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Inclusive education: knowing what we mean
Introduction
This course introduces school governors to the contested area of educational inclusion. Regardless of the type of school in which you find yourself, their approach to inclusive education will be a determining factor towards the culture that identifies their learning and teaching environment. Over the next few hours, you will be introduced to some of the principles and arguments that will have informed your school’s approach to inclusivity. You will look at differing perspectives on inclusion, in particular the way that medical and social models have influenced and shaped current thinking. You will also think about barriers to inclusion and the difference between integration and inclusion. In addition, you will consider some of the key documents, such as The Salamanca Statement and the Additional Learning Needs Code, that underpin current thinking in this area.
Learning outcomes
After studying this unit you will:
understand a range of theories that inform a school’s inclusion policy
reflect critically upon and analyse perspectives regarding inclusion, including those that are relevant to your own school setting
ask questions about the approach to inclusive education that is followed at your school
explain current legislation in Wales that pertains to the inclusive curriculum
1 Knowing what we mean by ‘inclusive education’
There is no doubt that inclusive education is a contested area. Indeed, nationally and internationally, it is the focus of what Daniels has called ‘extraordinary debates concerning definition and ownership’ (Daniels, 2000, p. 1). In this opening section we will look at a range of perspectives on what inclusive education means – drawn from a variety of sources, both ‘official’ and individual. But first let us look at what inclusive education means to you.
Activity 1: Personal experience of inclusion
Think about your own experience of inclusive education, either as a governor, pupil, parent or educational practitioner. You may need to identify who was to be ‘included’ in these situations or definitions. Once you have done this, consider why such inclusion mattered and for whom it was important.
You could then reflect on how your experience of inclusion compares with what you believe inclusion should be about.
The perspectives that follow come from a range of viewpoints: disabled activists, professionals working with children, government documents and a campaigning organisation. As you read them, compare these views with your own.
The Equity Group is based in Scotland, and describes itself as ‘a group of disabled people, parents of disabled children and other interested supporters’:
Fundamentally, we believe that inclusive education is about recognising children as having equal rights and being of equal value. This should be a basic starting-point for educational and social policy in a modern society.
Chris Darlington is president of the National Association for Special Educational Needs (NASEN), a national organisation for professionals working in the area of inclusion. He defines inclusion as:
a process, not a state … inclusion is not a simple concept restricted to issues of placement. … Key principles are valuing diversity, entitlement, dignity, individual needs, planning, collective responsibility, professional development, and equal opportunities.
Simone Aspis, who describes herself as ‘a special school survivor’ offers the following definition:
Inclusive education should create opportunities for all learners to work together. This requires a recognition that learning is enhanced when individuals of different abilities, skills and aspirations can work together in a joint enterprise.
The next quote comes from Inclusive Schooling (DfES, 2001b), the official document issued by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) following changes in the law in 2001 which strengthened students’ rights to a mainstream placement:
Schools supported by local education authorities and others should actively seek to remove the barriers to learning and participation that can hinder or exclude pupils with special educational needs.
The Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education (CSIE) is a campaigning organisation promoting the growth of inclusive schools:
Inclusion means enabling all students to participate fully in the life and work of mainstream settings, whatever their needs. …
Inclusion may also be seen as a continuing process of breaking down barriers to learning and participation for all children and young people. Segregation, on the other hand, is a recurring tendency to exclude difference.
You may also want to consult the Welsh Government’s Inclusion and Pupil Support guidance. This includes guidance on providing inclusive education and developing school attendance and behaviour policies.
You may have noticed that the different definitions have much in common, but they also vary. For example, you may have noted that the DfES’s description focuses on ‘special educational needs’, while the other perspectives view inclusive education as going well beyond one particular group of learners.
Although the word ‘inclusion’ now appears regularly in government documents, no ‘official’ definition of it exists and, in the United Kingdom (as in the United States), the terms ‘inclusion’, ‘inclusive education’, ‘integration’ or ‘mainstreaming’, do not appear anywhere in primary legislation. Consequently, when government documents, academics, parents and activists speak of ‘inclusion’ or ‘inclusive education’, they may appear to be using the same term while what they mean may not be the same at all.
