Behind the buzzwords: Inclusion

Talking about ‘inclusion’ can lead to some heated discussion. ‘Inclusion is all very well’, someone said to me in a school the other week, ‘but we can’t take everyone, we just don’t have the resources. Some special needs children really should be in a separate school where they know what they are doing. And, I know you shouldn’t say this, but we’ve got to watch our SATs scores...’ Someone saying the unmentionable and, in the process, touching on several important key issues that deserve unpacking.

Inclusion or integration?
First of all, it is sometimes assumed that inclusion is about special needs. ‘Inclusion’ sections in bookshops, or in publishers’ catalogues, certainly goes along with this. Last year my book came out: Partnerships for Inclusive Education, published by Routledge. To write the first chapter I looked at what lots of different people were saying about inclusion – about what it is. I found some definitions focused only on how children with special or additional needs can be supported in mainstream. I think this is a very useful starting point – but this for me is integration not inclusion. I know parents who believe in inclusion, but know their child needs special provision – and ‘place’ definitions, to do with support in mainstream, inaccurately position such parents outside understandings of inclusion.

A few years ago I was part of a regional working party looking at inclusion in the North East of England – and was fascinated and delighted by the variety of perspectives on this ideal – everyone looked at inclusion in very different ways. Even a cursory look at the DFCS website banishes a narrow view of inclusion. The website does talk about meeting children’s special educational needs – but there are also items about how we can think about children in care who are gifted and talented, there is a list of legislation that includes provision for English as an additional language,
and there is reference to what schools in areas of disadvantage, where children are most likely to be underachieving, could be doing. This is far wider than ‘SEN’.

Schools and learning is problematic in different ways for many children and young people. Mohammed, who is a taxi driver in London, is sending his son to school in Nigeria to live with relatives, because he is very concerned that his son won’t do well here and he worries about the youth culture he sees developing for some of the young people where he lives in England. Euan is 14 and is told he does not try – he says this is because he cannot easily spell and write. His teachers know he is very articulate, but he doesn’t seem to get things down on page. Neat books are praised by the headteacher in assembly, and a lot of quite bright children listening feel they can’t match up to this. Chantelle attends a school that’s in special measures – but is considered ‘posh’ by other classmates and, though she always gets high marks, no one thinks of her as bright. Chloe is in the gifted and talented group at school but does not like being singled out for extra days of interesting projects. When her gay son is grown up, Sue learns that he used to hate school and that school made him feel he did not belong in society. These are the voices – alongside those of teachers and other professionals – that need listening to.

Making inclusion work in today’s society
Inclusion isn’t just about making sure there are the proper resources and training so that teachers can give children ‘appropriate’ work. Inclusion is about children in today’s society trying to manage their identities when there are harsh penalties for some of the ways they live their lives. It is about teachers stressed with having to drive through the curriculum in response to the call for higher standards while also wanting to recognise that everyone in their class is an interesting individual who learns in such different ways.

What ‘inclusion’ does today is to give us a very strong ideal to place alongside the drive for standards. It is many things. In some schools the shorthand for inclusion concerns is ‘SEN’ – in others it’s the extended schools strategy. It is a process – an umbrella sheltering a number of ways of thinking critically about schools, about the curriculum, about learning and about people – to help us to make education something that everyone can access. ‘Standards!’, I suggest, makes us act now, quickly, to cover the curriculum or to practise assessments. On the other hand, Inclusion gives us the rationale for actions in school that are likely to enhance engagement with learning, but may take some time.

Raised awareness
Inclusion is about participation – it is about finding ways to listen to the voices of particular children, parents and teachers. It also means raised awareness so we can notice where the voices of, among others, gender, race, disability, class and sexuality find expression in a manner that sits well with diversity and justice. And, taking action in classrooms and staff rooms to make this expression more likely. It means having a pupil participation policy that is more than tokenistic. It means seeing the contract between parents and the school as a process, a conversation. Seeing schools, not parents, as hard to reach. It means being prepared to ask critical questions about how we practice as teachers and other professionals in schools. So that everyone can see themselves as learners with much to offer the school and the wider society. And this is where I ended up, seeing inclusion as making learning accessible to everyone through a process, raised awareness, action and challenge.