Inclusive Notion Research Articles

Supporting inclusion in teaching and learning STEM subjects within the DISCO+ project

Aim. The objectives of DISCO+ (Dropout and Inclusion at SChOol) project are two- fold: to implement an inclusive approach and prevent early school leaving in STEM sub- jects. The participating partner institutions apply cooperative engineering to develop units in mathematics and science subjects that can be implemented in different European educational contexts to meet the project objectives. Within the project (WP2) 16 transna- tional groups of pre- and in- service teachers take part in an eTwinning digital training sessions on the notion of school inclusion in Europe, the implementation of the principle of equality between girls and boys, the development of the critical thinking in learning scientific disciplines. Small group discussions refine each participant’s understanding of the issues involved, and the work carried out makes it possible to go beyond the local character of the definitions and to reach a common and shared understanding of the intercultural nuances present in each country. These exchanges will help build links be- tween participants and create a network of European colleagues. The groups’ experience books will serve as a basis for posters, which will be presented in June 2024. These pres- entations can be filmed and contribute to a 5-hour MOOC, which will be developed at a later phase in the project. Methods. By adopting a methodology which includes collectively designing teach- ing-learning sequences in transnational context, the project applies transnational engi- neering. Each partner involved in the creation of one or more teaching-learning sequenc- es must question the conditions of transferability of its point of view, its analyses and its testimonies in different educational contexts. In other words, the intercultural component of sequences designed jointly by partners from different countries should be ensured by addressing socially relevant issues and enriching their treatment with a variety of cul- tural viewpoints. The design of sequences on a transnational scale from this intercultural perspective will also make it possible to deal with the language issue in subjects such as mathematics and science. This methodology intends to develop a common culture on key issues such as sustainable development, inclusion and gender equality and to contribute to the creation of a European citizenship. Results. The activities will result in several deliverables, which include a round ta- ble, dedicated to the notion of school inclusion on a European scale, a four-month long eTwinning digital training in 16 transnational groups (teacher trainees, practioners) dis- cussing and exchanging ideas on inclusion in European education systems, teaching Sci- ence subjects, equality of girls and boys and developing critical thinking. Group experi- ence notebooks will be published as the result of exchanges between students, and will be dissemminated through the realisation of a poster session allowing the mutualisation of the work of the different working (16 transnational) groups. During the implementa- tion of „cooperative engineering” around inclusion and STEM teaching approaches by deconstructing representations of these objects to identify European variables and in- variants, an „online serious game”, and an accompanying guide is to be developed. The production of at least 4 teaching units (one per transnational team), two of which will be in mathematics and two in earth sciences (at least one unit is taught in the mother tongue and another in a CLIL approach) will be filmed and analysed by each “cooperative en- gineering” group on the eTwinning platform. Several activities will be used to produce resources, which in turn will be scripted into am5-hour MOOC training module to be made available on the platform already developed as part of the DICO+ project. Conclusions. In conclusion, the structure of the DISCO+ project will enable it to ad- dress the entire educational community in each country, including pupils, teachers, fu- ture teachers, trainers of trainers and inspectors.

Inklusionens fundamenter: en longitudinal undersøgelse af betydningen af lærere og pædagogers inklusionsholdninger og mestringsoplevelser

This article reports on a large-scale longitudinal study on teachers’ and social educators’ attitudes and concerns towards inclusion as well as their self-efficacy for inclusive practices in schools in Denmark. We applied a survey constituted by The sentiments, attitudes, and concerns about inclusive education (SAICE) and Teacher efficacy for inclusive practice (TEIP) scales as well as questions concerning understandings of the notion of inclusion. The main findings of the study are that there is a correlation between attitudes and concerns regarding inclusion and teacher self-efficacy and that there are factors such as employment, experience and education that have an influence on attitudes towards inclusion.

