From The United Nations Toward Local School Politics: How Inclusive Education Is Affected By Different Actors

Author(s):

Jennifer Lambrecht(presenting / submitting)Stefanie Bosse Thorsten Henke Nadine Spörer

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

04. Inclusive Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

04 SES 09 C, Policy and Implementation

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-24

13:30-15:00

Room:

W6.21

Chair:

Fabio Dovigo

Contribution

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities from the United Nations (UN-CRPD) is valid law in nearly 200 states worldwide for nearly a decade. However, the degree of implementation of this law varies between and within the states as well as according to the area of life affected. In the present study we focused on the area of school education. The main objective was to contribute to theory building on inclusion by answering the question: How does the idea of inclusive education change on its way from the supra-national level toward the level of local school politics?

Theoretical framework and research questions

Following educational governance theory, we assume that the educational system is a multi-level system with different actors (e. g., politicians, school principals, and teacher) who act on different levels (e.g., district, school, and class). The United Nations is a supra-national actor, while a single school operates on a local level. As there is no direct line of hierarchy between those actors (the United Nations does not control a single school), the actions of the different actors have to be coordinated. According to Mayntz’ (2008) concept of governance, three aspects should be distinguished, when analysing the coordination of actions: the constellation of actors, the way they interact with one another (e. g., negotiation, orders), and the nature of decisions taken (e. g., laws, agreements). When focussing on the implementation of inclusion, at least two more levels have to be considered on the way from the United Nations toward a single school: the national level and the level of local school politics. On each level, the idea of what inclusion means, is negotiated and not determined by the superordinate level. The result of those negotiations can be found in agreements (e. g., action plans of the governments) or laws (e. g., school law). Our thesis is that when we analyse how ideas of inclusion change toward those different levels we can understand mechanisms leading to obstacles in implementing inclusion.

As there is no consensus on what inclusion is (Grosche, 2015), we have to apply a theory that captures different ideas of inclusion. A theory that combines such different ideas is the theory of inclusion as a trilemma (Boger, 2015a, 2015b, 2015c, 2016). The theory assumes that the relations between different key ideas on what inclusion is have the nature of a trilemma. This means, that only two out of three key ideas can be true. The three key ideas Boger identified in her research to build the theory were normalization (persons with disabilities lead a normal life), deconstruction (persons with disabilities are not being labelled), and empowerment (persons with disabilities stand up for their rights). The trilemma is, shortened: If a person leads a normal life and is not categorized as disabled anymore (normalization + deconstruction), he or she cannot stand up for his/her rights as a disabled person as the category no longer exists (no empowerment). If a person stands up for his or her rights as a disabled person to lead a normal life (empowerment + normalization), he or she cannot do this without referring to the category disabled (no deconstruction). If persons with disabilities are empowered to enjoy being special instead of trying to be normal, then normality is being deconstructed (empowerment + deconstruction and therefore no normalization).

We assume that the key ideas of what inclusion is – normalization, deconstruction, or empowerment - vary between different levels of actions in the multi-level educational system. Our research question is: What idea of inclusion is predominant on different levels involved in implementing inclusive education?

Method

To answer our research question, we conducted a case study in which we applied the theoretical framework of the combination of governance theory (Mayntz, 2008) and the theory of inclusion as a trilemma (Boger, 2015) on the case of inclusive primary schools in the German federal state Brandenburg. To do so, we took into account four hierarchically arranged levels of action to implement inclusion and analysed if and how the key ideas on what inclusion is, vary between the different levels. The levels, we took into account, were: The supra-national level represented by the United Nations, the national level represented by the German federal Government, the level of local politics represented by the Government of the German federal State Brandenburg) and the level of local school politics (represented by the Ministry of Education of the German federal state Brandenburg). It is necessary to distinguish between the national and the federal level, as decisions-making in the area of education is the responsibility of each federal state. To analyse the ideas on what inclusion is, for each level we selected the most influential document that represented the results of negotiating ideas of inclusion. The documents were: The UN-CRPD and the facultative protocol (supra-national level), the action plan of the German government (national level), the action plan of the German federal state of Brandenburg (level of local politics), the official circular letters (CL) from the Ministry of Education Brandenburg that set the conditions for an educational project on the implementation of inclusion in primary schools (level of local school politics). Focussing on statements regarding the school system in each document, we used qualitative content analysis (Mayring 2014) to assign the ideas of inclusion mentioned in the documents to the categories empowerment, deconstruction, and normalization. To do so, we used a coding guideline that was developed using definitions and examples for the three categories from multi-topic publications from Boger (inclusion, 2015b; classism 2015c; abelism, 2015a; racism, 2016). The material is currently being coded according to this system.

