Inclusive education is a contested term with varied meanings attached to it.  The term was endorsed 30 years ago, during the the World Conference on Special Needs Education. At that time, the term was mostly associated with those defined as having special educational needs.  Gradually the term has become broader, focusing on all students.  In a recent document by UNESCO (2020) this emphasis on all is reiterated by using the phrase “All means all”.  The papers in this symposium are informed by theories of inclusion and theoretical understandings of voice.  We adopt Ainscow’s (2007) broad concept of inclusion as an ongoing process of finding ways to reach out to all learners with a focus on their presence, participation, and achievement. We acknowledge that this is a challenging process that requires the involvement of all stakeholders, such as parents, teachers and children and young people. 

The symposium will focus on exploring the contributions and voices of different stakeholders to understand better notions of inclusion and identify ways to promote inclusive thinking and practices.   By voice we refer to both verbal and nonverbal means of communication (Thomson, 2008), including silences (Lewis, 2010). Reay (2006) draws attention to the dangers of the collectiveness of voice. Here we emphasise the plurality of voices and focusing on exploring diversity of views amongst our participants, and amongst ourselves.    It has been argued that voice can never be fully captured in research (Mazzei, 2009). Others have argued that participants’ voices in qualitative research may have been burdened with too much weight (St Pierre, 2009), going on to highlight that voice is just one source among many others that qualitative researchers should use in trying to make sense of complex phenomena. Starting with these positions the papers in this symposium bring to the fore diverse voices, including those of researchers. 

Studies carried out in various parts of the world have explored the roles of different stakeholders in the process of inclusion such as the role of teachers (e.g. Pantic and Florian, 2015), children (e.g.Black-Hawkins, Maguire and Kershner, 2021) and parents (e.g.Paseka and Schwab, 2020).  Research participants take various roles in such studies ranging from being respondents to researchers’ agendas, to being more actively involved in the research process, including participants themselves setting the agendas of exploration.   The symposium first explores how different stakeholders’ voices can be involved in research, and the ways in which different methodological approaches can inform developments in the field of inclusive education.   At the same time, the role of researchers is also explored in efforts to understand and promote inclusion. 

This symposium will explore diverse perspectives, from studies in different countries: Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, England, Portugal, Spain and the Philippines. All studies in this symposium employed qualitative approaches focusing on gaining understandings from the participants’ perspectives. Two of the papers explore studies that were carried out in school contexts, whereas one of the studies is focusing on research with mothers.      

During the symposium we will explore the following questions:

-       How can understandings from diverse perspectives (parents, teachers and children and young people) facilitate understandings towards promoting inclusion?

-       How can we bring these perspectives together to promote inclusion?

-       What are the different roles of researchers in such endeavours?

Understandings gained through the different contexts and studies will inform efforts towards greater understandings of the meanings of inclusion, and ways to develop further inclusive thinking and practices.

Ainscow, M. (2007) "From special education to effective schools for all: a review of progress so far." The SAGE handbook of special education: 146-159. Black-Hawkins, K. Maguire, L. and Kershner, R. (2021) Developing inclusive classroom communities: what matters to children?, Education 3-13, 50 (5) 577–59. Lewis, A., (2010) Silence in the context of “child voice”, Children and Society, 24, 14–23. Mazzei, L.A., (2009) An impossibly full voice. In: Jackson, A.Y., Mazzei, L.A. (Eds.), Voice in Qualitative Inquiry: Challenging Conventional, Interpretive, and Critical Conceptions in Qualitative Research. Routledge, London and New York, pp. 45–62. Pantić, N.and Florian, L. (2015) Developing teachers as agents of inclusion and social justice, Education Inquiry, 6(3): 333-351. Reay, D., (2006) “I’m not seen as one of the clever children”: consulting primary school pupils about the social conditions of learning. Educational Review, 58 (2), 171–181. St Pierre, E.A., (2009) Afterword: decentering voice in qualitative inquiry. In: Jackson, A.Y., Mazzei, L.A. (Eds.), Voice in Qualitative Inquiry: Challenging Conventional, Interpretive, and Critical Conceptions in Qualitative Research. Routledge, London and New York, pp. 221–236. Thomson, P. (Ed.), (2008) Doing Visual Research With Children and Young People. Routledge, London. United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. (2020) "Global education monitoring report 2020: Inclusion and education: All means all."