Activity 2: What does inclusion mean to you?
Re-read the definitions above, compare them with your own ideas and your school’s inclusion policy, then note down your own definition of ‘inclusive education’. You may want to consider:
- Who is being included?
- What key words would you include in your definition?
- Does this differ from the experiences of inclusion that you have encountered or read about?
- How does your school’s inclusion policy compare to the definitions above?
Comment
Here are some of the ideas we had in response to this activity. You will notice that a number of them extend significantly the definitions that open this section:
Inclusive education goes beyond ‘special educational needs’: it refers to all learners who, for different reasons, may find themselves at risk of marginalisation or exclusion.
Inclusive education is about values: it assumes that diverse groups of pupils are of equal worth and have a right to be included.
Inclusive education does not focus on perceived individual deficits, but on the barriers to learning that individuals and groups of pupils may encounter.
Inclusive education is about changing the system so it is better for all: this includes teachers, students and everyone in the educational institution.
Inclusive education is about participation and learning from each other.
Inclusive education is not a fixed state but an evolving one.
Some of the key words that we noted were: rights, participation, process, values, equality, diversity, and change.
2 Models of thinking
In Section 1, you were asked to think about your own definitions of inclusive education. In Section 2, we show how personal experience of inclusion and exclusion has been a major driving force in the development of inclusive education, with disabled adults in particular struggling to redefine their experiences of schooling. One major factor in this struggle towards redefinition has been the shift towards a social model of disability.
In their seminal research, Rieser and Mason described a model as ‘not necessarily the truth as borne out by scientific fact, just an idea that helps us to make sense of information’ (Rieser and Mason, 1992, p. 13). Writing with the experience of a disabled person, Mason describes how medical approaches to impairment have given rise to the view that people are ‘individual objects to be “treated”, “changed” or “improved” and made more “normal” (Rieser and Mason, 1992, p. 13). The medical model of disability views the disabled person as needing to fit in rather than thinking about how society itself might change. Rieser and Mason contrast this view with the ‘social model’ of disability:
Disabled people’s own view of the situation is that whilst we may have medical conditions which hamper us and which may or may not need medical treatment, human knowledge, technology and collective resources are already such that our physical or mental impairments need not prevent us from being able to live perfectly good lives. It is society’s unwillingness to employ these means to altering itself rather than us which causes our disabilities.
Rieser and Mason have contrasted the medical and the social models and have shown the implications for schools of each way of thinking. This is illustrated in Table 1 below:
| Medical model | Social model |
|---|---|
| Child is faulty | Child is valued |
| Diagnosis | Strengths and needs defined by self and others |
| Labelling | Identify barriers and develop solutions |
| Impairment becomes focus of attention | Outcomes-based programmes designed |
| Assessment, monitoring | Resources made available |
| Segregation and alternative services | Training for parents and professionals |
| Ordinary needs put on hold | Relationships nurtured |
| Re-entry if ‘normal’ enough or permanent exclusion | Diversity welcomed; child is welcomed |
| Society remains unchanged | Society evolves |
While Rieser and Mason focus on attitudes and responses to disability, their analysis could be applied to many groups of young people who find themselves marginalised in learning situations. It is not only learners with disabilities or learning difficulties who find themselves excluded. Exclusion can be based on a range of factors and, as Ghuman (1999) has shown in his work with adolescents from South Asia, some populations find themselves the recipient of ‘multiple exclusions’ – racial, social, educational and economic. Such ‘multiple exclusions’ have been documented in England, where Parsons (1999), for example, has explored the link between ethnicity and school exclusions, and has documented the disproportionate numbers of minority ethnic students who find themselves permanently out of school.
