4 Engaging with others
A real challenge for delivering change within school systems is the way schools encourage a view of certain people as ‘other’. This is because so many school practices and their underlying conceptualisations are individually framed. Consider for example the assumptions and ways of supporting people based upon notions of intelligence, development, ability and behaviour. There is a long history of recognising these notions as being socially constructed and socially situated, however within most education systems they are seen as individual characteristics or potentials. As a consequence, you might find yourself evaluating children against these individualised measures or viewing their actions as being based in/on personal characteristics. Our systems do not encourage us to view them as a response to any number of social, contextual factors. Consequently, practices are based around these individualised understandings. For example,
- grouping children according to these assessments, in sets or streams, and then teaching them accordingly
- delivering individual interventions and measuring individual responses to these interventions.
Viewing learners individually creates a barrier by ignoring the involvement (within any learning moment) of complex multiple relationships, cultures and understandings. It ignores how:
- The capacity to shape the circumstances in which we live, our agency, is co-joined with the social, cultural and historical context; and our self is in collaboration with others through the past, present and future (Bruner, 1996).
- Development always involves changing participation within the different communities of which people are a part of (Rogoff, 2003).
- Learning involves coming to understand different possibilities in relationships with others (Lave & Wenger, 1991).
The individual focus encourages us to treat children and young people as isolated individuals. This individualised approach objectifies and quantifies needs, knowledge and skills. It turns the children into ‘units of analysis’ (McDermott & Varenne, 1995, p. 337). This may be convenient for managerial systems, but it creates wider institutional challenges for equality, participation, inclusion and everyday teaching. Not only are ‘individuals’ competing with other economic priorities within administrative budgets (Jóhannesson, 2006), but they are also being seen as individuals in a space that is designed for collective practice. This restrains innovation, even when policy controls are lifted (Ahl, 2007). It also ignores the importance of social engagement as an effective pedagogic approach (Rix et al., 2009) and bypasses the need to plan for social interactions in the learning context.
Perhaps the oddest thing about the dominance of the individualised approach is that practitioners frequently demonstrate a different theory in action. Most practitioners, according to the research, are fully aware of the importance of relationships, the context in which the child is in, and their support activities that take place (Rix, 2023).
Consider how you might build on this recognition of the importance of context, and explore how you can engage with relational opportunities when planning for people identified with difference.
Activity 7: One by one?
Internationally, there are a range of support or inclusion plans in evidence (for example: Individual Education Plans (IEPs)) that operate at different levels of the system (Rix et al, 2013a). There is evidence in a few countries of local development plans or school plans in relation to inclusion and/or special educational needs, and of school pedagogical plans. In some countries, there is also evidence of individualised teaching plans and integration plans. These can outline the actions a school will take over a longer period for an individual child or may co-ordinate support plans across services. However, plans rarely focus upon the broader systems and structures for all pupils. They are generally focused upon individual children. Consider an example of this.
Explore this document which aims to help teachers facilitate student participation. The complete text is interesting, but make sure you read the red, italicised text and spend some time considering the tables.
Kurth, J. A., Miller, A. L. and Toews, S. G. (2020) ‘Preparing for and Implementing Effective Inclusive Education With Participation Plans [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] ’, Teaching exceptional children, 53(2) p. 0040059920927433. (The Open University is not responsible for external content.)
As you read, make notes and consider the following questions:
- In what ways does the model proposed in this paper focus upon the individual and what ways upon the collective learning environment? (You might reflect on: the practices advocated; the nature of targets; the involvement of relationships, peers and social interaction.)
- How does this approach to planning reflect your experiences of schooling?
Discussion
The intention of this document seems good. It really wants to encourage the involvement of ‘students with disabilities’ to ensure that they ‘have access to, and make progress in, the general education’. But how they wish to do this does not focus upon the socially interactive, collectively situated context in which the plans exist. The participation plan template on page 9, for example, focuses almost entirely on skills to teach or be supported. The only mention of other children is as a group or as part of a group. The use of terms such a social and peers is always linked to a predetermined goal. There is no real consideration of the people around, about enjoyment or relevance to the learner.
There is no sense that what is being expected of the whole class or the teachers is going to be changed in any meaningful way, either. Even the ‘universal supports’ are largely in the established chalk and talk tradition. This plan is about seeking opportunities to insert individual targets into everyday class routines. It is about people identifying what the learner needs to know and then looking for ways to focus on this.
The widespread use of Individual Education Plans (IEPs) internationally exemplifies this individualised focus of school approaches. Despite serving multiple purposes IEPs primarily focus on the deficit in the child (for example Isaksson, Lindqvist, & Bergström, 2007). Similarly, practices intended to support children’s participation, such as differentiation, programmes of learning or behaviour modification, typically serve to separate them (Rix, 2015). They tend to position children as passive recipients of interventions, based on the dominant institutional expectations, routines and practices, in ways that both exclude many children’s life experiences and create fixed notions of their abilities (Love & Beneke 2021).
When reflecting on this document the authors recalled observing a young man in Norway, in a research project, whose curriculum called for him to study English; so he did this while the rest of the class did Norwegian folk tales; something he could have participated in. A planning document like the one you have just read might help to avoid such extreme exclusion but in highlighting each IEP goal as it does, it is perfectly possible to create multiple moments of equivalent exclusion. It would be simple for the focus-child’s possible interaction to become predetermined, separating them out from other people’s activity, marking out their difference and imposing a top-down social order.