Learning to read ‘inclusion’ divergently: enacting a transnational approach to inclusive education

ABSTRACT

Drawing on our experiences as researchers and educators in multiple national contexts, we argue for the necessity for conceptualizations of ‘inclusion’ that subsume both the discourse of equity and the material conditions of its enactment. In this paper, we look specifically at two groups engaged in enacting inclusion – novice teachers in the US and school principals in Germany. Using the theoretical frame of new materialisms, we read our data in each regional context diffractively to disclose the intra-activity between multiple human and non-human agents that constituted the phenomenon of inclusion (Barad 2008, “Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter.” In Material Feminisms, edited by S. Alaimo, and S. Hekman, 120–154. Bloomington: Indiana University Press). These readings disclosed the instability of categories that inform current framings of inclusion. Collectively, our study seeks to stimulate materially informed and contextually specific understandings of inclusion that accommodate the multiple overlapping influences which characterise processes of inclusion.

KEYWORDS:

• Inclusive education
• special education
• educational leadership
• disability studies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 All names in the paper are pseudonyms.

2 The data excerpts in this section have been translated from German to English; we have tried to represent the intended meaning of the speaker to the best extent possible.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Srikala Naraian

Srikala Naraian is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University and Program Director of the Elementary Inclusive Education Program. She locates herself in the disability studies tradition and is interested in investigating processes of inclusive education and teacher preparation for inclusive education. Alongside her research in US public schools, she has also prepared teachers for inclusive education in international contexts; she has served as a Fulbright Specialist in Germany and in India. She has published widely in many journals including Teachers College Record, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Curriculum Inquiry and Teaching and Teacher Education.

Bettina Amrhein

Bettina Amrhein is Professor for Inclusive Education in an International Context at Bielefeld University in Germany. After working as a teacher in inclusive classes for many years, she has devoted 15 years to researching inclusive educational processes. She is engaged in international comparative research on the theory and practice of inclusive schooling worldwide. She is particularly involved in questions of how to deal with students with the so-called focus on social emotional development. In particular, she investigates restorative approaches to dealing with conflicts in schools that attempt to clarify how learning can be made appropriate for all children.