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Session Submission Summary

Community interventions for making inclusive education work – Key experiences and learnings

Sun, February 19, 9:45 to 11:15am EST (9:45 to 11:15am EST), Grand Hyatt Washington, Floor: Independence Level (5B), Independence C

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Community interventions for making inclusive education work – Key experiences and learnings

The Sustainable Development Goal 4 has set the target of achieving universal pre-primary, primary, and secondary education by eliminating disparities and ensuring inclusion by 2030. The Education 2030 framework also calls for ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education. Despite these political commitments made internationally, several countries around the world have been struggling to achieve inclusive education in the fullest way as imagined in these international goals. Deeply entrenched attitudinal barriers, a limited number of professionals and trained teachers, as well as lack of public financing for inclusive schools have been some of the major challenges that countries have faced. Since March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the critical gaps and fault lines of the education systems across the world. Most official responses during the pandemic have not paid attention to all learners, and have in fact exacerbated existing conditions of education marginalization and exclusion. Children with disabilities and have fallen further back due to lack of access to technology, family distress, and health crises (Reimers, 2022).

Existing literature recognizes the importance of communities and social networks in supporting the education of children with disabilities. Communities can play a critical role in providing ongoing support to families (Luger et al, 2012), offering local-level cross-sectoral support to teachers and school systems (Banks et al 2019), and making a significant impact on children’s social and emotional adjustment (Goldberg et al 2018). Inclusive education requires going beyond the school setting, into the formal, informal and nonformal spaces outside the schools and homes (Stubbs, 2008) because these spaces contribute to the shaping of perceptions, attitudes, and mindsets towards having all children come together and learn together. Inclusive pedagogy, similarly, requires teachers to work with and through other adults, so that the dignity of all children as full members of the community of the regular classroom is fully respected (Florian, 2012). However, barriers to effective participation exist at school, household, and community levels (Korboe, Dogbe and Marshall, 2011). Often, teachers are unable to respond and deal with the barriers on their own and they require the support of the communities to bring local resources as well as local accountability (Sharma & Ng, 2014). No discussion on inclusive education can take place without the involvement of stakeholders from the local community (Ainscow and Miles (2009).

The Global Education Monitoring Report of UNESCO (2020) argues that inclusion should be seen as a process, yet literature from the Global South is limited. A large part of the complexity arises due to the fact that local communities are often fragmented. Translating the vision of inclusive education in practice and giving effect to the simple idea as GEMR 2020 put it, 'all means all' requires active engagement with the community. Given that children with disabilities are more likely to be out of school and less likely to complete primary education than children without disabilities (UNESCO and UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2018), there is a need to examine how the communities can listen to the needs of children, acknowledge the barriers, and actively engage in addressing the local gaps in education provision.

The proposed panel will deliberate on the role and significance of community interventions for making inclusive education work at the local level, what kind of visible and invisible barriers need to be broken to make schools inclusive, and what resources and opportunities remain available within the community for realizing the goals of ‘all means all’. It draws upon the work of practitioners and researchers from the Global South who have engaged with the communities through innovative programs and practices on inclusion at the local levels. The main objective of the panel is to showcase ideas and learnings on how communities can be engaged in building inclusive schools.

References
Ainscow, M., & Miles, S. (2009). Developing inclusive education systems: How can we move policies forward. La educación inclusiva: de la exclusión a la plena participación de todo el alumnado, 167-170.
Banks, L. M., Zuurmond, M., Monteath–Van Dok, A., Gallinetti, J., & Singal, N. (2019). Perspectives of children with disabilities and their guardians on factors affecting inclusion in education in rural Nepal:“I feel sad that I can’t go to school”. Oxford Development Studies, 47(3), 289-303.
Florian, L. (2012). Preparing teachers to work in diverse classrooms: Key lessons for the professional development of teacher educators from Scotland’s inclusive practice project. Journal of Teacher Education, 63, 275-285
Goldberg, J.M., Sklad, M., Elfrink, T.R. et al. Effectiveness of interventions adopting a whole school approach to enhancing social and emotional development: a meta-analysis. Eur J Psychol Educ 34, 755–782 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-018-0406-9
Korboe D, Dogbe T, Marshall C (2011). Participatory Poverty and Vulnerability Assessment(PPVA): Understanding the Regional Dynamics of Poverty with Particular Focus on Northern Ghana. GOG/DFID/UNICEF/World Bank: Accra, Ghana
Luger, R., Prudhomme, D., Bullen, A., Pitt, C. & Geiger, M., 2012, ‘A journey towards inclusive education: A case study from a ‘township’ in South Africa’, African Journal of Disability 1(1), Art. #15, 5 pages. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.4102/ajod.v1i1.15
Reimers, F. M. (2022). Learning from a pandemic. The impact of COVID-19 on education around the world. In Primary and secondary education during COVID-19 (pp. 1-37). Springer, Cham.
Sharma, U., & Ng, O. (2014). What has worked for Bringing Out-of-school Children with Disabilities into Regular Schools? A Literature Review. Disability, CBR & Inclusive Development, 25(2), 54. https://doi.org/10.5463/dcid.v25i2.355
Stubbs, S. (2008). Inclusive education. Where there are few resources. Oslo, The Atlas Alliance Publ.
UNESCO and UNESCO Institute for Statistics. (2018). Education and Disability: Analysis of Data from 49 Countries. Retrieved from http://uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/documents/ip49-education-disability-2018-en.pdf

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