadvantage, gender, racism, sexuality, mono-lingualism, and geographic isolation. In a similar vein, in Chapter 10, Naicker points out that in post-apartheid South Africa, the focus is ‘not merely on disability but rather on all vulnerable children, including over-age learners, children in prison, learners who experience language barriers, or barriers such as the attitudes of others, lack of parental recognition and poverty’.

While I agree with the argument that inclusive education should concern all students, I decided that the main focus of this book should be on students with disabilities (sometimes referred to as ‘students with special educational needs’ in the text). Even so, as noted above, several chapters do extend their coverage to include other groups and/or consider the interactions between disabilities and other factors. Also, I believe that many of the principles discussed with reference to students with disabilities apply to other disadvantaged and marginalized groups.

Proposition 2

Inclusive education is a complex and problematic concept.

Almost every chapter in this volume refers to inclusive education as being a complex, if not a problematic, notion. For example, McLaughlin and Jordan, in their chapter on the USA and Canada (Chapter 5), note the lack of a commonly accepted definition of what constitutes ‘inclusion’. The USA does not have an official definition of the term, although it has become synonymous with the placement of students with disabilities in the general education classroom. In contrast, Canada's federal charter has an understanding of inclusive education that is more aligned with the principles set forth in the Salamanca Statement (UNESCO, 1994). Dyson, in Chapter 4, notes that inclusion in England emerges as a complex and highly problematic phenomenon characterized by considerable ambiguities. These inevitably arise, he feels, from ‘deep-seated dilemmas’ that are, in turn, underpinned by fundamental social and economic processes. Similarly, in Chapter 11, Brown points out that ‘confusion and controversy over the semantics of “inclusion” abound in many countries with long experience with its implementation’, so that ‘When the term crosses over into use in other cultures, it is no surprise that it is interpreted and applied in even more different and, sometimes, contradictory ways’. Chapter 9 makes similar points, with Fletcher and Artiles noting that one of the challenges to the consolidation of inclusive education models in Latin America is the lack of conceptual clarity, particularly with regard to disability definitions and the very notion of inclusion.

Given the above, it is not surprising to find that, as Artiles and Dyson point out in Chapter 3, the forms of educational practice that are labelled as ‘inclusive education’ have a strongly local flavour and that it would be chimerical to take a uni-dimensional perspective on the phenomenon. Rather, they argue, ‘inclusive education is a multi-dimensional phenomenon, with different countries (and, we might add, different schools and classrooms) developing not simply at different rates but in quite different directions’. Another reason for such divergence can be found in economics, Artiles and Dyson further noting that

the inclusion efforts of the affluent western democracies, where well resourced segregated forms of special education are being merged with equally well resourced regular education, seem to be quite different from those of many economically poorer countries where special education has never been fully developed and where regular education is desperately lacking in resources.

Proposition 3

Although there is no universally accepted definition of inclusive education, there is a growing international consensus as to the principal features of this multi-dimensional concept. With regard to students with disabilities, these include the following: entitlement to full membership in regular, age-appropriate classes in their neighbourhood school; access to appropriate aids and support services, individualized programmes, with appropriately differentiated curriculum and assessment practices.

In seeking an understanding of what is meant by inclusive education, perhaps the first distinction to be made is between integration and inclusion. In addressing this issue, Ainscow (1995, p.1) states that the former refers to ‘additional arrangements … within a system of schooling that remains largely unchanged’, while the latter aims ‘to restructure schools in order to respond to the needs of all students’. Similarly, Antia et al. (2002), argue that inclusion denotes a student with a disability unconditionally belonging to and having full membership of a regular classroom in a regular school and its community. This is contrasted with integration, which implies that the student with a disability has the status of a visitor, with only conditional access to a regular classroom, and primary membership of a special class or resource room.

A second, and related, distinction is that inclusive education goes far beyond mere physical placement (sometimes referred to as ‘locational’ or ‘proximity integration’), but instead involves attention being paid to all aspects of schooling – curriculum, assessment, pedagogy, supports, and so on. For example, Skrtic et al. (1996) argue that inclusive education involves schools meeting the needs of all their students within common, but fluid, environments and activities.

