Full Inclusion or Bust: Implications for Barbados and Trinidad

• In Event: 47.095 - MTCC Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: 47.095-13 - Universal Principles and Practices in Education: Models to Follow or Tyranny?

Abstract

Full inclusion remains problematic to achieve in many international and emerging contexts. UNESCO’s promotion of full inclusion via the 1989 Convention for the Rights of the Child, the 1994 Salamanca Framework for Action for Children with Special Needs, and Education for All initiatives presented an idealized view for the democratic participation of all children in education. Despite its many proponents (Lipsky & Gartner, 2013; Sailor, McCart & Choi, 2018) it equally garners skepticism from opponents and moderates who call for a more temperate approach (Kauffman, Felder, Ahrbeck, Badar & Schneiders, 2018) to end discrimination and exclusion of children, especially those with disabilities. Such polarization is also evident in countries' responses to education placement. While some countries of the North, like Italy, responded enthusiastically by ending segregated schooling for the most excluded groups since 1977 (Anastasiou, Kauffman & Nuovo, 2018), emerging countries of the South, like Barbados and Trinidad, adopted a tiered approach to education that included special schools and units (Blackman, 2017; Carrington-Blaides & Conrad, 2017). The purpose of this paper is to problematize the term full inclusion and critically examine its possibilities for implementation in post-colonial contexts like Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago.

The organization of many post-colonial education systems in the English-Speaking Caribbean promotes segregation through streaming. Education placement for children with special needs still includes special schools, units, residential care and, to a lesser extent, regular education. The continued maintenance of this continuum is at variance with full inclusion models and definitions which suggest reform to maximize the participation of all children in regular education. Even where ‘seamless education’ is a stated policy, as in Trinidad and Tobago, resistance, lack of resources, and an entrenched bureaucracy keep the walls of segregation and exclusion intact (Bristol, 2012; Brown & Lavia, 2013; Conrad & Brown (2011). The challenge is to recognize the trajectory of change in inclusive practice and to identify a means of bridging idealism and reality in efforts to facilitate an optimal inclusive education. A post-colonial and critical theory lens is used to examine the implications of implementing full inclusion.

Methods and data sources include a review of available national policies, research literature, and results reported in case studies from UNICEF’s out of school project, and through document analysis determine the realities, challenges, and possible implications for implementing full inclusion in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago.

Results indicate that radical approaches to achieving full inclusion in Barbados, Trinidad, and Tobago require a paradigmatic shift in thinking about education. This is necessary to move schools, policy, and practices towards reform that is data-driven and supported by advocacy, fiscal responsibility, policy, and legislation. Emergent indicators suggest that this might be accomplished through a streamlined program of sensitization projects, professional development, teacher education, and leadership development that includes:
• A review of the role of education in colonized and post/neo- colonial spaces
• Reflective praxis and experiential opportunities affording a review of individual dispositions and mission
• Understanding the role of litigation and advocacy in facilitating legislative and political commitment to equitable education

Authors

• Stacey Natasha Jillian Blackman, University of the West Indies

• Dennis Conrad, State University of New York

• Launcelot Brown, Duquesne University