Chapter 2

Concept of Inclusion

Inclusion in education/service refers to ―an ongoing process aimed at offering quality

education/services for all while respecting diversity and the different needs and abilities,
characteristics and learning expectations of the students and communities and eliminating all
forms of discrimination‖ (UNESCO, 2008, P.3, as cited in EADSNE, 2010, p.11). Inclusive
services at any level are quality provisions without discrimination or partiality and meeting the
diverse needs of people.

Inclusion is seen as a process of addressing and responding to the diversity of needs of all
persons through increasing participation in learning, employment, services, cultures and
communities, and reducing exclusion at all social contexts. It involves changes and modifications
in content, approaches, structures and strategies, with a common vision which covers all people,
a conviction that it is the responsibility of the social system to educate all children (UNESCO
2005), employ and provide social services. Besides, inclusion is defined as having a wide range
of strategies, activities and processes that seek to make a reality of the universal right to quality,
relevant and appropriate education and services. It acknowledges that learning begins at birth and
continues throughout life, and includes learning in the home, the community, and in formal,
informal and non-formal situations. It seeks to enable communities, systems and structures in all
cultures and contexts to combat discrimination, celebrate diversity, promote participation and
overcome barriers to learning and participation for all people. It is part of a wider strategy
promoting inclusive development, with the goal of creating a world where there is peace,
tolerance, and sustainable use of resources, social justice, and where the basic needs and rights of
all are met. This definition has the following components:

1) Concepts about learners

 Education is a fundamental human right for all people
 Learning begins at birth and continues throughout life
 All children have a right to education within their own community
 Everyone can learn, and any child can experience difficulties in learning
  All learners need their learning supported child-focused teaching benefits all
children.
2) Concepts about the education system and schools
It is broader than formal schooling
It is flexible, responsive educational systems
It creates enabling and welcoming educational environments
It promotes school improvement – makes effective schools
It involves whole school approach and collaboration between partners.
3) Concepts about diversity and discrimination
 It promotes combating discrimination and exclusionary pressures at any social
sectors
 It enables responding to/embracing diversity as a resource not as a problem
 It prepares learners for an inclusive society that respects and values difference.
4) Concepts about processes to promote inclusion
 It helps to identifying and overcoming barriers to participation and exclusionary
pressures
 It increases real participation of all collaboration, partnership between all
stakeholders
 It promotes participatory methodology, action research, collaborative enquiry and
other related activities
5) Concepts about resources
 Promotes unlocking and fully using local resources redistributing existing
resources
 It helps to perceive people (children, parents, teachers, members of marginalized
groups, etc) as key resources
 It helps to use appropriate resources and support within schools and at local levels
for the needs of different children, e.g. mother tongue tuition, Braille, assistive
devices.

McLeskey and Waldron (2000) have identified inclusion and non-inclusive practices. According
to them inclusion includes the following components:
  Students with disabilities and vulnerability attend their neighborhood schools
 Each student is in an age-appropriate general education classroom
 Every student is accepted and regarded as a full and valued member of the class and the
school community.
 Special education supports are provided to each student with a disability within the
context of the general education classroom.
 All students receive an education that addresses their individual needs
 No student is excluded based on type or degree of disability.
 All members of the school (e.g., administration, staff, students, and parents) promote
cooperative/collaborative teaching arrangements
 There is school-based planning, problem-solving, and ownership of all students and
programs
 Employed according to their capacities without discriminations.

On the other hand, they argue that inclusion does not mean:

 Placing students with disabilities into general education classrooms without careful
planning and adequate support.
 Reducing services or funding for special education services.
 Placing all students who have disabilities or who are at risk in one or a few designated
classrooms.
 Teachers spending a disproportionate amount of time teaching or adapting the curriculum
for students with disabilities.
 Isolating students with disabilities socially, physically, or academically within the
general education school or classroom.
 Endangering the achievement of general education students through slower instruction or
a less challenging curriculum.
 Relegating special education teachers to the role of assistants in the general education
classroom.
 Requiring general and special education teachers to team together without careful
planning and well-defined responsibilities.

