Centre for Special Educational Needs, Disability and Inclusive Education (SENDIN): visiting speaker seminar

A warm welcome to the start of the academic year!

Our first Centre for Special Educational Needs, Disability and Inclusive Education (SENDIN) meeting of the year will take place on Tuesday 3rd October 11.00-12.15 UK time in Baring Court 201 and online via Teams.

We welcome Dr Jo Anderson from the University of New England, Australia, who will be presenting about her research and answering questions. Jo’s research focuses on inclusive education (including system approaches to inclusive education), school leadership, and Innovative Learning Environments. 

The ‘inclusive’ versus ‘special’ education debate: Influences, impacts, and imaginative wonderings

Educational attainment has been shown to improve a broad range of life outcomes (OECD, 2022). As such, it is unsurprising to find ‘Quality education’ (Goal 4) identified as one of 17 goals described within the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (United Nations, 2015). It has been argued that for education to be considered ‘quality’ it must be inclusive (Anderson & Boyle, 2020).

Inclusive education has been the prevailing philosophy globally for the education of students with a disability for more than quarter of a century, and in more contemporary times, for all students. Yet in many countries, such as Australia and England, there is evidence to suggest segregation and exclusion of some groups of students, particularly those from minority groups, is again on the rise (Anderson & Boyle, 2019; Norwich & Black, 2015). Reasons for this are varied and complex, yet one notion that requires further exploration is the role special education, and those working in the field, have played. While the notion of inclusive education has been lauded globally by many policy makers, researchers, and practitioners, it has faced unrelenting criticism and resistance (Artiles & Kozleski, 2016) with much of this coming from the field of special education (Slee, 2018). Full inclusion has been positioned as the enemy of special education and the debate has become one centred on inclusive verses special education.

This study sought to understand the impact of the inclusive versus special education debate on those entrusted with providing an education to all children – principals of public primary schools. The research findings produced four clear themes – each positioning inclusive education and special education as being part of the same paradigm. It could be argued that these findings are unsurprising, given Artiles and Kozleski’s (2016) assertion that the constructs of disability and inclusive education are often entangled in political discourse, and as a consequence, the term special education is often ‘misrepresented’ as inclusive education (D’Alessio et al., 2018). Yet while the inclusive versus special education debate persists, advocates of inclusion will have an uphill battle to position the construct as it was always meant to be positioned - as a way of doing education for everyone. Maybe it is time to let go of the term inclusive education and reimagine the possibilities of schools that support learning and wellbeing outcomes for everyone.

We hope to see many of you, including new PGR students, in person in BC201.

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