Breaking the mold when organizing: Disability inclusion and countercultural practices

This paper explores the potential and limits of countercultural practices in reshaping arts-based approaches to disability inclusion, as increasingly advocated by alternative and community-based organizations. Adopting the framework of crip theory, the study focuses on the use of noise music in a French association of alternative organizations dedicated to mutual aid. We find that countercultural practices in that context rework disability inclusion in three ways: (1) By considering accessibility as not merely the removal of barriers, but also as a cultural transformation characterized by friction; (2) By emphasizing the importance of disharmony to challenge normalizing and assimilatory expectations related to the climate of inclusion; (3) By fostering economic eccentricity that shifts the valorization of disability from an individual to a collective level. We consider these practices as examples of an approach that overcomes the simple inclusion/exclusion dichotomy and claims the value of being in the margins. At the same time, these practices are also characterized by an essential tension between margins and center, as they often rely on the very organizational forms they want to counter. We propose the term “dis-including” to conceptualize this ambivalent, as well as contestatory and non-dichotomous character of the countercultural way of practicing inclusion. Dis-including is not a simple way out of marginalization, but a practice that questions established values, shifts the focus from the individual to the collective and requires breaking the mold when organizing. We therefore highlight the potential of dis-including to reshape mainstream notions of disability inclusion, extending beyond alternative organizations.

The Biopolitics of Disability

This article investigates the biopolitics of disability in the ablenationalist England of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go and examines how a neoliberal society urges its citizens to depend on market-based private medical management to be able-bodied individuals in order to fully participate in society. It also analyses the lives of clones who reside at Hailsham, a boarding school, as well as those of the non-cloned human beings living in the community outside Hailsham to illustrate the Agambenian ideologies of zoē and bios. The less explored and less debated sections of the novel, such as the fictional state of England, the institutions that produce and raise human clones like Hailsham, and the society of non-cloned human beings who are waiting for organ transplantation, are examined to exemplify how ablenationalism and able-disabled become strategies for inclusion in a neoliberal society of Ishiguro’s fictional England, thus problematising the ableist notion of inclusion as presented in Never Let Me Go.

Ability in physical education – No, I can’t discuss it! Insights from lower secondary physical education teachers in Western Australia

Ability has been positioned as a crucial concept in the construction of a subject that is inclusive of and meaningful for all students. Almost two decades since Evans ( 2004 ) called on the field to re-engage in discourse concerning ability, how ability is conceptualised by physical education (PE) teachers remains relatively unexplored. Furthermore, relatively little is known about how understandings of ability are enacted through curriculum, pedagogy and assessment in PE. This research explored these issues with lower secondary PE teachers in Western Australia through self-recorded audio responses to two research questions. Data from 38 participants revealed the struggles that PE teachers had in articulating meanings and representations of ability in PE in their curriculum, pedagogy and assessment practices. Findings illustrated a tendency for many teachers to privilege a performative view of ability and focus on the physical domain in discussing ability in PE. While some teachers made reference to skills and dispositions beyond this domain, data affirmed the dominance of narrow conceptualisations of ability in PE and pointed to limited understandings of how broad, fluid and inclusive notions of ability may be embedded in curriculum design, pedagogy and assessment practices. Summative assessment was the most frequent aspect of practice referred to in teachers’ explanations of how understanding of ability was expressed in their practice. The study points to the importance of professional learning and initial teacher education directing attention to ability as a focus for advancing equitable practices in PE and the need for further research exploring enactments of ability.

“Trying to twist your way out of your skin” — different faces of Chinese Canadian experience in selected poems by Grace Lau

The notions of inclusion, exclusion, and otherness remain at the core of the diasporic experience and an integral part of the history of Chinese diaspora in Canada. In her debut collection The Language We Were Never Taught to Speak (2021), Grace Lau, a Chinese Canadian poet, explores these ideas and their impact on individuals and on the whole Chinese diaspora. Through the analysis of four of Lau’s poems — “When Yuhua Hamasaki Went Home”, “3 a.m. Communion”, “Pedicure at Pinky’s”, and “Escape Artist” — this article discusses how the poet connects experiences of inclusion and exclusion with both historical instances of prejudice and discrimination and their modern counterparts, highlighting the role consumerism plays in those processes.

