Reconceptualizing Inclusion through the Lived Experiences of Disabled Students in Contexts of Forced Displacement: A Comparative Case Study

• In Event: Access to Education Amidst Displacement, Conflict, and Climate Emergencies: A Qualitative Lens

Proposal

Globally, inclusive education has ascended as a key term in education policy, practice, and research and is promoted as a core principle of schooling by international organizations (Armstrong et al., 2016); yet, the concept of inclusive education remains elusive with unclear goals and models shaped predominantly by education research conducted in the Global North, which typically overlook the diverse ways inclusion is understood and experienced by students with multiple marginalized identities. Amidst the promotion of inclusive education through recommended strategies, ‘best practices’, and guidelines diffused by international actors in effort to promote social cohesion and peace in schools in crisis and conflict-affected contexts, there remains limited empirical evidence on the practical implementation of these approaches, what happens after structural integration, and how policies and practices promoted as inclusive education shape the experiences of disabled students and teachers. The persistent absence of perspectives from disabled students and experiential accounts from teachers sustains incomplete and insufficient models of inclusion, as they fail to address the nuanced challenges and complexities of education in emergencies and the unique insights that only those with lived experience can provide.

This study seeks to reconceptualize inclusion in crisis and conflict-affected contexts by asking: How do disabled students both conceptualize and experience inclusion in contexts of forced displacement? What social, political, and historical influences at the school, community, and national level contribute to the experiences of inclusion or exclusion in conflict and crisis-affected contexts? To answer these questions, this comparative case study draws on data collected through student photo diaries (n=51), classroom observations (n=16), and semi-structured interviews with students (n=52), teachers (n=22), caregivers (n=32), and humanitarian and education practitioners in Uganda (n=17) to document the lived experiences of disabled students in refugee and host communities in Uganda and to examine how students experience and conceptualize inclusive education within the social, political, and historical conditions that shape their schooling.

Grounded in theories of intersectionality that examine the intersection of disability with other axes of inequality, such as citizenship, race, class, and language, as well as postcolonial analyses of disability and displacement, this study consciously questions the exportation of meanings and models of inclusive education. It analyzes how inclusion is interrelated with complex dynamics of identity, power, and belonging within education in crisis and conflict-affected contexts. Through this approach, this paper seeks to understand how cultural, historical, and social understandings and practices shape experiences of inclusion and strives to develop an interdisciplinary perspective that allows inclusive education to take up diverse, sustainable, and localized forms.

Author

• Kemigisha Richardson, Teachers College at Columbia University