Educational Inclusion Battle Front and Back
It's a good moment for A. Ghai's enquiry about Inclusion Lit. After the
boom years of "Inclusivism" (c. 1993-2000) based on ideological rhetoric,
various kinds of research study have been trickling down the pipe. As has
occurred at this stage in the careers of some similar movements, the result
is total confusion...
Below, a small sample of critical lit is described, but first, two caveats:
(i) North America may be on a different Inclusion career path -- and I
believe there are significant diffs between the US and Canada -- and a lot
of (English language) terminology is established over there with meanings
differing from the way the terms are (mis-)used in Europe. North America
should be treated as a case by itself -- I'm not offering a treatment,
because I don't understand enough about it, and there are big resources
already up. (See ERIC site, free on the web - but the website is just
about to be relaunched on 1st Sept, with new bells, whistles and tactical
nukes. ERIC has tried to keep up to date a summary guide, "Inclusion: Pros
and Cons", with abstracts of articles on various perspectives.)
A sample of the battleground (contra) lit from N.America would be:
JM Kauffman & DP Hallahan (1995) _The Illusion of Full Inclusion. A
Comprehensive Critique of a Current Special Education Bandwagon_. Austin,
Tx: Pro-Ed.
This comprises 18 chapters pulled together from about 30 years of
battle, the American history of which is also given. (This has not been a
popular text with the Inclusionista Liberation Front). And more recently:
Kavale, K.A. (2002) Mainstreaming to Full Inclusion: from orthogenesis to
pathogenesis of an idea. _Intl J. Disabil. Develop. & Educ._ 49: 201-214.
(ii) In European, Asian and Africa lit, there is a huge range in what
people think they mean when they use various terms, such as "integration"
and "inclusion", so it is hard to compare what people are writing (even
among the 10% who attempt to write clearly), across different countries, or
even within one large country. Broadly speaking, a useful distinction can
be made (but often isn't made) between these two key terms:
"Integration" is where you try to fit some CWD into the actual,
existing, mediocre schools that you've already got, banging square pegs
into round holes, round pegs into triangular holes, making a few
adjustments like ramps and large-print work sheets, and sending a few
teachers on courses, provided it doesn't all cost too much and there aren't
too many protests from Pushy Middle-Class Mums who don't want their own kid
infected with leprosy or whatever, and the National Teachers' Union doesn't
go berserk. (Everyone, of course, ignores the fact that millions of CWD
have been casually integrated in ordinary schools for as long as anyone can
remember, without much notice being taken -- they are there for a while,
and they mostly drop out after a few years, just like hundreds of millions
of other kids. Some stay, pass their exams, and no more is heard of them).
"Inclusion" is where you already tried "Integration" and found the
results unsatisfactory and nobody really wanted it in practice. You
realised that to get anywhere with it, there has to be a Complete
Revolution in society and a Radical Rethink of what schools are all about,
and a redesign of the whole thing From Top to Bottom. But since you aren't
Chairman Mao, and aren't actually prepared to kill people or die bravely on
the front line while Making the World Safe for Inclusion, you have to
campaign mostly on the ideological front, capturing and redefining the
terminology, (e.g. "special education" becomes "a medieval form of torture
practised by evil paedophiles"), establish some beautiful Model Schools
where Inclusion can be Seen Working, and persuade the world that This Is
The Future.
****
Peter Evans (2003) Aspects of the Integration of Handicapped and
Disadvantaged Students into Education. Evidence from Quantitative and
Qualitative Data. OECD/CERI
Evans gives a useful idea of the huge variety of what is actually
going on in the world's economically stronger countries (where basically,
if successive governments really want to do something different in
education, they can afford to do whatever they have in mind), from e.g.
Belgium and Czechoslovakia where 90-95 % of CWD are in special schools, to
Italy and Canada, where 97-99% of CWD are in regular classes -- and
everything in between. There is a useful differentiation between different
levels of 'D' in 'CWD', and some quite sensible analysis of why and how
some of the changes are taking place, and some of the results.
A. Dyson (1999) Inclusion and inclusions: theories and discourses in
inclusive education. In: Daniels & Garner, _World Yearbook of Education
1999. Inclusive Education_ , 36-53. Kogan Page.
Dyson teases out the underlying theories and sentiments that cause
people to disagree on both the terminology and their intended destination.
This piece appears in the Daniels & Garner collection on Inclusion, which
also gives a good run round the field up to c. 1998.
Meng Deng & G. Manset (2000) Analysis of the "Learning in Regular
Classrooms" movement in China. _Mental Retardation_ 38: 124-130.
Everything that China does is on a vast scale, and China has taken
vast steps toward getting more CWD (like, more than 50% of them) into
ordinary classrooms. (What they do, once they are there, is another vast
question. It is known that some of them don't do a vast amount of
anything...)
L. Barton (1997) Inclusive education: romantic, subversive or realistic?
_Intl. J. Inclusive Educ._ 1: 231-242.
In UK, the rhetoric was already beginning to lose its shine in the
mid-90s, as Inclusion ran headlong into the contrary wave of "Raising
Standards in Schools", i.e. ensuring that Britain would acquire a work-
force of skilled, hungry, competitive, numerate and multilingual
entrepreneurs by the year 2500, to replace the present half-baked, class-
ridden, monoglot generation of defeatists and surrender monkeys who wish to
hand the country over to be run by a bunch of faceless sprouts in
Brussels; or failing that, by Singapore.