‘Racialised nudity’ in social work education: critical reflections on cross-cultural pedagogies

ABSTRACT Fostering cross-cultural learning is an important component in social work education in Australia. However, cross-cultural learning competencies are often criticized for lacking meaningful engagement with effective decolonial processes. Drawing on a postcolonial perspective, this paper offers a theoretical critique of pedagogical practices that create, sustain, and reinforce racial hierarchy in cross-cultural learning. These practices are discussed within the notions of tokenistic inclusion and racialized nudity that illustrate deficit models of cultural engagement. The paper is underpinned by the argument that a broadly defined and uncritically designed cross-cultural teaching and learning experience runs the risk of perpetuating white supremacy and dominance in social work education. By critiquing tokenistic cross-cultural pedagogical practices, this paper advocates for a re-orientation of social work education where a decolonial approach to knowledge production is embraced within curriculum design with a prioritized focus on the intersection of whiteness and racism.

Inclusion in Virtual Reality Technology: A Scoping Review

Despite the significant growth in virtual reality applications and research, the notion of inclusion in virtual reality is not well studied. Inclusion refers to the active involvement of different groups of people in the adoption, use, design, and development of Virtual Reality (VR) technology and applications. In this review, we provide a scoping analysis of existing virtual reality research literature about inclusion. We categorize the literature based on target group into ability, gender, and age, followed by those that study community-based design of VR experiences. In the latter group, we focus mainly on Indigenous Peoples as a clearer and more important example. We also briefly review the approaches to model and consider the role of users in technology adoption and design as a background for inclusion studies. We identify a series of generic barriers and research gaps and some specific ones for each group, resulting in suggested directions for future research.

Preparing Inclusive Early Childhood Educators (PIECE): A conceptualization of multilingualism, English learning, and inclusivity

AbstractThe purpose of this article is to share the examination of inclusivity as a paradigm for fostering authenticity and agency (Moore, 2017) among teacher candidates. This framing challenges the notion of inclusion as a tool of meritocracy used to manage learners through expectations that uphold monolingualism, decenter racial histories, and rely on rigid behavior plans. In this work, the authors interrogate the impact inclusion as assimilation has on English learners' authentic ways of knowing and being. Thus, they present a conceptualization of spaces of difference (Agbenyaga & Klibthong, 2012) within the context of an Inclusive Early Childhood Teacher Education (IECTE) program and the objectives of the Preparing Inclusive Early Childhood Educators (PIECE) project. With its rigorous coursework, clinical experiences, multi‐tiered mentorship, and practice‐based professional development, the PIECE project aims to develop inclusive early childhood educators at the preservice and in‐service levels. Infused throughout the PIECE project is an emphasis on cultivating the knowledge and skills needed to provide high‐quality instruction that improves educational outcomes for English learners (ELs). Frameworks of transformative theory and intersectionality perspectives provided the authors with a grounding for the work within the PIECE project community of learners (i.e., teacher candidates, teacher educators, and school district partners). This article summarizes critical concepts of inclusivity centered in the PIECE project work. These concepts include (1) understanding oneself to look beyond; (2) disrupting notions of normalcy and naturalized language; and (3) reconceptualizing inclusivity as a social justice act.

“God Save Me from a Civilized Indian”: Labor Union Schools and Contending Visions for Indigenous Education in Ecuador, 1936–1963

From the 1930s to the 1960s, Indigenous activists in Ecuador unsettled the prevailing paradigm of acculturation, practicing literacies that advanced their capacities for political mobilization around labor and land rights. Leaders on the haciendas of Cayambe allied with the Communist Party of Ecuador to organize their locally grounded politics against an urban-based indigenista movement. Both movements highlighted the need for Indigenous emancipation from the confines of the feudalistic labor system but diverged in their visions of Indigenous agency. Labor activists recognized that landowners relied on education for social control, so they made autonomous schooling a central hallmark of their struggle. Previous scholarship, focused on 1980s state directives for intercultural bilingual education, has not explored the orientation of Cayambe's early schools toward labor rights pedagogy. Analyzing textbooks, periodicals, and oral histories, I argue that Cayambe's teachers pursued notions of national inclusion that fused citizenship rights with socialist ideals and practices of Indigenous autonomy.