Activity 3: Experience of a deficit perspective
Think about examples from your own experience where individuals or groups of learners have been viewed from ‘deficit’ perspectives. This is likely to relate to the left-hand side of Table 1 above. (You could also consider your own experiences as a learner.) What impact has that had on their (or your) experience of inclusion in particular learning contexts? Identify and note the extent to which these outcomes may be seen as positive and/or negative from the learner’s point of view.
Particular models of thinking can influence learning opportunities by restricting the expectations of both teachers and learners. Writing about the life stories of people who have experienced ‘special education’, Armstrong (2003) shows the impact of such models. He cites the case of Penny, who after leaving a special school, attended the special needs class at a local further education college. This is what happened when Penny decided that she wanted to join the full-time catering course in the ordinary college:
‘I went to see my tutor about the course but he doesn’t want me to do it. He wants me to go on a course that’s only one day a week. It’s all people from the special school. That’s not what I want to do but he’ll probably get his own way.’
Armstrong points out that the question for Penny was that of who was defining her interests. Decisions were being made about her based not on her views but on the professionals’ expectations of people with ‘learning difficulties’. Penny, however, was prepared to resist and decided to contact directly the teacher from the mainstream course. Speaking about her tutor, Penny commented:
‘What’s important to me is not important to him. He just wants me to do what he thinks is best for me. Because I’m in this centre it’s difficult to get into a main course and get what you want. It wasn’t even discussed at all whether I wanted to be in a mainstream situation or a separate situation. That’s what I would have liked. I would have liked them to discuss and ask me: “Would you like to have a go in mainstream, then if you find that you can’t do it, go and see the Assisted Learning Centre.” What I mean is students should have rights to be able to be listened to. Just to be listened to and not to be fobbed off all the time.’
Penny’s story raises questions about needs, rights and participation – all key areas of debate as we try to define inclusion. We might see all these as questions about relative power within education systems.
Activity 4: Penny’s needs
In this activity you are asked to consider how a pupil’s experiences of ‘special education’ have impacted on her later educational experiences and her view of self. Firstly. write down a short definition of Penny’s ‘needs’. Imagine that you are Penny. How would you define your own needs?
You should highlight the importance of looking at ‘needs’ from various perspectives: think about how different people ‘construct’ learning difficulties, based on their own personal and/or professional experiences.
Comment
In carrying out this activity you may have come to similar conclusions to those of Armstrong (2003). He comments that:
the definition of ‘needs’ in any given situation may arise from negotiations taking place between people with differing and sometimes conflicting interests (those of teachers, parents, other pupils, the LEA and the LEA’s professional advisers, for example).
What a professional may see as Penny’s ‘needs’ – such as small groups, a protected environment, amended materials – may not, for Penny herself, be seen as needs at all. From her perspective, her needs are for autonomy and decision-making power in her own life.
For Penny, other people’s expectations of her create a barrier to learning. Nevertheless, she challenges those expectations and has a strong sense of her own right to be listened to. She is claiming her right to participate in her education in the way she prefers. ‘Including Penny’ involves a fundamental shift in perspectives and expectations, one that requires changes in culture in individuals, classrooms and schools.
3 Transforming learning
Who is to be included?
Some critics have seen the focus on students with disabilities and difficulties in learning as distracting from the real issue, that is, the processes of inclusion and exclusion that leave many students, not simply those with disabilities, unable to participate in mainstream culture and communities (Booth, 1996). Such processes have an impact on many students, not just those with ‘special educational needs’.
In line with this way of thinking, the study of inclusion should be concerned with understanding and confronting the broader issue of marginalisation and the consequences of this process for marginalised groups. There is a range of groupings of learners who might be included here: traveller students, mature students, those living in poverty, minority linguistic and ethnic groups; very likely, you can think of others. The point is that we cannot consider these groups in isolation if we are aiming to make real changes in the way education works (Dyson, 2001).
