What does it mean to be an inclusive learning community?
If we have students with disabilities and learning challenges in our classrooms, does this make us inclusive?
If we display posters advocating for people with disabilities, does this make us inclusive?
If we provide ramps and lifts, does this make us inclusive?
If we provide adjustments to enable student learning and success, does this make us inclusive?
If we have additional teacher's aides to support student learning, does this make us inclusive?
If we believe we have ever reached a truly inclusive learning environment, then we are probably not understanding the true nature and complexities of inclusion. Inclusion is an ongoing and evolving process of reflection, understanding and change. Inclusive environments will adapt to new learning and be responsive to differing needs.
A truly inclusive learning environment must foster the participation, dignity and self-worth of students with disabilities. It must enable the growth and development of all students; regardless of ability. The graphic below is a helpful way of visualising what inclusion is and is not.
Now more than ever, it is important we as educators reflect on our attitudes and approaches to inclusion. The number of students with disabilities in mainstream classrooms is estimated to rise by 50% by 2027 and yet according to NESA only one in five teachers have participated in professional development on teaching students with disabilities in the last three years (
SMH article, 6 Dec 2020). The graphic above highlights how imperative systematic reform is to an authentic approaches to inclusion. It needs to be holistic - and it's not just about how to differentiate a task.
Attitudes or beliefs about disability have been identified as one of the major barriers to inclusive learning environments. Many approaches or frameworks for thinking about disability has been shaped by the pervasive medical model; where disability is viewed as an illness or impairment that can be treated, controlled or protected. This view often results in marginalisation or exclusion of people with disabilities. In contrast, the social model explores the social, economic, cultural and institutional constructs that create barriers for people with disabilities. Impairment and disability are not believed to be the same. A person can have physical impairments but they experience disability due to socio-cultural constructs and barriers. In the social model, disability is viewed as part of human diversity. People can be enabled when barriers and oppressions are removed or reduced.
Research has shown that there are powerful binary narratives about ability and disability in education. This can often be evident in the language that is used about students with disabilities. While many educators will support inclusion, phrases such as 'they can't engage with the work' or 'they aren't able to do that' are common. Or the categorising of students into high, average and low ability groups highlight the complexities around attitudes. Or the designing of a task or activity around the able and then we try and include those who don't fit the norm as an afterthought. These underlying frameworks or attitudes can undermine the intent of inclusion and create cultures of disability where students with learning difficulties will ‘remain marginalized through their construction as an othered group’ (Goodley, 2007, p.318).
Here lies the pinch. Teachers are architects of learning. As a Diversity Teacher, I work with students who have significant learning difficulties. My role is to help them access the learning and reduce barriers to learning. So how do I address some of the impairments that make learning a challenge for these students without participating or enabling deficit models of thinking around disability? How do I view my segregated reading intervention group through this lens? How do I keep my thinking fresh and not slip into old ways of viewing disability as something to be fixed or remediated?
Perhaps there is no easy answer... perhaps it's the constant wrestling with these questions... perhaps it's constant reflection on my practice... perhaps it's in the advocacy for students who feel they have no or little voice... perhaps it's in the small moments of when a student who has felt useless and worthless can participate and have a sense of achievement... perhaps it's in moving away from pathologising disability and recognising the ways we can implicitly be fostering issues of social injustice... perhaps it is in the everyday of choosing advocacy, inclusion, justice, equity and giving those a voice who may not have found a way to be heard before.
Whatever the road ahead looks like, it needs to be bigger than just the teacher in the classroom trying their best to include and support all students in their classrooms. Inclusive practices must be reflected in a holistic way, referencing the sociocultural practices of the whole learning community. Critical reflection that transforms schools and classroom cultures and redresses the explicit and subtle ways that students experience marginalisation and exclusion may lead us to more authentic and life-changing inclusive practices.
References:
Fallang, B., Øien, I., Østensjø, S., & Gulbrandsen, L. M. (2017). Micro-processes in social and learning activities at school generate exclusions for children with disabilities. Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research
Goodley, D. (2007). Towards socially just pedagogies: Deleuzoguattarian critical disability studies, International Journal of Inclusive Education
Liasidou, A. (2014). Inclusive education and critical pedagogy at the intersections of disability, race, gender and class. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies
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