The proposed paper will explore systemic barriers to ‘daring to think otherwise’ (Allan 2003) about inclusive education. Some of these relate to the particular context in which educational research is conducted and knowledge produced. Furedi (2004) attributes a chronic aversion to risk and a reluctance to ask uncomfortable questions about value systems and ideas to the pressures of the market in higher education. The relentless drive to secure research contracts can breed conformism. However, inclusion does appear to be a sticky subject that has it failed to attract critical attention, at least from within the educational research community. The reason for this may reside in the fact that ‘inclusion is generally accorded the status of a public virtue’ (Furedi, 2004, p. 121). It invokes the core values of liberal societies: social justice and compassion; equality; fraternity; and human rights. To question the ontological status of inclusion, or raise some doubts about its efficacy as a social reform strategy is an extremely precarious venture. Imagine the Archbishop of Canterbury inviting Richard Dawkins to contribute to the debate within the Church of England about the ordination of gay vicars and same-sex blessings. Three reasons for the absence of a critical perspective in relation to inclusion will be explored. The first point relates to the status of particular modes of enquiry within educational research. There are discernable links between the quest for inclusive education and the literature on school effectiveness and improvement. Both are driven by what Smith (2007) has described as ‘recognizable descendants of the Baconian search for method at all costs’ (see also Smith 2006b). The second point flows from the first, and is inextricably linked to the contemporary culture of accountability (O’Neill, 2002). The third reason, touched upon above, relates to the conditions of knowledge production in academia. The curious dynamic of academic publishing, evidenced by the role of journal editors in ‘shaping the field’ (Wellington and Nixon, 2005; see also Pirrie, 2008) plays a major role here. The new Curriculum for Excellence in Scotland is a prime example of the ‘emphasis on “perfection” — self-sufficiency, competence, and (the fiction of) invulnerability’ that Nussbaum (2004) suggests might ‘conduce to the stigmatization of people with disabilities’. One example of the silo-mentality that is characteristics of the proponents of inclusive education is a strange reluctance to challenge the pernicious fiction that runs through much current educational thinking: namely, the idea that the central purpose of schools is to prepare young people for competent, independent adulthood. This is an idea that is deeply embedded in the social-contract theories that have shaped liberal democracies. It can be traced back to Locke’s notions of freedom, equality and independence right up to Rawls’s conception of a ‘well-ordered society’, where citizens are ‘fully cooperating members of society over a complete life’ (Rawls, 1996, p 183 and passim, cited in Nussbaum, 2004, p 311).

The contribution comprises a series of reflections prompted by a government-funded empirical research study of the impact of the 'presumption of mainstreaming' in Scotland.

Critical perspectives on educational inclusion