Does everybody suffer? Inclusive and Special Education and the Question of Equity in Education portrayed by teachers in Finland

• In Event: Conceptualizations and possibilities of inclusion and diversity in education

Proposal

In the paper we approach the questions concerning inclusive and special education and equity of education in Finland from historical and education policy perspectives, which in turn, we bring into a dialogue with contrasting teachers’ accounts. We explain the logic behind the pragmatic ‘small-steps’ approach typical for reforms in Finland and analyze them in light of the ideas and values of the inclusive education movement. Firstly, we discuss the meaning of inclusion in the Finnish context at a policy level and reflect on it against the international discourses on the issue. Second, we introduce the recent special education reform that took place in the first decade of the 2000s and look at it from the educational change perspective at the international level.

This paper will mainly focus on the third part of the chapter, in which we move beyond policy and system level conceptualization of inclusion by bringing in the interpretative and critical voices of Finnish teachers concerning the concept of inclusion. The fundamental question deriving from teacher accounts and guiding the paper presentation is: how to implement inclusive education in practice when it remains an abstract, ideological and political concept open to interpretation? The paper concludes that although the Finnish school system is inclusive at the system level, the terms inclusion and inclusive education are empty signifiers. They have no agreed meaning, enabling municipalities to harness the philosophy of inclusion into cost-efficient practices as well as teachers to conceptualize the agenda in the polarized manner presented, both of which contrast and misrepresent the values and goals of inclusive education. This begs the question whether inclusion in Finland is a failure of the policy, philosophy or implementation, or perhaps the mixture of them all. Some theoretical and conceptual ideas for implementing inclusive education are discussed.

Keywords: inclusive education; special education; education policy, equity; teachers; Finland

Author

• Juho Honkasilta, University of Helsinki