Afro-Spanish countervisual genealogies of Blackness in Rubén H. Bermúdez’s Y tú, ¿por qué eres negro?

In Y tú, ¿por qué eres negro? Spanish photographer Rubén H. Bermúdez constructs a personal and autobiographical visual narrative of Afro-Spanish Blackness. Utilizing Nicolas Mirzoeff’s notion of the “countervisual” as that which runs counter to notions of visual authority and asserts the “right to look” by marginalized communities, I argue that the text calls attention to how viewers view the images and thus questions notions of visual authority that have determined how Blackness is seen in Spain. Y tú also employs countervisuality by using found images of US and international Black racial icons to show how these stand in for localized struggles of African and Afrodescendants in Spain. Y tú visualizes an Afro-Spanish subjectivity that argues for more inclusive notions of Blackness and the African diaspora as it simultaneously rearticulates normative ideas of Spanish identity. In doing so, the text underscores the power of images to reshape and challenge prevailing perspectives on identity, diaspora, and national and cultural belonging.

The complex journey towards the enactment of inclusion in physical education: a scoping review of the literature on teachers’ perceptions and practices

ABSTRACT Background: The provision of inclusive education in schools is a global priority. However, provision in schools is often criticised for being varied and inconsistent, often perpetuating a rhetoric of exclusion [Warnes, E., E. J. Done, and H. Knowler. 2022. “Mainstream Teachers’ Concerns About Inclusive Education for Children with Special Educational Needs and Disability in England Under Pre-Pandemic Conditions.” Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs: JORSEN 22 (1): 31–43. https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-3802.12525]. These concerns are raised across schooling and subject areas; and Physical Education (PE) is no exception. Purpose: The present paper reported results from a scoping review of the literature conducted to answer questions about PE teachers’ subjective interpretations of the meaning and importance of inclusion, the ways PE teachers facilitate inclusion for diverse learners, and the barriers they encounter. Methods: The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines (extension for Scoping Reviews) informed this review. Adopting elements of the SPIDER tool (Sample, Phenomenon of Interest, Design, Evaluation, Research type) the database search was conducted in three stages: 1) hand search of titles from key PE journals; 2) systematic search of six databases (EBSCO host , ProQuest, JSTOR, PubMed/Medline, PsycINFO and Web of Science), and 3) search of Google and Google Scholar . Of the 4007 records identified, 64 studies met the eligibility criteria and were included in this review. Thematic analysis was carried out to identify key themes. Findings: Results suggest that inclusion is an important matter in PE provision across different national contexts. The various meanings that teachers attributed to the notion of inclusion appeared to provide a reference point/parameter of how inclusion was enacted in practice. Although the idea of inclusion was supported, most teachers were cautious about what was possible in practice. The most frequently mentioned barriers included the ‘child’, inadequate professional learning, and limited resources and support. Despite the various challenges teachers faced, they reported making efforts to implement a range of inclusive practices, including grounding tasks in students' needs, adopting student centred pedagogies, offering choice, promoting positive peer interactions and teaching by utilising differentiated instruction. Conclusion: Acknowledging the subjective nature of such a review, we conclude that findings reinforce but also extend those from previous reviews. The novel contribution lies with the observation that teachers not only faced common barriers to, but also identified shared features of effective inclusion,irrespective of the group of learners they were asked to reflect upon. We have identified key implications for teacher educators, and provided recommendations for future research, which include conducting research in diverse national contexts with cultural responsiveness, better understanding the relationship between teachers’ perceptions/understandings and practices in the context of their complex and diverse environments and cultures, exploring what teachers learn about inclusion, and providing tangible, evidence- informed pedagogies for inclusion as these are implemented in various contexts.