2. Principles of Inclusion
The fundamental principle of inclusion is that all persons should learn, work and live together
wherever possible, regardless of any difficulties or differences they may have. Inclusive
education extends beyond special needs arising from disabilities, and includes consideration of
other sources of disadvantage and marginalization, such as gender, poverty, language, ethnicity,
and geographic isolation. The complex inter-relationships that exist among these factors and
their interactions with disability must also be a focus of attention. Besides, inclusion begins with
the premise that all persons have unique characteristics, interests, abilities and particular learning
needs and, further, that all persons have equal access education, employment and services.
Inclusion implies transition from separate, segregated learning and working environments for
persons with disabilities to community based systems. Moreover, effective transitions from
segregated services to inclusive system requires careful planning and structural changes to ensure
that persons with disabilities are provided with appropriate accommodation and supports that
ensure an inclusive learning and working environment. Furthermore, UNESCO (2005) has
provided four major inclusion principles that support inclusive practice. These include:

1. Inclusion is a process. It has to be seen as a never-ending search to find better ways of

responding to diversity. It is about learning how to live with difference and learning how
to learn from difference. Differences come to be seen more positively as a stimulus for
fostering learning amongst children and adults.
2. Inclusion is concerned with the identification and removal of barriers that hinders the
development of persons with disabilities. It involves collecting, collating and evaluating
information from a wide variety of sources in order to plan for improvements in policy
and practice. It is about using evidence of various kinds to stimulate creativity and
problem - solving.
3. Inclusion is about the presence, participation and achievement of all persons. Presence‘
is concerned with where persons are provided and how reliably and punctually they
attend; participation‘ relates to the quality of their experiences and must incorporate the
views of learners/and or workers and achievement‘ is about the outcomes of learning
across the curriculum, not just test and exam results.
4. Inclusion invokes a particular emphasis on those who may be at risk of marginalization,
exclusion or underachievement. This indicates the moral responsibility to ensure that
 those at risk‘ are carefully monitored, and that steps are taken to ensure their presence,
participation and achievement.

3. Rationale for Inclusion

Implementation of inclusion has number of rationales. The major ones include: educational,
social, legal, economic and inclusive society building foundations.

Rationales for Inclusion and Their Respective Descriptions

3.1. Educational Foundations

 Children do better academically, psychologically and socially in inclusive settings.

 A more efficient use of education resources.
 Decreases dropouts and repetitions
 Teachers competency( knowledge, skills, collaboration, satisfaction

3.2. Social Foundation

 Segregation teaches individuals to be fearful, ignorant and breeds prejudice.

 All individuals need an education that will help them develop relationships and prepare
them for life in the wider community.
 Only inclusion has the potential to reduce fear and to build friendship, respect and
understanding.

3.3. Legal Foundations

 All individuals have the right to learn and live together.

 Human being shouldn‘t be devalued or discriminated against by being excluded or sent
away because of their disability.
 There are no legitimate reasons to separate children for their education

3.4. Economic Foundation

 Inclusive education has economic benefit, both for individual and for society.
  Inclusive education is more cost-effective than the creation of special schools across the
country.
 Children with disabilities go to local schools
 Reduce wastage of repetition and dropout
 Children with disabilities live with their family use community infrastructure
 Better employment and job creation opportunities for people with disabilities
5. Foundations for Building Inclusive Society
 Formation of mutual understanding and appreciation of diversity
 Building up empathy, tolerance and cooperation
 Promotion of sustainable development
6. Factors that Influenced Development of Inclusion

