| dc.description.abstract | Inclusive education is seen as an important part of education and an ethically ‘good’ concept with many values aligned with it, but there is no agreement on how to define or implement it (Felder, 2018; Norwich & Koutsouris, 2017). There are debates on whether inclusive education expresses universal or plural values (Dyson, 1999; Norwich and Koutsouris, 2017) and this, along with other debates, means inclusive education is ambiguous making it hard to operationalise (Byrne, 2019; Dell’Anna et al 2021). This is even more evident at secondary schools in England as their complex structures and standards agenda can conflict with some of the values often linked with ideas on inclusion (Done & Andrews, 2019; Florian, 2019). Nonetheless, stakeholders can be change agents (Damianidou, 2021; Gibson et al, 2017) although they might feel constrained and limited in what they can do (Dimitrellou & Male, 2020; Miller et al, 2020). Debates and research do not always consider the range of stakeholder voices and, therefore, there are calls for more research into inclusive education including the range of stakeholders involved (Messiou, 2019b). Different stakeholders appear to have different experiences so exploring these differences, and any similarities, could inform understanding of inclusive education and how to enact it (Dimitrellou et al, 2018; Dimitrellou & Male, 2020).
Therefore, my study aimed to research the experiences of teaching staff (n=4) and young people with (n=10) and without SEND (n=3) of inclusion in secondary school classrooms in South West England to explore what their experiences were and to compare these to identify similarities and differences. I did this by adopting interpretivism in order to explore the experiences of those directly involved in the phenomenon of inclusive education. Utilising a researcher driven photo-elicitation method, in January and February 2022 I discussed six photographs of classroom activities with each participant and how they related to their own experiences in the classroom. They then picked the one they resonated with the most and gave a caption to explain this choice. This formed phase one. Phase two (March 2022) was with the same participants where the photographs were revisited alongside the choices and captions all of the participants made in phase one. Data from the discussions in both phases was analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.
Each participant group was analysed separately, and four themes identified for each. These were then compared to highlight differences and similarities across the groups. This showed that the differences and similarities were due to different ‘versions’ of inclusion being experienced and perceived.
These versions also had dimensions within them meaning that each version was not always experienced or viewed in the same way. These versions and dimensions of inclusion also intersected with each other. My discussion centred around this finding and concluded that the participants experienced and perceived inclusions rather than inclusion meaning it was plural in nature.
Therefore, I interpreted this drawing on research that discussed inclusive education as a thick or thin concept (Williams, 1985); inclusion as a thick concept is presented to be about evaluation and description rooted in values and showing complexity, whereas a thin concept is just evaluative and rooted in realisation and placement (Norwich, 2022). I also applied the metaphor of the fox and hedgehog. According to this metaphor, a fox appreciates many perspectives which are not necessarily connected or compatible, whereas a hedgehog focuses on one main idea offering direction and purpose (Berlin, 1978). In terms of inclusive education, this means that inclusion can be seen as associated with dilemmas and competing values (fox perspective); or as a single value with a core direction to work towards (hedgehog perspective). My findings indicated that inclusive education was experienced as a thick concept and that the participants largely experienced it like foxes. To my knowledge this is one of the first studies applying this theoretical metaphor to empirical findings on inclusive education (Norwich, 2014b; Norwich & Koutsouris, 2017).
The findings highlight that inclusion is a complex notion and that authors ought to appreciate that it is a thick concept and avoid treating it as a thin concept. Additionally, I found that inclusion can be viewed and experienced by people in complex and intersecting ways and that traditional distinctions between academic and social inclusion (Göransson & Nilholm, 2014) might not capture this complexity. This can help to further understanding on what inclusive education is and how it can be realised by adding more transparency to the plurality of the concept as well as the complexity and dilemmas it faces and allowing us to learn from these. | en_GB |