Activity 5: Experiences of marginalisation
In your experience, what groups have you observed as likely to experience marginalisation? How has the learning context either contributed to or addressed that marginalisation? You may want to think about general groups of pupils in your school who are ‘different’ in some way from the majority. Your examples are likely to go beyond disability and learning difficulty, and may include, for example, students with linguistic and social differences.
If you are completing this learning in a group setting, then once you have marshalled your thoughts, spend some time explaining your examples to a friend. Does he or she agree with your analysis?
3.1 A broad view of inclusion
Definitions of ‘inclusion’ and ‘inclusive education’, then, have moved away from a specific focus on disability towards a broader view that encompasses students from minority ethnic or linguistic groups, from economically disadvantaged homes, or who are frequently absent or at risk of exclusion. ‘Inclusive education’ has come to mean the provision of a framework within which all children – whatever their ability, gender, language, ethnic or cultural origin – can be valued equally, treated with respect and provided with real learning opportunities. Inclusive education is about participation and equal opportunity for all – in other words, ‘full membership’ of school and, later, society. Such a view of inclusion presents a challenge to existing structures and systems that have themselves contributed to the barriers that learners experience.
Inclusion requires the transformation of learning contexts:
In the field of education, inclusion involves a process of reform and restructuring of the school as a whole, with the aim of ensuring that all pupils can have access to the whole range of educational and social opportunities offered by the school. This includes the curriculum on offer, the assessment, recording and reporting of pupils’ achievements, the decisions that are taken on the grouping of pupils within schools or classrooms, pedagogy and classroom practice, sport and leisure and recreational opportunities.
This process of transformation not only has radical implications for the way we think about the origins of learning and behavioural difficulties, but also requires ‘systemic change and a national policy’ (Mittler, 2000, p. 5). The wider social context of inclusive education, at both national and international levels, is a crucial element in our understanding of inclusion in schools.
3.2 From integration to inclusion
‘Inclusive education’, then, goes beyond ‘integration’ – a term which, until the late 1990s, was generally used to describe the process of repositioning a child or groups of children in mainstream schools. ‘Integration’ was a term used by organisations such as CSIE (originally called the Centre for Studies in Integration in Education) when seeking neighbourhood placements for all students, and implied the need for a student to adapt to the school, rather than for the school to transform its own practices. The onus for change appeared to be on those seeking to enter mainstream schools, rather than on mainstream schools adapting and changing themselves in order to include a greater diversity of pupils.
‘Inclusive education’ implies a radical shift in attitudes and a willingness on the part of schools to transform practices in pupil grouping, assessment and curriculum. The notion of inclusion does not set boundaries around particular kinds of disability or learning difficulty, but instead focuses on the ability of the school itself to accommodate a diversity of needs.
The shift from ‘integration’ to ‘inclusion’ is not simply a shift in terminology, made in the interests of political correctness, but rather a fundamental change in perspective. It implies a shift away from a ‘deficit’ model, where the assumption is that difficulties have their source within the child, to a ‘social’ model, where barriers to learning exist in the structures of schools themselves and, more broadly, in the attitudes and structures of society. Underlying the ‘inclusionary’ approach is the assumption that individual children have a right to participate in the experience offered in the mainstream classroom.
Daniels and Garner (1999) comment that while the concept of inclusion is not new, it has been given fresh impetus by increasingly ‘rights-based’ arguments that go beyond classrooms:
It is the recent widespread and increasingly vociferous demand to establish individual rights as a central component in policy-making that has provided the impetus to place inclusion firmly on the agenda of social change.
3.3 The Salamanca Statement
In 1994 over 300 participants – including 92 governments and 25 international organisations – met in Salamanca, Spain, with the purpose of furthering the objectives of inclusive education. The resulting Salamanca Statement (UNESCO, 1994) was framed by a rights-based perspective on education. Although the Statement focused on children described as having ‘special needs’, it asserted from the outset its commitment to:
Reaffirming the right to education of every individual, as enshrined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and renewing the pledge made by the world community at the 1990 World Conference on Education for All to ensure that right for all regardless of individual differences.
