Sustainable Development Goals and a Plural-Relational Approach to Inclusive Education Policy

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Monday I)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Equity, ambition, and omission: can the sustainable development goals be sustained? (parts I and II)

Proposal

A key feature of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is the focus on the term “inclusion.” The declaration and goals themselves contain 40 mentions of the word “inclusive” (United Nations, n.d.), yet the term is undefined. In most cases, the term makes reference to “all” – all people who have the right to access to the opportunities outlined in the goals. In the absence of a concrete approach to inclusion in education, we draw upon two contemporary theoretical conceptualizations related to human rights and inclusive development as a way of understanding the evolution from the MDGs to SDGs and as a way of identifying potential direction for SDG 4 and inclusive education. We then apply themes of inclusion in relation to one population – children with disabilities.

Prior to discussions on inclusion in the SDGs, the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) addressed inclusive education for children with disabilities. CRPD is one of a long line of population-specific covenants that outlined the rights of groups such as ethnic minority groups, women, children, migrant workers, and Indigenous populations. The naming of specific groups in UN covenants is described by Mégret as the “pluralization of human rights” (p. 495). Pluralization, according to Mégret, requires specific efforts to adapt the language of existing global human rights as well as acknowledge the unique experiences of groups that may require the creation of new rights. Mégret holds in tension the basic, common human rights shared by all as a normative ambition with the idea that “human rights may also be about delving deeply into issues of identity, survival, and dignity of particular groups” (p. 496).
The right to inclusive development, on the other hand, is characterized by Gupta and Vegelin (2016) in three ways: social inclusion (focused on participation of all in the sphere of development) (Meier, 2000); ecological inclusiveness (which focuses on development of eco-centric norms) (Chambers & Conway, 1991); and relational inclusiveness (which focuses on issues of power and structural inequalities) (Harriss-White, 2006). In terms of inclusion in education, the SDGs contain both social inclusion discourse (focus on the opportunities for participation in existing systems) and relational discourse (demonstrated by the frequent use of the term “equitable”).

We will argue in this presentation that the discourse of the goals represents a “plural-relational” policy approach to inclusion. We conclude by highlighting the potential and likely challenges of a plural relational approach, citing examples from two national cases (Bhutan and Morocco) related to the education of children with disabilities as participants in broad-based inclusive education initiatives.

Authors

• Christopher Johnstone, University of Minnesota

• Matthew Schuelka, University of Birmingham

• Ghada Swadek, University of Minnesota