Inclusion and Exclusion (26 documents)

AHUJA, A. (n.d.) Building for inclusion-BRAC, Bangladesh. Enabling Education Network.
Bangladesh is on the verge of celebrating thirty years of independence. We can say with confidence that substantial progress has been made in expanding primary education. Net enrolment in the formal education system is now 85%, it was 55% in 1985. But it has not been easy. A huge population, gender discrimination, abject poverty, environmental and natural disasters resulting from floods, high child and maternal mortality are some of the major obstacles to progress. This article explores the lessons to be learnt for inclusion from the Bangladesh Rural Development Committee (BRAC)'s Non- Formal Priamry Education Programme (NFPE). (Cited from the article)
Document available online

AINSCOW, M. (2007) Taking an inclusive turn. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 7, 3-7.
This special edition of the journal focuses on what is, arguably, the biggest challenge facing education systems, that of developing practices that will reach out to those learners who are failed by existing arrangements. Specifically, the papers look at ways of using the views of stakeholders in order to move schools and other centres of learning in a more inclusive direction.
Document available online

BOOTH, T. & AINSCOW, M. (2007) Breaking down the barriers: the index for inclusion. Bristol, Centre for Studies in Inclusive Education.
The Index is a set of materials to support schools in a process of inclusive school development, drawing on the views of staff, governors, school students, parents/carers and other community members. It is concerned with improving educational attainments through inclusive practice and thus provides an attempt to redress a balance in those schools which have concentrated on raising student attainment at the expense of the development of a supportive school community for staff and students (Abstract an extract from the paper)

CAMPBELL, C. (2002) Conceptualisations and definitions of inclusive schooling. In CAMPBELL, C. (Ed.) Developing Inclusive Schooling: perspectives, policies and practices. London, Institute of Education, University of London.
This report provides a summary of the ‘Review of Developments in Inclusive Schooling’, commissioned by the Scottish Executive Education Department.

CAMPBELL, C., GILLBORN, D., VINCENT, C., LUNT, I., SAMMONS, P., WARREN, S., WHITTY, G. & ROBERTSON, P. (2001) Developments in inclusive schooling. Interchange 66. Scottish Executive Education Department.
This paper provides an overview of significant developments and summarizes emerging research findings relevant to perspectives, policies and practices associated with promoting inclusive schooling for all.
Document available online

DEI, G. J. S. (2005) The challenge of inclusive schooling in Africa: a Ghanaian case study. Comparative Education, 41, 267 - 289.
This paper explores how African learners and educators work with difference and diversity in schooling populations. Using a Ghanaian case study the paper offers lessons on/about how local discourses relating to ‘inclusivity and nation building', ‘minority' and ‘difference' can inform debates about educational change and guide broad policy initiatives in pluralistic settings. While difference is affirmed, in some circles it can be said Ghanaian educators have not necessarily been responsive. It is contended that Ghanaian, and for that matter, African education, since historical times, has been approached in terms of its fundamental contribution to national development. In emphasizing the goal of post-independence national integration, ‘postcolonial' education in Africa has denied heterogeneity in local populations as if difference itself was a problem. With this orientation education has undoubtedly helped create and maintain the glaring disparities and inequities; structured along lines of ethnicity, culture, language, religion, gender and class, which persist and grow. By pointing to how local subjects (educators, learners and policy-makers) link identity, schooling and knowledge production this paper implicates the search for genuine educational options or alternatives for Africa. (Abstract by author)

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION OF REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA (2001) Education White Paper 6: Special needs education: Building an inclusive education and training system. Pretoria, Department of Education.
Document available online

DYER, C. (2007) Working children and educational inclusion in Yemen. International Journal of Educational Development, 27, 512-524.
The Republic of Yemen has a very high number of working children, employed in a variety of occupations, ranging from street vending to guards on farms, and domestic labour. Including these children in formal education is a major challenge facing the Republic, which has one of the lowest rates of female participation in primary education in the world, and a very underdeveloped non-formal sector. In a context where poverty levels are very high, particularly in rural areas, families remain under significant financial pressure to rely on children's work to supplement, or indeed provide, their income and survival. This broader context challenges school-based efforts to include working children, particularly where initiatives aiming to improve the quality of the formal system are only just beginning to make an impact. This paper discusses key challenges of providing education to working children in Yemen, focusing on the work of the International Labour Organisation's International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) and some of the issues that it faces in using schooling as a strategy to prevent child labour.

