The past two decades have witnessed a progressive increase in papers on inclusion and inclusive education. The 1994 Salamanca Statement initiated a growing debate about inclusion (Hodkinson, 2012) and its various meanings and definitions (Graham & Slee, 2008). Clarification of this term should form part of the ethical and socio-critical perspective (Allan, 2005; Slee, 2006; Meyer, 2013) in order to avoid its use as an empty rhetorical figure, which serves neither pupils nor teachers (Brantlinger, 2008; Herz, 2012).

At the turn of the millennium Barton (1997) and Apple (2001) among others discussed the problem of marketisation within the educational system. Up to the current decade there has been a growing recognition in European countries that educational reform and inclusion have been influenced by neoliberalism and marketisation, for example Berhanu (2010) for Sweden and Grimaldi (2012) for Italy. Neoliberalism of the educational system is also discussed in terms of the effects on the Global South (Dahlström & Nyambe, 2014). For the international context Hardy and Woodcock (2015) adopted a critical sociological approach to analyse the construction of inclusion under neoliberal conditions. Neoliberalism and its effect on education can therefore be viewed as a global problem.

A critical debate on inclusion has been identified as a concern in special/inclusive education literature. Discourse analysis has already been applied as a method in the field of (non-specific) special education. Marketisation has a negative influence on the inclusion of pupils with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) in particular. However, the extent to which this applies has not been empirically addressed, meaning that until now a critical analysis of the international (English-speaking) discourse on inclusion and SEBD has been lacking in the literature. As the discourse in general has been polarised, a key question is which statements have been made, or rather, as Jäger and Maier (2009) put it “which are sayable ... which are not sayable”.

Analysis into the field of SEBD inclusion presents a considerable challenge (Goodman & Burton, 2010). Children with SEBD are the group most likely to be affected by disciplinary exclusion and drop-out (Razer, Friedman, & Warshofsky, 2013; Herz, 2014). Here, recapitulation of socio-critical aspects in the discourse on inclusion and SEBD should be at the core of the discussion.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the international (English-speaking) discourse on inclusion and SEBD in scientific journals. The following questions are given special attention:

Who is participating in the academic discourse?

How is inclusion described in articles concerning SEBD?

What is said and not said within the discourse?

How has the discourse on inclusion and SEBD varied over time?

This paper uses a critical discourse analysis (CDA) based on Foucault’s discourse theory (Jäger & Maier, 2009; Jäger, 2012) to analyse the specific discourse on inclusion and SEBD. The aim of CDA is to examine what can and cannot be said at a given time or place, how knowledge arises and how it is passed on (Jäger & Maier, 2009).

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