Assessing the inclusivity of three mainstream secondary schools in England: challenges and dilemmas

ABSTRACT

The notion of inclusion has gained momentum worldwide, with most countries around the world embracing inclusive policies in their educational systems. However, there is still an ongoing debate as to what is inclusion and hence, the consequent challenge of coming up with an agreed definition, which could then be used to plan for and subsequently, evaluate, inclusion. This study adds to our understanding of inclusion by contrasting objective (i.e. School Census Statistics) and subjective (i.e. self-report questionnaire) measures of inclusivity in three mainstream secondary schools in England and by comparing the perceptions of school inclusivity of different groups of educational practitioners and pupils. The results of this study indicate that inclusion is a ‘slippery’ construct as the perception of inclusion of educational practitioners was found to be affected by their role at school while pupil perception on this matter depended upon their SEND category. However, despite these subjective differences in the way inclusion is perceived, there was also substantial agreement across the different categories of participants with regard to the relative ranking of inclusivity across the three schools suggesting that coming up with overarching themes on what is inclusion is achievable. The article ends with explaining the benefits of reaching an agreed definition at a national level.

KEYWORDS:

• Inclusive education
• definitions of inclusion
• England
• measures of inclusion
• special educational needs
• views

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Eleni Dimitrellou is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Institute of Education, University of Derby. Her research interests focus on inclusion and inclusive practices.

Jane Hurry is Professor of Psychology of Education in the Department of Psychology and Human Development, Institute of Education, University College London.

Dawn Male is a Senior Lecturer in Special and Inclusive Education in the Department of Psychology and Human Development, Institute of Education, University College London.

Additional information

Funding

The author wishes to thank the State Scholarship Foundation of Greece (IKY), Legacy of Marias Zaousi, for funding the project.