DYSON, A. (1999) Inclusion and inclusions: theories and discourses in inclusive education. In DANIELS, H. & GARNER, P. (Eds.) World yearbook of education 1999: Inclusive Education. London, Kogan Page.

ENGELBRECHT, P., OSWALD, M. & FORLIN, C. (2006) Promoting the implementation of inclusive education in primary schools in South Africa. British Journal of Special Education, 33, 121-129.
The British Index for Inclusion was selected to be used in three primary schools in the Western Cape Province in South Africa in order to develop a South African model to assist in the development of inclusive schools. The authors drew out the following five themes from the three sets of data: an inclusive school philosophy; democratic leadership, structures, processes and values; collaboration; addressing learner diversity; and resources. Petra Engelbrecht, Marietjie Oswald and Chris Forlin, all of whom were working on a UNESCO-funded project to trial the use of the Index for Inclusion in South Africa, suggest that these themes provided invaluable insights into both the common and unique complexities, the problems and the assets of the different school communities. The themes are discussed in detail in this article, raising fascinating issues for the development of inclusion in different contexts around the world, and will be used to inform the three remaining phases of the Index for Inclusion process. (Abstract an extract from paper)
Document available online

LINDSAY, G. (2003) Inclusive education: a critical perspective. British Journal of Special Education, 30, 3-1
The Gulliford Lecture 2002 was given by Professor Geoff Lindsay, Director of the Centre for Educational Development, Appraisal and Research (CEDAR) at the University of Warwick. Professor Lindsay's lecture, on which this paper is based, addressed a number of key topics, including the development of inclusion and inclusive practices; models of special educational needs and disability; and the values that underpin our thinking about these matters. Basing his argument on the research evidence, Professor Lindsay provides a searching critique of prevailing notions about inclusion and of current approaches to research. His conclusions will be of interest to everyone concerned with the education of children and young people with special educational needs (Abstract by author/s)
Document available online

MARIGA, L. & PHACHAKA, L. (1993) Integrating Children with Special Needs into regular Primary Schools in Lesotho: Report of a feasibility study. Sponsored by UNICEF.
The paper reports on the existence of children with special educational needs, the types of disabilities, attitudes of teacher, pupils and parents and facilities available to these learners in Lesotho. It problematises the policy of integrating children with disabilities into the education system in Lesotho, noting that such children not only suffer negative attitudes from others but also cannot gain attention in the conventional school system.

MUTEPFA, M. M., MPOFU, E. & CHATAIKA, T. (2007) Inclusive Education in Zimbabwe: Policy, Curriculum, Practice, Family, and Teacher Education Issues. Childhood Education, 83, 342-347.
In the Zimbabwean context, inclusive education involves the identification and minimization or elimination of barriers to students' participation in traditional settings (i.e., schools, homes, communities, and workplaces) and the maximization of resources to support learning and participation (Chimedza & Peters, 1999; Mpofu, 2004). In school settings, successful inclusion results in students' and their families' participation in the regular activities of the school community while meeting their unique needs, as well as contributing to the development of the school community. This article considers aspects of curriculum and classroom practices, the role of families, teacher preparation, and government policies that influence qualities of inclusive education, as practiced in Zimbabwe. Although inclusive practice is supported by government policy documents, successful implementation is yet to be a common reality, due to a lack of commitment by policymakers towards learners with disabilities. The authors recommend consideration of models that have proven successful in other national and international settings for adaptation while examining the sociocultural features of the countries/regions.

PENDLEBURY, S., ENSLIN, P. & LELLIOTT, A. (2000) Promises of access and inclusion: online education in Africa. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 34, 41-52.
Document available online

PETERS, S. (2004) Inclusive Education: An EFA strategy for all children.
Based on the fundamental principle of EFA that all children should have the opportunity to learn and that diversity is a characteristic that all children and youth have in common—both within each individual child and across individual children, the report advocates for greater commitment to inclusive education (IE) among the countries of the world and the bridging of the artificial continental divide between ‘special’ and ‘regular’ education. It maintains that arguments of excess costs no longer justify exclusion. Children in poverty and children with impairments, and all marginalized children (whether due to language, religion, race, ethnicity, or gender) do not have to be disadvantaged by their treatment in schools or by exclusion from schools. It further argues that progress towards EFA should be measured against the provision to the most vulnerable in society -conditions of marginalized children at the edge of a society reveal more about the state and progress of a society than conditions at the middle.