Expected Outcomes

The key ideas of what inclusion is seem to vary between the different levels as represented in the documents. We exemplify this by contrasting the supra-national level and the level of local school politics. On the supra-national level the key ideas on inclusion were empowerment and normalization, while deconstruction was impossible. This can be illustrated in passages like “State parties shall ensure [...] [t]hat persons with disabilities can access an inclusive, quality, free primary and secondary education on an equal basis with others in the communities in which they live” (UN-CRPD, art. 24, 2b). In this passage the human right to participate in the education system was claimed for persons with disabilities (empowerment but no deconstruction). This group should access the system “on an equal basis” as persons without disabilities (normalization). On the lowest level, the level of local school politics, the key ideas on inclusion were deconstruction and normalization, while empowerment was impossible. The promotion of deconstruction was stated, for example, in the following regulation: “Special educational needs in the areas “learning difficulties“, “emotional and social development “ and “linguistic development“ should no longer be stated in accordance with §3 SopV [the regulation of special educational needs support, author]” (CL 10/12, translation by the author). The promotion of normalization could be found under the headline “main regulations”: “All children in a school district community have access to their local school, regardless of having learning difficulties, difficulties with their emotional and social, and linguistic development” (CL10/12, translation by the author). We can state, therefore, that the ideas of inclusion differed between the supra-national level and the level of local school politics. This shows that the idea of inclusion and its implementation is affected by different actors on its way from the United Nations toward local school politics.

References

Boger, M.-A (2015a). Das Trilemma der Depathologisierung [The trilemma of depathologisation]. In Gegendiagnose – Beiträge zur radikalen Kritik an Psychologie und Psychiatrie [A different diagnosis – contributions to radical critics on psychology and psychiatry] [(pp. 268-288). Münster: edition assemblage. Boger, M.-A. (2015b). Theorie der trilemmatischen Inklusion [Theory on inclusion as a trilemma]. In I. Schnell (Ed.), Herausforderung Inklusion. Theoriebildung und Praxis [Challenge inclusion. Theory building and praxis] (pp. 51–62). Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt. Boger, Mai-Anh (2015c): Zur (De-)Thematisierung des Arbeiterkinds [The (non-)discourse on the working-class child]. In: Rheinländer, Kathrin (Ed.): Ungleichheitssensible Hochschullehre – Positionen, Voraussetzungen, Perspektiven [Inequality-sensitive university teaching – positions, prerequisites, perspectives] (pp. 103-121). VS-Verlag, Wiesbaden. Boger, Mai-Anh (2016): The Trilemma of Anti-Racism. In: Dada, Anum & Kushal, Shweta (Eds.): Whiteness Interrogated. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press. CL 10/12 (RS 10/12) (2012). Rundschreiben zur Umsetzung des Pilotprojekts “inklusive Grundschule“ (PING). [Circular letter on the implementation of the pilot project “inclusive primary school” . Ministerium für Bildung, Jugend und Sport des Landes Brandenburg [Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports Brandenburg]. Retrieved from http://bravors.brandenburg.de/verwaltungsvorschriften/rs_10_12 Grosche, M. (2015). Was ist Inklusion? [What is inclusion?] In P. Kuhl, P. Stanat, B. Lütje-Klose, C. Gresch, H. A. Pant, & M. Prenzel (Eds.), Inklusion von Schülerinnen und Schülern mit sonderpädagogischem Förderbedarf in Schulleistungserhebungen [Including pupils with special educational needs in large scale assessments] (pp. 17–39). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. doi:10.1007/978-3-658-06604-8_1 Mayntz, R. (2008). Von der Steuerungstheorie zur Global Governance [From management to global governance]. In G. F. Schuppert & M. Zürn (Eds.), Politische Vierteljahresschrift Sonderheft: 41/2008. Governance in einer sich wandelnden Welt [Governance in a changing world] (pp. 43–61). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Mayring, P. (2014). Qualitative content analysis: theoretical foundation, basic procedures and software solution. Retrieved from http://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/document/39517/1/ssoar-2014-mayring-Qualitative_content_analysis_theoretical_foundation.pdf UN-CRPD (Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Optional Protocol). Retrieved from http://www.un.org/disabilities/documents/convention/convoptprot-e.pdf

Author Information

Jennifer Lambrecht (presenting / submitting)

University of Potsdam

Potsdam

Stefanie Bosse

University of Potsdam, Germany

Thorsten Henke

University of Potsdam

Educational Sciences

Potsdam

Nadine Spörer