The inclusive education approach has evolved from special education as a result of a discrepancy between policy and practice (Gibson, 2006), rapidly “establishing movement simultaneously reflected and refracted by education policy, research, and scholarship” (Graham & Slee, 2008). While social inclusion movements have focused on the conditions and needs of underprivileged populations in society (see Young, 2000), such as the social model of the disability movement with their slogan ‘nothing about us without us’ (Charlton, 2000; Oliver, 1990), during the last decades inclusion has taken place widely in educational theory and in all levels of educational contexts, institutional policies, and teaching methodologies, with the aim of ensuring that diverse student groups have equal opportunities (Kaplan
& Lewis, 2013). It is noteworthy, however, that the history of categorization goes much further, entailing the exercise of exclusive institutional language, labeling practices, and de-politicization of educational structures, as stated for example by Apple (2004). To an increasing extent, critical voices within the discourses of inclusive education suggest reconsiderations on “what is meant by talk of inclusion, how this may differ from being inclusive and, whose interests may be served by practices that seek to include” (Graham & Slee, 2008, p. 3). This ambivalence around the concept, especially in relation to special education, is here scrutinized through examining three general relating key concepts: normalization;
integration; and exclusion.
Firstly, inclusion was initially justified through the historical normalization principle (see section 1.1.1), as a possibility to disengage from the institutionalization and segregation of so-called incompetent students (Jenkins, 1998) by bringing them into regular schools. This process was later noted as a means of ensuring conformity to a norm of behavior that is predetermined and regulated by school policy (Enslin & Hedge, 2010). However, as strongly argued by disability scholars, normalization can certainly never transform people’s lives (Oliver, 1999, p. 167). Along the same lines, Anastasia Liasidou (2012) has argued how the policy of inclusion should not aim at normalization, nor perform
as “a sub-system of special education”, but rather attend to eradication of social conditions and educational practices “within which several disguised forms of marginalization, discrimination and exclusion are operating” (p. 9).
Secondly, integration within school realms can be seen to relate to physical integration (desegregation) of students who need additional support in their learning. Integrative action within educational settings has been largely an attempt to balance out the medicalized discourse that special education has encompassed. Often, however, the integrative action is put forth without investing in the pedagogical and professional support of the teachers, not to mention an attitudinal mindset within the school community. This may be criticized as a naive notion of equalization through socialization, as the students do not become equal solely through sharing the same physical space with others (Carpenter, 2007). Furthermore, and in a more philosophical sense, integration may also be used to enhance control of those in power, resulting in assimilation (Enslin &
Hedge, 2010) rather than the constant negotiation, rotation, and dismantling of what appears to be the mainstream, and for what reasons.
Thirdly, it is important to note that the discourse of inclusion implies the discourse of exclusion, and thus they cannot be addressed irrespective of each other. So many questions pervade when it comes to the ‘how’ and ‘why’: into what are we including those who have previously been excluded? Is any kind of inclusion always good and necessary? Can including some forms of diversity produce new forms of exclusion? (Enslin & Hedge, 2010) Iris Young (2000), an acknowledged political theorist of deliberative democracy and inclusion, distinguishes two ‘layers’ of exclusion that are naturally in relation to inclusion processes, namely external exclusion and internal exclusion. This means that even after having formally included groups who have been marginalized, or segregated – in other words externally excluded in the previous stage - maintaining certain stagnant practices, attitudes, and discourses can cause internal exclusion that may create and maintain hidden mechanisms of inequitable and discriminatory practices. An apt example of the pitfalls of internal exclusion is the aforementioned physical integration in schools, which simply fails to ensure equally just and fair education despite its good intentions. Drawing especially from Young’s work on deliberative democracy, educational theorist Gert Biesta (2009; see also Bingham
& Biesta, 2010, pp. 73-85) makes an assertion especially relevant for the inclusion/
exclusion binary by stating that educational democratization aims are too narrowly focused on the process of including those assigned to being ‘outside’ by others who are ‘inside’. Similarly, with a particular focus on the policy and politics of
disability and inclusive education, several scholars such as Roger Slee, Julie Allan, and Linda Graham draw attention to the previously addressed direction of the inclusion process as it presupposes ‘bringing something’ into the center. Hence, they too suggest that perhaps we should not use the language of aiming towards inclusion, but disrupt the ‘centre’ where exclusion is legitimized in the first place (e.g. Graham & Slee, 2008; Slee & Allan, 2001). In sum, the three key issues of normalization, integration, and exclusion are intertwined with inclusion, and do not provide answers but open up new questions and complexities.
One of the major considerations in dismantling the ambiguous relationship of inclusion as one of the core values and the main problems of democracy (Biesta, 2009; Bingham & Biesta, 2010) is the question of the language and rhetorics of education and politics. After engaging with the recent literature concerning the questions of inclusion, specifically in relation to special education, one may perceive a notably critical tone in the discussions about how special education may work as a mechanism for inequality in schools by incorporating power though categorizing, labeling, or ‘helping’ students who need extra support in learning (Slee, 2008; Young & Mintz, 2008). These problematic discourses of special education are addressed through a claim that it offers “short term solutions of individual adaptation to long term problems of educational inequality for students labeled as ‘disabled’ in schools” (Young & Mintz, 2008). The terminology that is used to designate diverse needs (and limited notions) of students is at the core of special education practices. This creates the language of ‘special’ and ‘regular’ that denies human variation as omnipresent (Enslin & Hedge, 2010) and, moreover,
“a negative tale, a picture of failure and also of acceptance of the status quo, where it is assumed there are causal links between ‘needy kids’, ‘problem areas’ and
‘educational failure’” (Gibson, 2006, p. 319). However, one may also ask, is special education, after all, needed in some cases, and would students with disabilities be included to this extent in schools today without special education policies and practices. Indeed, the expertise provided by special education professionals may on one hand create dependency on the part of students and their families (Young
& Mintz, 2008), and on the other, help the students gain agency that may result in emancipatory and transformative processes.
Nonetheless, inclusion has been argued to be a charged concept within educational realms, perhaps mostly because the education institution carries a burden of categorizing its students on the basis of school performativity and individual characteristics, which in itself contradicts the ethos of inclusion as a response to valuing diversity (Enslin & Hedge, 2010). Progress has been made
since the history of segregated institutionalization of students with impairments in early 1900s, which is also part of the history of Finnish schools, but, nevertheless, critics counter that the contemporary system of special education still maintains and reinforces limited, oppressive conceptualizations through adhering segregation, institutionalization, professionalization, structuring, labeling, and overly prescriptive and mechanistic pedagogies (Connor & Gabel, 2013). Indeed, it has been argued that in order to break away from the “equity-excellence” dichotomy struggles and find “a coherent framework providing equal rights and access for [all] students to develop their unique talents and abilities”
(Spielhagen, Brown & Hughes, 2015, p. 380) and “learn together” (UNESCO, 1994), special education should entirely dismantle itself and begin with something that starts “from a completely different place”, with a notion that reform benefits all students, not just the ones with learning difficulties (Smith, 2010, p. 222).
This notion of inclusion as universal education, although implying a risk of being accused as utopian, eventually banishes the need of naming and categorizing.
Be it special, exceptional, gifted, disabled – the terms aiming at identification of student anomalies in itself complicates and accelerates the polarization of educational group value systems (Spielhagen, Brown & Hughes, 2015).