Articles - modèles de rôle

I am Dr. Chandrika Devarakonda, an associate professor of Diversity and inclusion, in the school of Education, Faculty of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at the University of Chester. Also, member of the Association for Teacher Education in Europe; and co- chair for the research development community (RDC) Social justice, equity and diversity. In the role of associate professor, I am engaged in teaching research, doctoral supervision, and writing book chapters and journal articles.

What is your definition of inclusive education?

I always see inclusion as the basis of education. Inclusion is for everybody, not only for those who look different or who feel different or who are not the majority of the population or who are marginalised in the local community. Everyone needs to be included - children, practitioners, adults, parents - in all relevant contexts. Inclusion is longitudinal as it is relevant to the lifespan of an individual -from birth until the end of a person’s life. And also, I believe inclusion is horizontal: wherever a child or an individual goes, all contexts.

What are the challenges of inclusion?

I think the challenge of inclusion is believing in inclusion. The challenge is the attitude towards it: does a person have the right positive attitude to include, or do you believe in the philosophy of inclusion? if a class has 20 children who all have different needs, the teacher may ask “how am I expected to meet all the needs and ensure I have all the resources to meet those needs?” Or “do we have the finances to actually gain those resources to meet the needs of children?” As a school, inclusion is a collective attitude: what does the school necessarily believe in? Do you have good displays in the school just to illustrate that you are inclusive? You might have beautiful posters, but is the experience of the child inclusive or not inclusive?

The travel of policy from global, national and local to grassroots of provision is influenced by cultures at these different levels. The challenge can be about how it is interpreted at different levels and especially if if the language is different at these levels. It will be interesting to check if the vision of the policy maker is reflects in implementation of inclusive provision at the grass root level by the practitioner and the teacher Also, everybody has differences, but then what people seem to see is what is more visible, but there is a lot of invisible diversity: if everybody in a room has fair skin, these people cannot necessarily be put under one umbrella, as one person could be coming from Belgium, another from England with different strengths and abilities. Although they might have fair skin,their abilities to speak languages might differ, one could be a good athlete, musician… This suggests that, as a white person there might be a lot of diversity, as well. This aspect of diversity often gets masked, for example, that of being white - and then all your strengths might be put underneath one box of whiteness, and you might be mistaken or misunderstood: or there is the common preconception that “because you are white you should be able to speak a certain language or abilities”.

What is needed to ensure these misinterpretations don’t happen?

A bottom-up approach. If policy is developed from an individual-settings level and is taken as a group or as a collaborative exercise, you are actually listening and engaging with everyone, you are sharing your ideas of inclusion, from personal level to school level; all school to local level; local level to regional level; regional level to government level. Certainly, individuals must be more aware of the diversity among students, schools, communities, and try to relate to where students are coming from - which backgrounds, what culture… Disabilities, for example, may not have all weaknesses, but could have strengths: one needs to be able to identify a child’s strengths. If one sees a child unable to speak a certain language (for example, English in the UK): that shouldn’t be a weakness - maybe the child is able to speak different languages and different dialects. This child needs to be supported, provided opportunities to learn; the child’s strengths need to be acknowledged, celebrated.

What should teachers be aware of, when talking about inclusive education?

As a teacher, you need to be ready to accept and know you might get a student with different needs and perhaps from a different part of the world. It is important to reflect on what you know and what you don’t know about children in the classroom as well as what is appropriate in terms of teaching approaches, methodologies, and practices. I strongly believe in the concept of unlearning information that is not relevant in the current context - for example, if someone is stereotyping and prejudiced, It is important to, be aware of it, unlearn and relearn new concepts.

How do you think inclusive education will evolve?

Inclusive education is constantly evolving: it doesn’t stop anywhere., definitions are changing. What you thought is “normal” today in your own community, might actually be different elsewhere. So, diversity and its perceptions will change in every community, and that is one of the reasons why inclusion as a concept has constantly been evolving and changing with time. At the school-level, there is a lot more awareness and are pro-active rather than responsive.

Are schools doing enough to promote inclusive education?

To the question of whether I believe schools are doing enough, I would answer with a ‘yes’ and maybe a skeptical ‘no’, because there are a lot of challenges and barriers schools are facing as well, in terms of costs and living crisis, but despite a lot of challenges, some schools are doing extremely well, because of their commitment, own personal values, ethos, and leadership they are getting from head of the schools. There are a lot of good practices, but it’s not doom and gloom, but there is a lot of promise and opportunities, but then again there are different individual perspectives which may be conflicting. Inclusion is a wheel that constantly needs to be moving, who moves this wheel? Who is pushing the inclusion wheel? Are the questions which must be asked.