Inclusiveness originated from three major ideas. These include: inclusive education is a basic
human right; quality education results from inclusion of students with diverse needs and ability
differences, and there is no clear demarcation between the characteristics of students with and
without disabilities and vulnerabilities. Therefore, separate provisions for such students cannot
be justified. Moreover, inclusion has got the world‘s attention because it is supposed to solve the
world‘s major problems occurring in social, economic, religious, educational and other areas of
the world. For instance, it is supposed to : counteract-social, political, economical and
educational challenges that happen due to globalization impact; enhance psychosocial, academic
and other benefits to students with and without special needs education; help all citizens
exercise educational and human rights; enhance quality education for all in regular class
rooms through inclusion; create sustainable environmental development that is suitable for all
human beings; create democratic and productive society that promote sustainable development;
build an attitude of respecting and valuing of differences in human beings; and ultimately build
an inclusive society.

Inclusive education is facilitated by many influencing actors. Some of the major drivers include:

1. Communities: pre-colonial and indigenous approaches to education and

community-based programs movement that favor inclusion of their community
members.
 2. Activists and advocates: the combined voices of primary stakeholders –
representatives of groups of learners often excluded and marginalized from
education (e.g. disabled activists; parents advocating for their children; child
rights advocates; and those advocating for women/girls and minority ethnic
groups).
3. The quality education and school improvement movement: in both North and
South, the issues of quality, access and inclusion are strongly linked, and
contribute to the understanding and practice of inclusive education as being the
responsibility of education systems and schools.
4. Special educational needs movement: the new thinking‘ of the special needs
education movement – as demonstrated in the Salamanca Statement – has been a
positive influence on inclusive education, enabling schools and systems to really
respond to a wide range of diversity.
5. Involvement of International agencies: the UN is a major influence on the
development of inclusive education policy and practice. Major donors have
formed a partnership – the Fast Track Initiative – to speed progress towards the
EFA goals. E.g. UNESCO, etc.
6. Involvement of NGOs movements, networks and campaigns: a wide range of
civil society initiatives, such as the Global Campaign for Education, seek to bring
policy and practice together and involve all stakeholders based on different
situations.
7. Other factors: the current world situation and practical experiences in
education. The current world situation presents challenges such as the spread of
HIV/AIDS, political instability, trends in resource distribution, diversity of
population, and social inclusion. This necessitates implementation of inclusion to
solve the problems. On the other hand, practical experiences in education offers
lessons learned from failure and success in mainstream, special and inclusive
education. Moreover, practical demonstrations of successful inclusive education
in different cultures and contexts are a strong influence on its development.

8. Benefits of Inclusion
It is now understood that inclusion benefits communities, families, teachers, and students by
ensuring that children with disabilities attend school with their peers and providing them with
adequate support to succeed both academically and socially.

1. Benefits for Students with Special Needs Education

In inclusive settings people will develop:

 Appropriate models of behavior. They can observe and imitate socially acceptable
behaviors of the students without special needs
 Improved friendships with the social environment
 Increased social initiations, interactions, relationships and networks
 Gain peer role models for academic, social and behavior skills
 Increased achievement of individualized educational program (IEP) goals
 Greater access to general curriculum
 Enhanced skill acquisition and generalization in their learning
 Improved academic achievement which leads to quality education services
 Attending inclusive schools increases the probability that students with SEN will
continue to participate in a variety of integrated settings throughout their lives (increased
inclusion in future environments that contribute building of inclusive society).
 Improved school staff collaboration to meet these students‘ needs and ability differences
 Increased parental participation to meet these students‘ needs and ability differences
 Enhanced family’s integration into the community.
2. Benefits for persons without Special Needs Education

Students without special educational needs (SEN) will:

