This paper reports the first phase of a doctoral study examining how inclusive education is framed within England’s Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Code of Practice (2015) and how this aligns with the Curriculum Framework for Children and Young People with Vision Impairment (CFVI). While the SEND Code of Practice (2015) provides the statutory foundation for inclusive education, the CFVI represents a practice-oriented framework co-developed by professionals, young people, and families to support equitable provision for learners with vision impairment. This paper investigates how inclusive education is constructed, framed, and operationalised within the Code, and the extent to which its language and structure align with the pedagogical priorities embedded in the CFVI.

The study is guided by the central research question:

How does the SEND Code of Practice (2015) conceptualise inclusive education, and to what extent does this construction align with the principles and domains outlined in the CFVI?

The analysis is informed by two key conceptual frameworks. First, the study adopts an interpretivist perspective, drawing on Yanow (2000), Fischer & Forester (1993), and Schwartz-Shea & Yanow (2013), treating policy texts not simply as technical instructions but as meaning-making artefacts embedded in institutional, political, and social contexts. From this perspective, the Code is understood as a discursive space where inclusion is defined, justified, and translated into practice through language. Second, the analysis incorporates theoretical insights from Brahm Norwich’s work on inclusive pedagogy and the 'dilemmas of difference'. Norwich’s conceptualisation of balancing common curriculum access with individualised responses informs the development of the Seven-Domain Framework used in this study.

The Seven-Domain Framework captures key dimensions of inclusive practice—Teaching Strategy, Curriculum, Educational Environment, Support Focus, Assistive Technologies, Indicators of Success, and Educator Knowledge. These domains reflect both classroom-level and system-level features of inclusion and are partially informed by the CFVI, which highlights the importance of environmental accessibility, specialist skill development, and inter-agency collaboration for learners with vision impairment.

A second analytical lens, the Universal–Specialist–Dynamic Framework, categorises the types of provision described in the Code. This distinction is well established in inclusive education systems internationally. It reflects the balance between universal strategies intended for all learners, specialist provision tailored to specific needs, and dynamic forms of support that sit between the two. While the Dual Access Model in vision impairment education expresses this logic specifically for VI learners, the framework used here represents a broader conceptual structure applicable across inclusive education contexts.

These two complementary frameworks allow a structured analysis of what the Code emphasises, how it describes different types of provision, and where key gaps appear.

The study contributes to European and international debates on inclusive education by offering a detailed analysis of how statutory policy communicates its expectations and priorities. It also raises questions about the relationship between policy coherence and practical implementation, particularly for low-incidence disabilities such as vision impairment. Moreover, The analysis highlights a common pattern in national policy, where system-level accountability receives more attention than classroom pedagogy. This imbalance has also been noted in several European education systems.

As a part of a cross-cultural doctoral project, the paper also highlights how insights from England’s policy landscape may inform comparative work and broader reflections on the inclusive education. The findings have relevance for policymakers, practitioners, and researchers interested in the interaction between statutory guidance, professional frameworks, and everyday educational practice.

This study adopts an interpretivist approach, treating the SEND Code of Practice (2015) as a discursive text which constructed through language. This approach enables an examination of how inclusion is framed, prioritised, and operationalised within national policy. Two analytical frameworks guided the organisation of the data. The Seven-Domain Framework was used as a coding structure to map how different aspects of inclusive education appear across the policy text. The Universal–Specialist–Dynamic Framework was applied as a second coding layer to classify the types of provision described in each domain. These two frameworks enabled the analysis to examine what the policy prioritises and how different forms of support are framed within it. Template Analysis (Brooks et al., 2015) guided the overall analytical process. The process involved full familiarisation with the Code, initial deductive coding using the two frameworks, and iterative refinement of a coding template as new insights emerged. The final template was then systematically applied across the dataset. NVivo 12 supported the analysis by enabling multi-layered coding, memo development, and the generation of frequency counts and cross-tabulated matrices. These tools made it possible to visualise patterns across domains and provision types and to maintain transparency in the analytical trail.

This study analysed how England’s SEND Code of Practice (2015) constructs inclusive education, using a dual-framework approach to examine both thematic content and levels of provision. Through NVivo-based Template Analysis, 185 coded references were identified across seven domains, alongside 756 modal expressions signalling different degrees of obligation (e.g., must, should, may). The findings show a clear imbalance in the Code’s emphasis. System-level mechanisms—captured in the Support Focus domain—dominate the discourse, while classroom-facing areas such as Teaching Strategy, Curriculum, and Assistive Technology appear far less frequently. This pattern suggests that the Code frames inclusion primarily through procedures, coordination, and statutory duties rather than pedagogical practice. The modal analysis indicated that the policy language places greater emphasis on flexibility and local autonomy rather than explicit teaching directives. These results highlight a wider challenge in inclusive education policy: the gap between statutory frameworks and everyday classroom realities. For learners with vision impairment, whose inclusion relies heavily on adapted teaching and specialist skills, this gap has tangible consequences. The Curriculum Framework for Children and Young People with Vision Impairment (CFVI) helps bridge this divide. The CFVI provides detailed, practice-oriented guidance that translates broad principles into concrete teaching strategies, independence skills, and technology use. By aligning the Code’s legal foundations with the CFVI’s pedagogical pathways, the study shows how system-level expectations and classroom practice can be connected more effectively

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