PETERS, S., JOHNSTONE, C. & FERGUSON, P. (2005) A disability rights in education model for evaluating inclusive education. International Journal of Inclusive Education. 9, 139 - 160.
Current models for evaluating inclusive education programs tend to examine surface-level stricture of day-to-day practices in the organization and operation of schools and also lack significant input from disabled people. In response, the authors have developed a DRE Model to understand and evaluate effective Inclusive education that is derived from reports of international consumer organizations such as Disabled People’s International, Inclusion International, and the World Institute on Disability. The DRE Model draws from the interdisciplinary field of disability studies and is based on the philosophy that disability must be approached in its full social dimension as one of the central elements in every culture’s response to the full range of human difference. Conceptually, the DRE Model allows people to look at developments in Inclusive Education across widely disparate local and international contexts. An inclusive education project in Lesotho is described and analysed to explain the DRE Model’s dynamic processes more concretely, and to demonstrate its potential utility for evaluation and future planning.

RUSTEMIER, S. (2002) Inclusion Information Guide. CSIE.

SAYED, Y. (2002) Exclusion and Inclusion in the South with special reference to South Africa. 46th Comparative and International Education Society. Orlando, Florida.
This working paper examines whether the concept of social exclusion, including educational exclusion, adds values to the understanding of poverty. It focuses on educational exclusion and inclusion in South Africa. The paper states that the issues are complex and that educational inclusion requires careful consideration of every aspect of schooling and societal context. Innovative approaches to educational inclusion will need to address issues at macro, micro, personal, and interpersonal levels. Connections between school and community cultures have to be drawn, as well as connections between educational and community programs of inclusion. The concepts of inclusion and exclusion press for much closer conscious and self-conscious consideration of identity and role: who is doing the excluding and including; who is choosing the excluding and including; how these processes of inclusion and exclusion are facilitated; and what are the dominant views and relations of social, economic, and political power. The paper emphasizes the importance of such interrogation at the levels of research and policy formation to ensure that these processes are aware of ways in which they may implicitly perpetuate injustices. (Abstract by author)
Document available online

SAYED, Y. & SOUDIEN, C. (2003) (Re) Framing Education Exclusion and Inclusion Discourses: Limits and Possibilities. IDS Bulletin, 34, 9-19.
This article examines discourses of educational inclusion and exclusion that inform current debates. It looks at the diverse and contested meanings of the concepts and argues that the key weakness of current understandings is their failure to adequately engage with social justice concerns. It maps out a tentative 'interlocking framework' which underpins the educational inclusion and exclusion research project, and concludes by mapping some key policy issues that relate to the concepts. (Abstract by author/s)
Document available online

SAYED, Y. & SOUDIEN, C. (2005) Decentralisation and the construction of inclusion education policy in South Africa. Compare, 35, 115-125.
This paper critically reviews the ways in which the policy of education decentralisation in post-apartheid South Africa results in both forms of inclusion and new forms of exclusion. Drawing on a two-year research project carried out in three provinces in South Africa, it shows how in the governance of schools, new forms of exclusion are being generated. It thus throws into sharp relief the policy effects of education decentralisation in South Africa, illuminating through case study data the disjuncture between policy intention and effect. It argues for the need to re-examine some aspects of post-apartheid education policy given the historical apartheid legacy. It suggests that often, in practice, policies of education decentralisation may exacerbate rather than reduce inequities in society; they may exclude more than include. (Abstract by author/s)
Document available online

SAYED, Y., SOUDIEN, C. & CARRIM, N. (2003) Discourses of exclusion and inclusion in the South: limits and possibilities. Journal of Educational Change, 4, 231-248.
The primary purpose of the article is to look at how current thinking in the social sciences conceptualizes discourses of inclusion and exclusion in education and what the value of this thinking is for policy development in countries like South Africa and India. The article argues that the main conceptual weakness of current understandings is a failure to adequately engage with social justice concerns. While current approaches promote the achievement of certain kinds of rights, they are often complicit in the denial of others. This is because, the article seeks to show, the policy text in many countries, including countries of the South, invariably defines individuals and groups in essentialized terms and fails to engage with the complexity of their identities. (Abstract by author/s)