 Have a variety of opportunities for interacting with their age peers who experience SEN
in inclusive school settings.
 serve as peer tutors during instructional activities
 Play the role of a special buddy‘during lunch, in the bus or playground.
 Gain knowledge of a good deal about tolerance, individual difference, and human
exceptionality.
  Learn that students with SEN have many positive characteristics and abilities.
 Have chance to learn about many of the human service profession such as special
education, speech therapy, physical therapy, recreation therapy, and vocational
rehabilitation. For some, exposure to these areas may lead to career choices.
 Have increased appreciation, acceptance and respect of individual differences among
human beings that leads to increased understanding and acceptance of diversity
 Get greater opportunities to master activities by practicing and teaching others
 Have increased academic outcomes
 have opportunity to learn to communicate, and deal effectively with a wide range of
individuals; this prepares them to fully participate in society when they are adults that
make them build an inclusive society
3. Benefits for Teachers and Parents/Family

Inclusive education has benefit to teachers. The benefit includes: developing their knowledge
and skills that meet diverse students‘ needs and ability differences to enhancing their skills to
work with their stakeholders; and gaining satisfaction in their profession and other aspects.
Similarly, parents/family benefit from inclusive education. For example, parents benefit from
implementation of inclusive education in developing their positive attitude towards their
children‘s education, positive feeling toward their participation, and appreciation to differences
among humankinds and so on. For detailed information, see the table below. when they
participate in inclusive education of their children

Table 2.3. Benefits of inclusion for Teachers and Parents/Family

Benefits for Teachers Benefits for Parents/Family

They have more opportunities to learn new They learn more about how their children are
ways to teach different kinds of students. being educated in schools with their peers in an
inclusive environment
They gain new knowledge, such as the They become personally involved and feel a
different ways children learn and can be taught. greater sense of accomplishment in helping
 their children to learn.
They develop more positive attitudes and They feel valued and consider themselves as
approaches towards different people with equal partners in providing quality learning
diverse needs. opportunities for children.
They have greater opportunities to explore new They learn how to deal better with their
ideas by communicating more often with children at home by using techniques that the
others from within and outside their school, teachers use in school.
such as in school clusters or teacher networks,
or with parents and community members.
They can encourage their students to be more They find out ways to interact with others in
interested, more creative and more attentive the community, as well as to understand and
help solve each other‘s problems.
They can experience greater job satisfaction They know that their children—and ALL
and a higher sense of accomplishment when children—are receiving a quality education.
ALL children are succeeding in school to the
best of their abilities.
They get opportunities to exchange They experience positive attitude about
information about instructional activities and themselves and their children by seeing their
teaching strategies, thus expanding the skills of children accepted by others, successful in the
both general and special educators inclusive setting, and belonging to the
community where they live

4. Benefits for Society

Inclusion goes beyond education and should involve consideration of employment, recreation,
health and living conditions. It should therefore involve transformations across all government
and other agencies at all levels of society.

When students with special needs and without special needs are educated through quality
inclusive education, it not only benefits students, teachers and parents it also benefits the society.
Some of the major benefits may include:
Introduction of students with disabilities and vulnerabilities into mainstream schools bring in the
students into local communities and neighborhoods and helps break down barriers and prejudice
that prevail in the society towards persons with disability.

Communities become more accepting of difference, and everyone benefits from a friendlier,
open environment that values and appreciates differences in human beings.

Meaningful participation in the economic, social, political and cultural life of communities own
cost effective non-segregated schooling system that services both students with and without
special needs education.

8. Ultimate Goal of Inclusion

The goal of inclusive education is to create schools where everyone belongs. By creating
inclusive schools, we ensure that there‘s a welcoming place in the community for everyone after
their school year‘s end. Students educated together have a greater understanding of difference
and diversity. Students educated together have fewer fears about difference and disability. An
inclusive school culture creates better long-term outcomes for all students. Typical students who
are educated alongside peers with developmental disabilities understand more about the ways
that they‘re all alike. These are the students who will be our children‘s peer group and friends.
These students hold the promise of creating inclusive communities in the future for all our
children. These students will be the teachers, principals, doctors, lawyers, and parents who build
communities where everyone belongs. Inclusive society is a necessary precondition for inclusive
growth is a society which does not exclude or discriminate against its citizens on the basis of
disability, caste, race, gender, family or community, a society which ‗levels the playing field for
investment‘ and leaves no one behind. Thus, Inclusive growth which is equitable that offers
equality of opportunity to all as well as protection in market and employment transitions results
from inclusive society.

