On this blog, I’ve spent a lot of time criticizing the idea that everyone should be forced to attend mainstream schools, regardless of whether they want to or not.  In doing so, I’ve sometimes suggested that I am opposed to “inclusion” itself, but that’s not exactly correct.  Previously, I’ve never really unpacked the difference between the concepts of mainstreaming or integration and the concept of inclusion, even though there is a very important distinction between them.  I want to clarify that today.  Furthermore, I want to expose how our popular ideas of inclusion can sometimes be ableist and condescending.

There are a couple of traditional views on integration/mainstreaming and inclusion in education: those of the universal and moderate inclusionists.  The universal inclusionists aim for all students to be mainstreamed, without exception.  The universal inclusionists aim to make integration a duty (not, as sometimes falsely suggested, a right).  In contrast, the moderate inclusionists would prefer to mainstream students when possible, but they also concede that mainstreaming is not appropriate in all cases.[1]

However, when universal inclusionists chose to advocate for the integration of all students into the mainstream, they were forced to face the reality that not all students were experiencing success in the mainstream environment.  The distinction between “integration” and “inclusion” was an attempt to cope with this challenge without abandoning the goal of universal integration.  Essentially, the universal inclusionists argued that a truly inclusive environment would permit the success of all students, and existing failures in integrated settings simply reflected a failure to achieve true inclusion.  (Thus, “inclusion” succeeds by rhetorical trickery: any failure of inclusion is, automatically, not “inclusion,” and can be safely dismissed.)

An example of this type of universalist definition of “inclusion” is provided by Ferguson (1995, p. 286):

“Inclusion is a process of meshing general and special education reform initiatives and strategies in order to achieve a unified system of public education that incorporates all children and youths as active, fully participating members of the school community; that views diversity as the norm; and that ensures a high-quality education for each student by providing meaningful curriculum, effective teaching, and necessary supports for each student.”

Even if moderate inclusionists do not necessarily believe that this sort of inclusion is achievable, they may still accept that the definition.  However, I strongly disagree with this definition of inclusion – indeed, I regard it as ableist.

The definition states that inclusion can only occur within a “unified system of public education that incorporates all children and youths as active, fully participating members of the school community.”  In short, inclusion only occurs when autistic, neurodivergent, and disabled students are educated alongside their able and neurotypical peers.

To see the limitations of this concept of inclusion, we need look no further than the Deaf community.  Because hearing children and teachers are rarely fluent in ASL and other sign languages, it is not clear that hearing people can always meaningfully include deaf children as full members of a school community.[2]  On the contrary, to be full members of a school community, these children might need to attend a specialized school where everyone is fluent in a sign language – a specialized school for deaf children.

I’ve sometimes been included by communities of autistic people, and I’ve sometimes been excluded by communities of neurotypical people.  I know which of these alternatives I prefer.

Why does inclusion only count when the people doing the including are able, neurotypical students?  If some children can be more meaningfully included as part of a community of their disabled peers, why isn’t that considered a type of inclusion?

It’s true that many of us fear a return to the days of institutional psychiatry, and you can rest assured that I share this fear, but if we work to ensure that there is a clear right to integration, along with the option of specialization, then involuntary expulsion from the mainstream will not be a problem.  The option of specialization is not incompatible with a right to integration; it is only incompatible with a duty to integrate students against their will.  But what other reason could we have to define inclusion in such a way that only able, neurotypical people can be the includers?

The only other answer I can think of is ableism.  I think we are so convinced of the superiority of the able and neurotypical students that we cannot conceive of a situation in which the disabled students might prefer to associate with one another.  Instead, we envision a world in which the neurotypical students generously include their neurodivergent peers, no doubt uplifting them in the process.  Just consider how we always say that observing neurotypical social interaction will help autistic people learn to socialize: even though I’m very skeptical about that assumption, most of us seem to find an intuitive appeal in the idea of the neurotypicals helping the autists through mere exposure.

Indeed, it seems like the inclusion project is somehow related to the normalization project.  When we prioritize inclusion in integrated settings, we’re trying to give disabled people as normal a life as possible.  However, as positive as this can be, I’m concerned about its excesses.  I am concerned that we can sometimes develop paternalistic programs to give people with disabilities the empty trappings of normality, by placing them alongside able peers and isolating them from disabled peers, without ensuring that they will meaningfully participate in these environments.  Once, I encountered an organization that aimed to support the inclusion of adults with developmental disabilities, including autism, in postsecondary educational settings.  The organizers of this group aimed to stop their clients from joining communities of autistic and disabled people because they did not consider these communities inclusive.

Once again, we’re back to the question of rights and duties.  It should be every disabled person’s right to live a normal life if they want, but it isn’t their duty.  Likewise, it should be every disabled person’s right to be placed in an integrated, mainstream school, but it isn’t their duty to be there if they would rather be included in a specialized setting.

Inclusion just means inclusion – not necessarily inclusion in an integrated setting, but also inclusion in specialized settings.  Able people aren’t so special that their mere presence is somehow more valuable than the presence of other disabled people.

Footnotes

[1] Unfortunately, the moderate inclusionists today tend to focus on excluding students due to problem behaviours, while ignoring students who suffer silently in the mainstream.  This is a major distinction between my perspective – which calls for individuals and their families to have meaningful choices about educational placement – and the moderate inclusion school.

[2] While universal inclusionists may prefer not to think about the possibility that their idealized vision of “inclusion” is often unachievable, we must face and accept realities.

Reference

Ferguson, D. L. (1995). The real challenge of inclusion. The Phi Delta Kappan, 77(4), 281-287.  Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20405555