Mapping community assets for inclusive education: Proposing a new framework for inclusive educational systems analysis

• In Event: Policy and Law in Inclusive Education

Proposal

Objectives

Much of the previous research on inclusive education has centered around issues of access, attitudes, and physical and conceptual barriers. We believe that while there has been some work in locating promising practices, and in highlighting unique local responses to the promise of inclusive education, there is great potential for a more robust understanding of how inclusive education is embedded within complex social systems of school and community meaning. In other words, inclusive education does not exist in a vacuum, and the socio-cultural institutions inside and outside of schooling significantly influence the experience of inclusion for the student and the system as a whole.

Main Argument and Theoretical Contribution

In part, our argument is based on an ecological understanding of educational systems and human development pioneered by Bronfenbrenner (1979) and later through the work of Garbarino (1992) and Rogoff (2003). These perspectives focus on the interactions between individuals and the layers of culture and structure of which they are embedded. In this paper, we propose a new framework for understanding and analyzing inclusive education within a larger social ecosystem. To that end, our proposed framework focuses on three dimensions of inclusion: access (participation), quality (the experiences of learning and inclusion), and utility (the usefulness of schooling to larger society). The dimension of access has already been well-explored in inclusive education research, in terms of participation of marginalized students in school. The dimension of educational quality has recently received much attention by international agencies and through initiatives such as the Sustainable Development Goals. Defining ‘quality’ has ultimately proved difficult, but for our purpose we view educational quality as providing a positive and significant educational and social experience for all children. The third dimension of educational utility is a question of what purpose schooling serves in any given society at a specific time? Possible answers to this question could be human capital economic development, inculcating cultural values, creating democratic citizens, developing the ‘bildung’ of citizens (Biesta 2002; 2010), and/or the psychological development of children, to name a few. Put simply, the dimension of educational utility is concerned with whether or not these implicit or explicit educational values and policies were met; and whether schooling served an individual value for the child participating. The dimensions of access, quality, and utility are interconnected and mutually-dependent. In our framework, these dimensions are then viewed through the experiences of six communities: policy communities, formal and professional-lead teaching and learning communities, adult-child communities, informal and adult-organized communities, self-organized communities, and child-child communities. Educational inclusion happens in multiple societal and educational communities that are inter-relational. In this understanding, a student can be included in one community only to experience exclusion in another and co-existing community (Qvortrup 2012). Both the three dimensions of inclusion and six communities are also viewed on a continuum of the micro (individual experiences and expectations) to the macro level (general societal experiences and expectations).

Methodological Application

To put our framework in methodological action, we propose that the assets of each of the above communities into supporting the inclusive experience of children is mapped by engaging community members and determining nodes of community resources and influence. Community asset mapping is an established practice, particularly in public health (e,g, Selamu et al. 2015), social work (e.g. Lightfoot, McCleary & Lum 2014), and local government advocacy and community development (Green & Haines 2015). However, its application to education has not been fully explored. We propose to innovate asset mapping through our inclusion framework of novel dimensions and uniquely identified communities, and that the application of this framework can be particularly beneficial for research in isolated or marginalized communities and ‘developing’ contexts, but also in any educational and social system.

Authors

• Matthew Schuelka, University of Birmingham

• Thomas Engsig, University College of Northern Denmark / Aalborg University