Later, in the section ‘Guidelines for Action at the National Level’, the Statement acknowledged that ‘most of the required changes do not relate exclusively to children with special educational needs’ (p. 21); rather, they are part of a wider reform of education needed to improve its quality and relevance and promote higher levels of learning achievement by all learners.
The Statement placed educational reform firmly within a broader social agenda that included health, social welfare and vocational training and employment. It emphasised that mechanisms for planning, monitoring and evaluating provision for inclusive education should be ‘decentralised and participatory’ and should encourage the ‘participation of parents, communities and organisations of people with disabilities in the planning and decision making’ (UNESCO, 1994, p. ix).
The Statement acknowledged that in many countries there were ‘well established systems of special schools for those with specific impairments’: these schools, it asserted, could ‘represent a valuable resource for the development of inclusive schools’ (UNESCO, 1994, p. 12). However, it urged countries without such a system to ‘concentrate their efforts on the development of inclusive schools’ (UNESCO, 1994, p. 13) alongside specialist support services to enable them to reach the majority of children and young people. All policies, both local and national, should ensure that children with disabilities could attend their neighbourhood school.
Evans et al. (1999) have noted that the Salamanca Statement and other United Nations proclamations have had a ‘powerful influence’ on international perspectives on inclusion.
3.4 Centre for studies on inclusive education (CSIE)
In the UK, the influence of the Salamanca Statement can be seen in the work of the Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education (CSIE), which defines inclusive education as principally a human rights issue. CSIE’s manifesto, ‘Ten reasons for inclusion’, states in its headline that ‘Inclusive education is a human right, it’s good education and it makes good social sense’ (CSIE, 2002). The manifesto then expands on the ‘human rights’ issue by providing a further list of imperatives:
- All children have the right to learn together
- Children should not be devalued or discriminated against by being excluded or sent away because of their disability or learning difficulty
- Disabled adults, describing themselves as special school survivors, are demanding an end to segregation
- There are no legitimate reasons to separate children for their education. Children belong together – with advantages and benefits for everyone. They do not need to be protected from each another
Elsewhere, CSIE poses the question, ‘Why do we need inclusion?’, and couches the answer in the terminology of human rights:
Because children – whatever their disability or learning difficulty – have a part to play in society after school. An early start in mainstream playgroups or nursery schools, followed by education in ordinary schools and colleges, is the best preparation for an integrated life.
Inclusive education is a moral imperative, it argues, because:
Disabled children have an equal right to membership of the same groups as everybody else. A segregated education restricts that right and limits opportunities for self-fulfilment. People with disabilities or learning difficulties do not need to be separated or protected.
While CSIE’s focus is primarily on young people with disabilities and learning difficulties, the organisation’s language is strongly resonant of the language of civil rights used, for example, in the United States in relation to equality of opportunity for black students since the 1950s. In particular, it echoes the crucial decision made in 1954 by the US Supreme Court, in Brown v. The Board of Education, which established not only that black children had a right to education but also that they had a right to the same education as that received by white children. In declaring that ‘separate can never be equal’, the Brown judgment led to a variety of affirmative-action policies in the US educational system, which had an impact not only on curriculum organisation and opportunities in US primary and secondary schools, but also on universities’ admissions policies.
3.5 Transforming learning in Wales – the Additional Learning Needs Code
The Welsh Government committed themselves to an ambitious overhaul of education policy in their ‘National Mission’ action plan for the period 2017-21. This suite of reforms includes developments in: professional learning and education for teachers; the professional teaching standards; assessment; inspection; school leadership and management practices and crucially for us here, in the curriculum. A cornerstone of the new curriculum is that it ‘must be appropriate to every learner in every classroom’, with ‘equity and excellence at its core’ that helps to ‘develop our young people as confident, capable and caring citizens’ (Welsh Government, 2017, p. 17). An integral part of this curriculum reform is the Additional Learning Needs Code, developed to help deliver the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2017. The vision for the ALN Code is to:
Support the creation of a fully inclusive education system where all learners are given the opportunity to succeed and have access to an education that meets their needs and enables them to participate in, benefit from, and enjoy learning.