Given its international significance, it is worth describing at some length the concept of inclusive education as outlined in the Salamanca Statement (UNESCO, 1994), and as described by Mittler in Chapter 2. Included in the Statement were the following proclamations:

• every child has a fundamental right to education, and must be given the opportunity to achieve and maintain an acceptable level of learning,
• every child has unique characteristics, interests, abilities and learning needs,
• education systems should be designed and educational programmes implemented to take into account the wide diversity of these characteristics and needs,
• those with special educational needs must have access to regular schools which should accommodate them within a child-centred pedagogy capable of meeting these needs.

Proposition 4

From the perspective of placement criteria alone, there are three main types of provision for students with special educational needs: one-track (serving all students in one system), dual-track (serving students with special educational needs in one system and all others in another, main, system), and multi-track (serving various groups in different, parallel systems). Inclusive education for students with disabilities usually refers to a one-track system.

This distinction between the three different tracks is based on an analysis of different educational systems in Europe presented by Meijer et al. (2003). The one-track approach refers to countries that have developed policies geared towards the inclusion of almost all students in regular education, with support services. These include countries such as Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Greece and Norway (for a discussion of the last three countries, see also Chapter 6). To these countries could be added USA and Canada (Chapter 5), Australia (Chapter 7), China (Chapter 8), South Africa (Chapter 10), and some of the Latin American countries (Chapter 9), among the countries covered in the volume. South Africa, for example, is aiming at all students having equal access to a single, inclusive education system.

In two-track countries, there are two distinct education systems, with separate placements in special schools or special classes for students with special educational needs who follow a different curriculum to their non-disabled peers and sometimes come under separate ministries and administrative bodies. Meijer et al. (2003) cite Belgium and Switzerland as examples of this approach, while examples included in this volume would be Japan, Singapore, and the countries included in the chapter on the Middle East (Chapter 11). For example, in Singapore voluntary welfare organizations administer a special education system for students with moderate, severe or profound disabilities, while the Ministry of Education provides a regular education system for those without disabilities or those with milder learning, emotional, behavioural, sensory and physical disorders.

Also, as noted in Chapter 6, although the Netherlands has had a two-track policy for several decades, a growing group of policy-makers, educators and parents prefer inclusive education. Thus, in the Netherlands (and in other countries), the classification into one of these three categories is in a state of flux.

The countries coming under the multi-track approach have a multiplicity of approaches to inclusive education and offer a variety of services between the other two systems. In Europe, these would include such countries as Denmark, France, Finland, the Czech Republic and Poland, and the United Kingdom (see Chapter 4 for the last-named, with reference to England). In the present volume, India and the Netherlands would probably fall into this category.

Proposition 5

The inclusive education/segregation divide is not limited to the regular class versus the special class/special school, but also covers a range of other educational provisions that separate students.

This proposition is based on Dyson's analysis in Chapter 4, in which he points out that many students with special educational needs, who are ostensibly integrated, are placed in segregated and semi-segregated provision within mainstream schools, largely in isolation from their peers. In some cases, the provisions for them effectively form mini-special schools attached to the mainstream. This point resonates with Sayed et al.'s (2003) argument that institutional access alone does not equate with educational inclusion: ‘Besides issues of affordability, cultural and political environments and practices, both within and outside of educational institutions, may perpetuate exclusion even after students have technically been “placed” ‘(p. 242).

As well, Dyson points out that selection by ability and aptitude has been revived under New Labour governments since 1997 and the independent (private) sector educates well over half a million students, who are often selected on the basis of academic ability. He concludes that the impact of these various forms of selection, quasi-selection and grouping is that an unknown but significant number of students spend much of their school time in groups of ‘like-ability’ peers. There is no dispute, he claims, that English schools tend to be characterized by greater or lesser degrees of social segregation and that they tend not to educate children from clearly identifiable and homogeneous ‘communities’.

Proposition 6

With regard to students with disabilities, inclusive education is a site of conflicting paradigms, centred on two different conceptualizations of special needs: (a) a psycho-medical model, and (b) a socio-political model.

Elsewhere, I have noted that the field of...