Working with constructs of inclusion for understanding teachers’ literacy practices and their impact on student learning

ABSTRACT The paper explores teachers’ language literacy practices in underprivileged, inner-city schools in Athens, Greece, and their implications for student learning and educational inclusion. The current developments of global/European and national education policy agendas on literacy and inclusion inform the research questions of the study. Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic discourse frames our analysis on the reproduction of social inequalities through schooling and informs our discussion on the discursive means and the pedagogic practices for their interruption. Findings, based on interview data and classroom observations, indicate that global discourses on inclusion, (re)articulated in the disadvantaged school settings of the study, invest the notion of inclusion with three different meanings: a. inclusion as assimilation and absorption into the dominant culture and society; b. inclusion as therapy for students’ emotional ‘traumas’; and c. inclusion as recognition of difference. We argue that these constructs of inclusion shape teaching practices that either promote or undermine student learning and empowerment.

Pluralism and Monotheism: On Apophatic Intolerance

AbstractThis paper explores the dangerous yet liberative potentials of so‐called monotheistic intolerance, arguing for its importance in pluralistic politics. Drawing upon the work of political theorist Chantal Mouffe, I examine conventional political notions of inclusivity and show how the metaphysics of “the One True God” has political analogs not merely in despotic, exclusive absolutism but in agonistic pluralism. The metaphysical correlate of pluralism, I argue, is not merely in polytheism but in “apophatic intolerance”—the refusal to lay claim upon the Absolute, the denial of its representation—a subtle mechanics at the heart of monotheism. And yet, ambivalently coinciding with this emancipatory intolerance is a violence‐laden “Mosaic distinction” between true and false religion. The political theology of Egyptologist Jan Assmann helps us interpret such volatile but crucial intolerance for our own democratic and pluralistic context.

Playing supremacy: DEIA games in higher education

The 45th presidential administration of the United States created numerous sweeping pieces of legislation that drastically curtailed how Americans thought of diversity and where marginalized folks of colour fit in the grand scheme of things. This administration pushed back against notions of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) as they pertained to marginalized groups, particularly in spaces of higher education. To combat this, there were numerous institutions across the country that began to develop or revamp their diversity programmes as a way to ‘show’ those who had been targeted – both faculty and students of colour – still had played a significant role in higher education. Unfortunately, these diversity programmes did little to nothing to help support faculty and students who relied on these programmes, but instead made them feel like this was meant to be ‘played’, like the latest video game. This article seeks to demonstrate how DEIA programmes function as a method of pay, while doing little to provide the necessary support for the folks that need it. Additionally, it shows how institutions of white supremacy are being perpetuated within these programmes, as they are merely used as a way to show others that the programmes exist, while both not actually serving the individuals these programmes were designed to benefit. It will also illustrate in a succinct fashion what DEIA programmes are meant to do and what they are not meant to do while using experiences of marginalized individuals to focus on the problems that exist within DEIA programmes. Finally, the article will provide a potential rubric, or call to action, that could help these programmes to function as an actual form of support as opposed to a system of ‘play’, because they do serve a vital purpose, but not in their current iterations.

Implication as Inclusion and the Causal Asymmetry

Abstract How does causation in the physical world relate to implication in logic? This article presents implication as fundamentally a relation of inclusion between propositions. Given this, it is argued that an event cannot “causally imply” another, also given the laws of nature. Then, by applying the notion of inclusion to physical objects, a relation “within the possibilities of” is developed, which generates a partial order on sets of entities and is independent of time. Based on this, it is shown that changes of physical objects in time (at any rate, a great many of them) imply, and thus counterfactually depend on, what we call “causes” – an asymmetric dependence which is robust despite the perspectival nature of the concept of “cause”.

