Inclusion and diversity in global and local educational contexts

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

If mass schooling is to be sustainable, education systems must cast diversity as a strength and be able to welcome all learners. United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal Four explicitly links inclusiveness with notions of quality education. As climate change intensifies migration and displacement, the composition of school communities will change with implications for inclusivity of learners from different ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds, young people affected by violence and conflict, and families facing huge shifts in the ways that they understand place and community. Learners currently left behind or excluded by mass schooling – often children with disabilities, girls, and children from minoritized groups – also remain to be included.

Whilst inclusion has become a clear goal for education systems worldwide, the concept of inclusion remains ambiguous and contested across national and local contexts. Understanding contrasts in interpretations and languages of inclusion in different global and local contexts is thus essential to continue to reflect on policies and practices that can help ensure the full participation of all students in school, regardless of disability, gender, race, ethnicity, religion or language. This panel contributes to this reflection by presenting work based on three chapters from the forthcoming Sage Handbook on Inclusive Education highlighting both the promise and challenge of inclusive education globally. Our definition of ‘inclusive education’ is broad and evolving; sensitive to the range and complexities shown in practices and policy being implemented in countries in Central Asia, Western Europe and Latin America. In short, we advocate for the notion that inclusivity is an educational concept that strives towards making education a learning and supportive space for all children. Far from the homogenizing projects that followed the creation of new nations in the Nineteenth Century, and that have characterized education and policy design and implementation in countries across the globe, sustainable inclusivity responds to the rights of all children, particularly of those experiencing socio-economic marginalization. This does not mean that personal identity is lost. Rather, true inclusivity means that an education system embraces its own diversity and access for all children. Education systems, particularly in low-resource areas and countries, may struggle with including learners equitably or culturally. A culture of schooling that rewards only the elite students, and with an emphasis on a ‘fixed mindset’ of student potential, is directly in conflict with a rights-based approach. There is a wide-variety of interpretation as to what ‘inclusive education’ actually looks like in practice. The emphasis in this book is on how inclusive education is practiced within local socio-cultural contexts; and in innovative, progressive, and flexible inclusive systems. We examine policy and practice from around the world with respect to broadly conceived notions of inclusion and diversity within education. This is a pressing issue in education as there is now an increasing expectation that not only should schools accept all students, but should also be able to provide a high-quality educational and social experience for these students as well.
The papers in this panel session draw on research conducted in Western Europe, Central Asia, and Latin America to explore the nuances of inclusion and exclusion in policy and practice. The first paper examines mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion in relation to language, religion and culture for young immigrants in France and England through a reflection on the role of current policy and media narratives about the “immigrant Other.” The second discusses the relationship between inclusive education and parent-led resource centers in schools in Tajikistan. The third paper provides a comparative analysis of policy discourse and program implementation concerning inclusive programs in popular education and intercultural bilingual education in Argentina and Peru respectively.

Sub Unit

• SIG: Inclusive Education

Individual Presentations

• Diversity and inclusion in the classroom: young immigrant’s perspectives in France and England - Oakleigh Welply, Durham University

• Opening doors and mediating practices: Working toward inclusion in Tajikistan - Kate Lapham, Open Society Foundations

• To Educate for Them in Different Ways;” Sustaining Inclusion in Popular and Intercultural Education in Argentina and Peru - Laura Valdiviezo, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Jennifer Lee O'Donnell, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• The sustainability and development of Chinese minority education: How an international research collaboration can shed new light on old problems - Mei Wu, Research Institute of Higher Education, Yunnan University; Maryjo Benton Lee, South Dakota State University

• “You Have Come Here for Our Guidance…”: Women and Capabilities of the Poor in an International Education Program for Sustainable Development - Xiuying Cai, Xiamen University, China

Discussant

• Matthew Schuelka, University of Birmingham