SOOKRAJH, R., GOPAL, N. & MAHARAJ, B. (2005) Interrogating inclusionary and exclusionary practices: learners of war and flight. Perspectives in Education, 23, 1-13.
There has been a significant increase in the number of undocumented people entering South Africa. A number of them include refugees. Many refugees are destitute and often denied basic needs such as health and education. Besides intentional exclusion by citizens and authorities, some immigrant children are precluded from education because they cannot gain access to schooling. This article captures the possibilities and constraints that are experienced by a selected group of refugee learners, in a school in which these children find themselves. The methodology derives from powerful narratives which are used as tools to analyse exclusionary and inclusionary practices, the relationship between which is presented as bi-directional. It is argued that the notion of exclusion and inclusion is multilayered. Different constructs of inclusion are developed around the thought, practices and experiences of refugee learners within the hosting school community. It is argued that what is offered by the school is a strikingly conservative discourse of perceived inclusion in the ways in which refugee learner practices get constructed. A theory of enforced humanitarianism emerges on the part of the school. It is only when we change this perspective on vulnerability that we are able to accept a more creative and effective way of including refugee learners who constantly believe that they are present in one place, but belong somewhere else. (Abstract by author/s)

TOPPING, K. & MALONEY, S. (2005) The Routledge Falmer Reader in Inclusive Education. London, Routledge Falmer.
This invaluable text draws together an impressive selection of articles on inclusion from a broad base to bring clarity and lucidity to a complicated subject. While the majority of available texts deal with inclusive education within narrow parameters, this book aims to extend our understanding of inclusion by discussing issues of race, social disadvantage, gender, and other factors. It successfully integrates rigorous theorizing and sound empirical research with clear, accessible, and practical guidance for the practitioner. Each chapter ends with questions and issues for onward reflection. The book also includes an annotated list of further reading designed to prompt readers to develop their own successful systematic research.

UNESCO (2005) Guidelines for Inclusion, Paris, UNESCO.
This paper is intended to systematize how excluded children are planned for in education. It begins with a brief introduction, which provides a historical perspective on the origins of inclusion and describes the shift from integration towards inclusion. It is then divided into three main parts. The first provides a theoretical framework. It defines inclusion, explains how it is founded in a human rights approach and how is relates to factors such as quality and cost- effectiveness. The second part looks at more practical changes at the school level. It outlines the key elements in the shift towards inclusion with a particular focus on the key players including teachers, parents and educational policymakers as well as curricula. The third part brings together the first two sections by providing tools for policymakers and educational planners for hands-on analysis of education plans. These guidelines are intended to provide information and awareness, to be a policy tool for revising and formulating EFA plans, and to serve as a basis for discussion among policymakers, educators, NGOs and international organizations impacting policy in both private and public education and concerned with promoting access for ALL learners. These guidelines attempt to demystify the notions surrounding inclusion and demonstrate that challenges can be overcome through a willingness to change attitudes regarding inclusion. By following these guidelines, those working with and analyzing National Plans for Education can identify gaps and strategies in order to take steps to ensure that inclusion is achieved within their educational systems and that every child has access to a quality education. (Abstract an extract from the paper)
Document available online

WARE, L. (2004) Ideology and the politics of (in) exclusion.New York, Peter Lang.

WEDELL, K. (2005) Dilemmas in the quest for inclusion. British Journal of Special Education, 32, 3-11.
In this article, Professor Wedell places some of the ideas he discussed in 1995 in a contemporary context. He explores the systemic rigidities that create barriers to inclusion; he offers creative ideas for new ways to approach the challenges of inclusion; and he argues persuasively for much greater flexibility, at a range of levels, in order to facilitate change, development and innovation. Building on these themes, Professor Wedell summarises a series of implications for policy and practice. These concern teaching and learning; staffing and professional expertise; and grouping and locations for learning. In concluding his article, Professor Wedell calls on the Government to consider in more depth the issues that are raised by moves towards inclusion – particularly those issues that concern the individual learner in relation to the shared curriculum. This article will be of interest to anyone who recognises these and other tensions in the movement towards inclusion.
Document available online