Communicating LGBTQ-supportive CSR for corporate legitimacy: a cultural discourse analysis in Hong Kong

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) towards the notions of diversity, equality, and inclusion (DE&I) draws a lot of attention in modern, pluralist society. The organizations’ communicative approach in conveying LGBTQ advocacy to manage tensions and avoid conflicts with various stakeholders is largely underexplored in the Asian context. This study adopts Carbaugh’s cultural discourse analysis (CuDA) to examine the socio-cultural meanings of LGBTQ-supportive CSR discourse for building corporate legitimacy in Hong Kong. CSR materials from leading corporations (2016–2022) and Facebook comments from the public were selected. We analyzed the CSR discourse using the five discursive hubs of CuDA (i.e. identity, emotions, actions, relations, and dwelling) and Suchman’s legitimacy theory (i.e. pragmatic, cognitive, and moral). Our findings revealed three different stages of corporate legitimacy: namely, symbolic, institutional, and contextualized LGBTQ advocacy. The CSR materials intertwining in the five discursive hubs also demonstrated how the organizations attempted to build corporate legitimacy by fostering social change and avoiding conflicts through positive and implicit message-framing of LGBTQ advocacy. Discourse reflected in these CSR strategies illuminated the importance of glocalizing CSR messages to facilitate stakeholder engagement and corporate legitimization in support of this controversially progressive value.

The sound of silence: deconstructing notions of inclusion in career guidance on exploring the experience of deaf people

ABSTRACT Learning that “career” was not a definite sign in Irish Sign Language (ISL) and that “Career Guidance” was poorly understood by the Deaf community prompted a systematic literature review (SLR). An uncomfortable truth relating to Career Guidance emerged – “Inclusion” is not where we presume it to be at. This paper presents the results of the SLR and shares how the answers from a thematic analysis can – through a Universal Design (UD), and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) (Rose & Meyer, 2002) lens – guide developments for inclusive Career Guidance. This paper shares the story of “d/Deaf guidance” in the literature; the tensions between theory and practice in relation to inclusion (Quirke, 2022), and the themes identified from the SLR – themes the Deaf community believe are a Deaf gain.

Computational Thinking in Diverse and Inclusive Preschool Settings – Cracking the Code

Abstract: Computational Thinking is a fundamental skill just as reading, writing and mathematics. It involves the development of higher-order thinking skills, such as problem-solving, and borrows from computer-science methods like the concepts of abstraction and decomposition. In the context of young populations, preferences, adoption, encouragement, and sensitization, are relevant to the development of Computational Thinking attitudes and skills. The present study was designed to explore how Computational Thinking can be integrated into a typical curriculum, considering the notions of inclusion and diversity. Thirty children (aged 4-6 years) from diverse ethnical backgrounds participated in a Hidden Treasure Hunt learning activity which was distinct by the absence of explicit instructions. Previous research show that while significant emphasis is often placed on the cognitive aspects of Computational Thinking, the affective and emotional dimensions are frequently overlooked. This study underscores the importance of not only imparting knowledge and building skills but also the role of attitudes and emotions in nurturing an environment for discovery and higher-order thinking abilities development in young children.

Socio-ethical challenges and opportunities for advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in digital medicine.

Digitalization in medicine offers a significant opportunity to transform healthcare systems by providing novel digital tools and services to guide personalized prevention, prediction, diagnosis, treatment and disease management. This transformation raises a number of novel socio-ethical considerations for individuals and society as a whole, which need to be appropriately addressed to ensure that digital medical devices (DMDs) are widely adopted and benefit all patients as well as healthcare service providers. In this narrative review, based on a broad literature search in PubMed, Web of Science, Google Scholar, we outline five core socio-ethical considerations in digital medicine that intersect with the notions of equity and digital inclusion: (i) access, use and engagement with DMDs, (ii) inclusiveness in DMD clinical trials, (iii) algorithm fairness, (iv) surveillance and datafication, and (v) data privacy and trust. By integrating literature from multidisciplinary fields, including social, medical, and computer sciences, we shed light on challenges and opportunities related to the development and adoption of DMDs. We begin with an overview of the different types of DMDs, followed by in-depth discussions of five socio-ethical implications associated with their deployment. Concluding our review, we provide evidence-based multilevel recommendations aimed at fostering a more inclusive digital landscape to ensure that the development and integration of DMDs in healthcare mitigate rather than cause, maintain or exacerbate health inequities.