9. Features of Inclusive Environment

An inclusive environment is one in which members feel respected by and connected to one
another. An inclusive environment is an environment that welcomes all people, regardless of
their disability and other vulnerabilities. It recognizes and uses their skills and strengthens their
abilities. An inclusive service environment is respectful, supportive, and equalizing. An inclusive
environment reaches out to and includes individuals with disabilities and vulnerabilities at all
levels — from first time participants to board members. It has the following major
characteristics:

 It ensures the respect and dignity of individuals with disabilities.

 It meets current accessibility standards to the greatest extent possible to all people with
special needs
 Provides accommodations willingly and proactively
 Persons with disabilities are welcomed and are valued for their contributions as
individuals.
10. Inclusive Environments

An inclusive environment is a place that is adjusted to individuals‘ needs and not vice versa –
that individuals are adjusted to the environmental needs. It acknowledges that individual
differences among individuals are a source of richness and diversity, and not a problem, and that
various needs and the individual pace of learning and development can be met successfully with
a wide range of flexible approaches. Besides, the environment should involve continuous process
of changes directed towards strengthening and encouraging different ways of participation of all
members of the community. An inclusive environment is also directed towards developing
culture, policy and practice which meet pupils‘ diversities, towards identifying and removing
obstacles in learning and participating, towards developing a suitable provisions and supporting
individuals. Therefore, successful environment has the following characteristics:

 It develops whole-school/environment processes that promote inclusiveness and

quality provisions and practice that are responsive to the individual needs and diversities
 It recognizes and responds to the diverse needs of their individuals and ensuring quality
provisions for all through appropriate accommodations, organizational arrangements,
resource use and partnerships with their community.
 It is committed to serve all individuals together regardless of differences. It is also
deeply committed to the belief that all persons can learn, work and be productive.
 It involves restructuring environment, culture, policy, and practice.
  It promoting pro-social activities.
 It makes provides services and facilities equally accessible to all people.
 It involves mobilizing resources within the community.
 It is alert to and uses a range of multi-skilled personnel to assist people in their learning
and working environment.
 It strives to create strong links with, clinicians, caregivers, and staff in local schools,
work place, disability services providers and relevant support agencies within the wider
community.
 It develops social relationships as an equal member of the class. It is also the classroom
responsive to the diversity of individuals ‘academic, social and personal learning needs.
11. Barriers to Inclusion

Though many countries seem committed to inclusion their rhetoric, and even in their legislation
and policies, practices often fall short. Reasons for the policy-practice gap in inclusion are
diverse. The major barriers include:

 Problems related with societal values and beliefs- particularly the community and policy
makers’ negative attitude towards students with disability and vulnerabilities. Inclusion
cannot flourish in a society that has prejudice and negative attitude towards persons with
disability.
 Economic factors- this is mainly related with poverty of family, community and society
at large
 Lack of taking measures to ensure conformity of implementation of inclusion practice
with policies
 Lack of stakeholders taking responsibility in their cooperation as well as collaboration for
inclusion.
 Conservative traditions among the community members about inclusion
 Lack of knowledge and skills among teachers regarding inclusive education.
 Rigid curricula, teaching method and examination systems that do not consider students
with dives needs and ability differences.
 Fragile democratic institutions that could not promote inclusion.
 Inadequate resources and inaccessibility of social and physical environments.
 Large class sizes that make teachers and stakeholders meet students‘ diverse needs
 Globalization and free market policy that make students engage in fierce completion,
individualism and individuals ‘excellence rather than teaching through cooperation,
collaboration and group excellence.
 Using inclusive models that may be imported from other countries.