This paper explores the application to educational inclusion of Martin Buber’s approach to dialogue. Buber’s ‘dialogic principle’ helps form a groundwork for schooling and a task for schools. Buber distinguishes three kinds of dialogue: technical dialogue (roughly, exchanging information), real dialogue (which for Buber has existential and religious significance), and ‘monologue disguised as dialogue’ (Buber 2002, p 22). It is argued that the possibility and the presence of real dialogue is a defining characteristic of schools as inclusive learning communities, and that monologic conversation in school is both tempting and harmful. The research investigates dialogue amongst and between pupils/students and teachers. However, dialogue beyond the school (with the families of pupils and with other members of local or wider communities) and over time (for example with the writers of literary, sacred and other ‘canonical’ and historic texts) are central to an understanding of the nature of schooling (as in Stern 2007a). Such wide-ranging dialogue is thereby linked to relational theories of spirituality (as in Hay 2002, Hay with Nye 2006): hence the ‘spirit’ in the title. For Buber, in engaging in dialogue the teacher inevitably ‘must practise the kind of realisation which I call inclusion (Umfassung)’ (Buber 1958, p 165), and it is the processes of inclusion – as described in current educational debates – that are investigated in this paper. Empirical research is taking place in schools in the UK, China, the US and Australia, on how pupils and teachers talk in different school contexts. The research investigates talk itself and also the pupils’ and teachers’ expectations of ‘what is typically said’ in different contexts. This builds on the work of Daniels and colleagues (Daniels 2001) on the semiotics of classrooms and how educational inclusion can be promoted. The paper is developed from chapter 4 of Stern (forthcoming, 2008), which is the first publication from the larger Spirit of the School project. That project is an attempt to answer the questions ‘What is the spirit of the school?’ ‘What of the school promotes the spirit of the school?’ ‘What do pupils and teachers and others do to contribute to the spirit of the school?’. The spirit of the school is, as described here, generated by and in turn supports and promotes three dimensions of humanity: community, learning and dialogue (initially proposed in Stern 2007a). Community is described by relationships, including opportunities for friendship. Learning is a creative process, with school learning centred on becoming human. Through dialogue people make community and learning: dialogue is how people come to be themselves by relating to others. The spirit of the school will also be determined by the nature of leadership practiced in the school. It is the spirit of inclusion, as made in dialogue, that is explored in this paper.

This paper develops one theme from the larger Spirit of the School project (Stern, forthcoming, 2008), and therefore draws on the extensive methodology of that project. The theoretical work builds on an exegesis of Buber’s concept of dialogue and inclusion. It continues with the development of a model that also takes account of a range of other philosophical and psychological work, notably the work of Buber’s contemporary Macmurray (1996, 2004), the personal construct psychologist Salmon (1995), and the Vygotskian Daniels (2001). The empirical research consists of an intervention in each of a number of schools. Each intervention involves a series of tasks and questions asked of a group of pupils/students, a group of teachers, and the headteacher/principal. Tasks include a ‘Salmon Line’ exercise (from Salmon 1994, Stern 2007a, p 7, p 76), a ‘What Is Typically Said?’ exercise (Stern 2006 p 71-3, adapted from Daniels 2001), and a set of ‘circles of importance’ exercise (widely used, as in Smith 2005, Stern 2007b). These activities and the questions associated with them explore the nature of the school as a community; participants’ views of what is typically said in various school subjects and other school contexts and what talk there is or there could be on matters of importance to the participants; and who/what beliefs/what memberships are most important to the participants when in school.

It is hoped to explain how the promotion of dialogue of particular kinds will lead to more inclusive schooling. This explanation will involve examples of dialogue that is ‘real’ (in Buber’s terms), and descriptions of who may be involved – i.e. pupils/students, teachers, headteachers/principals within the school, and dialogue beyond the school. The methodological ‘toolkit’ is itself being piloted as a possible ‘self-development’ toolkit for schools.