NW 04: Expanding the debate on inclusive education: How can we overcome competing tensions in the global education agenda?

Network
NW 04 Inclusive Education

Title
Expanding the debate on inclusive education: How can we overcome competing tensions in the global education agenda?

Abstract
Through this special call, NW04 wants to foster scientific investigation and debate on the role that inclusive education can play in tackling exclusion and marginalisation of vulnerable students in challenging educational environments at all school levels. We see the Yerevan conference, with its new hybrid format, as an opportunity to broaden the debate and include scholars from all over the world, especially from countries that are usually not represented. The call is especially addressed to promote the organisation of collaborative sessions with the contribution of researchers from various European countries in the form of symposia, research workshops, and round tables on this topic.

The Call
Education disparities are undoubtedly a global issue, which the multiple waves of COVID-19 pandemic have further exacerbated in the last few years. While the need to provide quality education to children worldwide is a well-defined pillar of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the programmes aimed to promote this goal still have to overcome huge financial, social, and organisational barriers to ensure educational access and success for all. Efforts made by international agencies, national governments and education services to support more inclusive policy and practice at all educational levels are currently faced with competing demands that create multiple tensions at many levels.

Tensions are in place between the neoliberal perspective that favour school competition and elitism and the human rights approach to educational equity and equality. Tensions are apparent between the rising neo-nationalism attitudes that absolutize the ideology of local and the call for more comparative studies and comprehensive educational theories and practices to ensure wider inclusion of students. And tensions are often experienced by research on inclusive education, as new paradigms (e.g. intersectionality, decolonisation) are rapidly emerging, redefining the boundaries of the sector.

These tensions should be regarded as a positive motivation to further scientific dialogue in this field and support innovative research that helps solve the multiple questions inclusive education deals with nowadays.

With reference to the general ECER 2022 Call “Education in a Changing World”, Network 4 invites participants to submit symposia, research workshops, and round tables related to the topic of ’Inclusive Education in an Era of Risk’.

Research submissions can include but are not limited to themes such as:

• Disability
• Ethnicity
• Gender
• Home-school issues
• Migration
• Sexuality
• Social Class

Please indicate in your proposal that you are submitting to this network specific call. 

Contact Person(s)
Fabio Dovigo, fado(at)edu.au.dk

References
Artiles, A. J., & Dyson, A. (2005). Inclusive education in the globalization age: The promise of comparative cultural historical analysis. In D. Mitchell (Ed.), Contextualizing inclusive education (pp. 37–62). Routledge.

Connor, D., Ferri B. A., Annamma, S. A. (Eds.) (2016). DisCrit: Disability studies and critical race theory in education. Teachers College Press.

Graham, L. (Ed.). (2020). Inclusive education for the 21st century: Theory, policy and practice. Routledge.

Porst, L., & Sakdapolrak, P. (2017). How scale matters in translocality: uses and potentials of scale in translocal research. Erdkunde, 111-126.

Smith, L. T., Tuck, E., & Yang, K. W. (Eds.). (2018). Indigenous and decolonizing studies in education: Mapping the long view. Routledge.

Teodoro, A. (2020). Contesting the global development of sustainable and inclusive education: Education reform and the challenges of neoliberal globalization. Routledge.

Unesco (2021). Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education. Unesco Publications. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379707