Inclusive Education for Sustainable Development: What Parents Have to Say

• In Event: Participant voices in inclusive education

Proposal

Parent consultation about inclusive education is encapsulated within the broad education for sustainable development framework and remains understudied in the Caribbean. The purpose of this qualitative research is to examine Barbadian and Vincentian parents' views on inclusive education. Building sustainable educational communities where all students have equal access to basic education is crucial for education and development in the Caribbean and Latin America. UNESCO’s Education for All and the Sustainable Development Goals 4 (SDG4) are the critical frameworks that informed this research. The main research questions were: How are students at your child's school different? And How do teachers support students’ learning at your child’s school? The implications for the education for sustainable development agenda are then considered.
Theoretical Perspective
The United Nations through UNESCO has made education for sustainable development a priority. Inclusion is at the heart of SDG4 which seeks to encourage the adoption of an equity and rights-based approach to increase access to and participation in education while reducing exclusion and discrimination. Research by Ainscow, Booth, and Dyson (2006) argues that “the idea of sustainability connects inclusion to the most fundamental aim of education: to prepare children and young people for sustainable ways of life within sustainable communities and environments” (Ainscow, Booth & Dyson, p.24). Building sustainable communities in school mean addressing school policies and practices that do not allow for participation of all children, especially those who are likely to experience segregation and discrimination within schools like children with disabilities. Parents, therefore, play an essential role in helping their children connect to their school and the wider community through advocacy and sensitization. This means bringing attention to school and system-wide policies and practices that do not support inclusivity, sustainable communities and, partnerships in education. Some of the more contentious issues in Caribbean education revolve around national assessment and secondary school placement based on the Common Entrance Examination results (De Lisle, 2012), zoning practices, and also using ability-based grouping (Hart, Dixon, Drummond & McIntyre, 2004) to organize students and assess academic ability. The international literature is clear that parent consultation and voice (Lamb, 2009) are essential aspects of parental involvement and therefore any approach to education reform like inclusion must engage parents as key stakeholders. Inclusive education affects school policies, practices and students directly and therefore how these factors influence the participation of children are of keen interest to parents (Sharma & Michael, 2017).
Methodology
This qualitative research uses phenomenology to describe the experiences of a purposive sample of 13 parents; from 1 primary school in St. Vincent (Male = 2, Female = 3) and two secondary schools in Barbados (Male =3 Female = 5) about inclusive practices at their children’s schools. One hour in-depth interviews were conducted using a semi-structured interview protocol with parents at their children’s schools at a time convenient to them. Miles, Huberman and Saldana’s (2014) four-stage inductive approach: first cycle coding, second cycle coding, data array table, and code weaving was then used to analyze the data from the study.
Findings
Four key themes emerged from the study and these were ‘School Performance and Citizenship,' ‘Building Sustainable Communities via the Curriculum,' ‘Going the Extra Mile,' ‘System and School Level Policies.' These themes revealed both areas for improvement and critical facilitators of education for sustainability and inclusion in selected schools in Barbados and St. Vincent.
Research Question 1: How are students at your child’s school different? The theme ‘School Performance and Citizenship’ suggests that parents mostly described differences between students based on performance indicators. Parents’ narratives revealed that grades and scores gained in national examinations dictated how differences between students were construed at their child’s school. Parents’ narratives on the theme ‘System and School Policies’ also indicated that policies needed to be amended at these two levels to facilitate sustainable education and inclusion at schools in the study.
Research Question 2: How do teachers (and management) support students’ learning at your child’s school? The theme ‘Building Sustainable Communities via the Curriculum’ captured parents’ narratives about how schools utilized the curriculum and extra-curricular activities instrumentally and or creatively to educate students about how to live sustainably in their communities and pursue courses of study that increased work readiness. ‘Going the Extra Mile’ captured parents’ views about how teachers sought to support and include more students academically in classrooms through providing additional lessons before, during and after school hours to ensure that students stayed on track and kept pace with their peers in school. Other practices that supported students included: teachers utilizing social media to communicate with students, school boards and PTA’s collecting monetary donations to assist students experiencing financial hardships and feeding programmes.
Scholarly Significance
Findings above represent an attempt to build scholarship on parents’ perspective of education for sustainable development and inclusion in the Caribbean islands of Barbados and St. Vincent. This is significant as the Caribbean continues to pursue inclusion against growing international advocacy by UNESCO. The study revealed both school and system policies and practices needed to be reformed to support inclusion (De Lisle, 2012) and education for sustainability. But, one can be optimistic in that some solutions that support inclusion (Sharma & Michael, 2017) and sustainability are identified through the curriculum, technology, leveraging school and PTA resources to assist students experiencing financial hardships.
References

Ainscow, M., Dyson, A., & Booth, T. (2009). Improving schools, developing inclusion. London, UK: Routledge.

De Lisle, J. (2012). Secondary school entrance examinations in the Caribbean: Legacy, policy, and evidence within an era of seamless education. Caribbean Curriculum,19, 109-143

Hart, S., Dixon, A., Drummond, M. J., & McIntyre, D. (2004). Learning without limits. Maidenhead, Berkshire: Open University Press.

Miles, M. B., Huberman, M., & Saldaña, J. (2014). Qualitative data analysis: A methods sourcebook. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.


Lamb, B. (2009). Lamb Inquiry: special educational needs and parental confidence: report to the Secretary of State on the Lamb Inquiry review of SEN and disability information. 01143-2009DOM-EN.Nottingham: DCSF Publications.


Sharma, U., & Michael, S. (2017). Parental Perspective about Inclusive Education in the Pacific. In Working with Families for Inclusive Education: Navigating Identity, Opportunity and Belonging (pp. 71-86). Doi https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-363620170000010010

Authors

• Stacey Nataha Jillian Blackman, University of the West Indies

• Kenneth Williams, School for International Training

• Theresa Abo-Deeb Gentile, University of Hartford

• Dennis A. Conrad, SUNY Potsdam