[No, Len Barton didn't draw all these conclusions.]
A. Azzopardi (2003) Inclusive education and the denial of difference: is
this the Cottonera experience? Exploring whether the discourse of inclusive
education has been hijacked by concerns over standards. _Intl. J. Inclusive
Educ._ 7: 159-174.
As the wonderful title suggests, this covers something like Len
Barton's fears, but transferred to Malta. (Small, and perfectly formed;
but not Singapore).
Colin Low (1997) Is inclusivism possible? _Europ. J. Spec. Needs Educ._ 12:
71-79.
Low thinks No. At any rate, he resists the headlong rush to the
latest half-witted, utopian-elitist global goal, and gives reasons. One is
that, when you've decided all schools should be wonderful, inclusive, fully
skilled and fitted-out to accommodate all the glorious diversity of
childhood, and you start towards this goal by shutting down the nasty,
segregative, special schools that have been hoarding special skills and
expensive apparatus, so that the resultant huge budget gains may instead be
spread out for everyone's benefit, what may actually happen is that the
government continues with the rhetoric of Schools For All, but decides it
might as well save the money and just let the funny-shaped kids be banged
into any existing holes that can be found, and then goes round with a
knife, trimming off any bits that don't fit in.
J. Visser & S. Stokes (2003) Is education ready for the inclusion of pupils
with emotional and behavioural difficulties? _Educational Review_ 55: 65-
75.
Again, the answer is No. The authors actually focus on their own
little patch. But on the broader ground, while teachers may, with some
trouble, be persuaded to adjust their teaching to accommodate the needs of
rather more kids with mild vision, hearing or movement impairments, while
still following the National Curriculum Targets and their annually-
inflating Exam Success Targets etc, the last thing they're gonna welcome is
kids offering Severe Behavioural Challenge, who are (or whom they regard
as) liable to do bodily harm, escalating on Friday afternoons to grievous
bodily harm, to teachers and fellow-pupils, etc.
Simon Haskell (1998) Inclusive Schooling: the contemporary cultural
imperialism of Western ideologues.
Not sure whether Haskell has managed to get this one published
anywhere; but he has given this kind of paper at a few conferences, and
really the title says it all. (I believe he co-chairs, or used to do so,
the Education Commission of Rehab International).
****
Some of the above, and more, papers and books on Inclusion and Resistance
are reviewed at:
http://www.disabilityworld.org/11-12_03/resources/bookreviews.shtml
A further dozen studies, in various developing countries, that take a
critical view of inputs and outcomes:
Arbeiter, S. & Hartley, S. (2002) Teachers' and pupils' experiences of
integrated education in Uganda. _Intl J. Disabil., Develop. & Educ._ 49: 61-
78.
Engelbrecht, P. et al. (2003) Including learners with intellectual
disabilities: stressful for teachers? _Intl J. Disabil. Develop. & Educ._
50: 293-308. [South Africa]
Friere, S. & Cesar, M. (2003) Inclusive ideals / inclusive practices: how
far is a dream from reality? Five comparative case studies. _Europ. J.
Spec. Needs Educ._ 18: 341-54. [Portugal]
Kristensen, K., Omagor-Loican, M. & Onen, N. (2003) The inclusion of
learners with barriers to learning and development into ordinary school
settings: a challenge for Uganda. _British J. Spec. Educ._ 30: 194-201.
Lomofsky, L. & Lazarus, S. (2001) South Africa: first steps in the
development of an inclusive education system. _Cambridge J. Education_ 31:
303-317.
Moberg, S. & Savolainen, H. (2003) Struggling for inclusive education in
the North and the South: educators' perceptions on inclusive education in
Finland and Zambia. _Intl J. Rehab. Research_ 26: 21-31.
Mpofu, E.(2003) Enhancing social acceptance of early adolescents with
physical disabilities: effects of role salience, peer interaction, and
academic support interventions. _Intl J. Disabil., Develop. & Educ. 50: 435-
54. [Zimbabwe]
Mushoriwa, T. (2001) A study of attitudes of primary school teachers in
Harare towards the inclusion of blind children in regular classes. _Brit.
J. Spec. Educ._ 28: 142-47.
Okech, J.B. (2000) Teachers and teaching approaches for children with
mental retardation under inclusive setting in Uganda. _African J. Special
Needs Education_ 5: 79-87.
Opdal, L.R., Wormnaes, S. & Habayeb, A. (2001) Teachers' opinions about
inclusion: a pilot study in a Palestinian context. _Intl J. Disabil.,
Develop. & Educ._ 48: 143-62.
Pearson, V., Yu-Cheung Wong & Pierini, J. (2002) The structure and content
of social inclusion: voices of young adults with learning difficulties in
Guangzhou. _Disabil. & Socy_ 17: 365-82.
Wong, D.K.P. (2002) Struggling in the mainstream: the case of Hong Kong.
_Intl J. Disabil. Develop. & Educ._ 49: 79-94.
m99m
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