As indicated in the ‘Overview of the draft additional learning needs code consultation’, much of 2018 and 2019 was earmarked for the development of the new ALN Code through various rounds of consultations and reviews with key stakeholders. Most prominent amongst these stakeholders were the children themselves. Welsh Government were then planning on rolling out the new code from 2020, with implementation training starting in January and the system going live in September of that year. The existing special educational needs and learning difficulties and/or disabilities system would run concurrently with the new code, until finally being phased out in 2023.
The ALN Code is addressing some of the higher level aims of the National Mission in Wales. These include helping all learners to be ambitious, enterprising, informed and confident when faced with the opportunities that come their way in the future. Another feature of the code is that it has been developed through a multi-agency approach, including health care professionals alongside educationalists, so offering the learner a more holistic and supportive school experience. The wishes, needs and feelings of the child are also central to the planning of their education experiences. Individual development plans (IDPs) that will eventually replace the ‘statement’ system, will stay with the child through their schooling and beyond, to the age of 25, to allow for a more bespoke and thorough educational provision. ‘Inclusive education’ is one of the five fundamental principles of the Code, where all children are supported to participate in ‘mainstream education’, with a ‘whole setting approach’ taken towards learners with ALN. (Welsh Government, 2018, p. 25)
With so many reforms underway simultaneously in education in Wales, it will not be easy to assess the impact of one discrete policy change. But taken as part of this broader suite of initiatives, the ALN Code should herald some positive changes for those children in Wales with additional learning needs. It may even help Wales to be at the vanguard of inclusive education.
4 Compulsory badge quiz
Now it’s time to complete the compulsory badge quiz, which includes eight questions.
You can open the quiz in a new window or table and return to the course when you are done.
Remember, this quiz counts towards your badge. If you’re not successful the first time, you can attempt the quiz again in 24 hours.
5 Conclusion
Commentators (e.g. Pijl et al., 1997) have described inclusive education as ‘a global agenda’. The persistence of the forces that marginalise individuals or groups of learners, and also the models that would categorise them in particular ways, makes the struggle for inclusion an ongoing one.
You will see why at the start of this section we felt it important to define what we and others may mean when we use the term ‘inclusion’. This is because understanding what the term means is constantly being redefined. The many different ‘stakeholders’ in education who use the term give it their own meaning, and it is important that you remain alert to changes in emphasis and intent.
Having read this unit you’ll see that we are discussing notions of what inclusive education might be. What we haven’t done at this point is to consider whether or not inclusive education is actually a ‘good thing’. Segregated and special education has a long history, and exerts a powerful influence on education (OU, 2003). It is easy to come across arguments against inclusive education either as a concept or in the way that it is being enacted. You may now feel more informed in your position as school governor, to ask questions about your school’s policy and ethos towards inclusive education and how it could continue to evolve and to improve.
References
Acknowledgements
This free course was written by Jeremy Wilcox, adapted from the OpenLearn course Inclusive education: knowing what we mean.
Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence.
The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons Licence). Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this free course:
Images
Cover image: teacher and children, monkeybusinessimages/iStock/Getty Images Plus; Section 1: group of children, FatCamera/Getty Images; Section 3: teacher and students, skynesher/Getty Images; Section 3.4: CSIE manifesto, Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education (CSIE) (2002) ‘Ten reasons for inclusion’ (poster), available at http://www.csie.org.uk/ resources/ ten-reasons-02.pdf; Section 3.5: children in school, SDI Productions/iStock/Getty Images Plus.
Tables
Table 1, Comparing the medical and social models of disability: Rieser, R. (2001) ‘The struggle for inclusion: the growth of a movement’, in L. Barton (ed.) Disability, Politics and Struggle for Change, London: David Fulton.
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