It is generally accepted that the notion of inclusion derived or evolved from the practices of mainstreaming or integrating students with disabilities into regular schools. Halting the practice of segregating children with disabilities was a progressive social movement. The value of this achievement is not in dispute. However, our charter as scholars and cultural vigilantes is to always look for how we can improve things; to avoid stasis and complacency we must continue to ask, how can we do it better? (...) Thus, we must ask ourselves uncomfortable questions and develop a critical perspective that Foucault characterised as an 'ethic of discomfort' by following the Nietzschean principle where one acts 'counter to our time and thereby on our time... for the benefit of a time to come'. This paper begins with a fundamental question for those participating in inclusive education research and scholarship—when we talk of including, into what do we seek to include? (shrink)

School effectiveness research together with what is now described as the 'school improvement movement' has captured both the Conservative and New Labour imaginations as a basis for educational planning and policy making in the UK. Internationally school effectiveness enjoys and expanding and enthusiastic audience. This book provides a critique of this research genre, particularly in the light of the recent calls for teaching to go 'back to the basics'. The editors argue that this school effectiveness research is simplistic in its (...) analysis of educational problems. Far from getting to the bottom of the problem of failing students and schools, they argue, these 'movements' are merely scratching at the surface of the problems and coming up with notions for superficial improvements. (shrink)

This paper argues that much of the growing body of research (on special educational needs) that claims to address inclusion for disabled students is not new, but rather a re-articulation of old ideas which fail to do sufficient justice to the demands of the 'new times,. The paper concludes with an outline of a research agenda that is more comprehensive in scope and more finely tuned into the politics of 'identity'.

This paper argues that much of the growing body of research that claims to address inclusion for disabled students is not new, but rather a re-articulation of old ideas which fail to do sufficient justice to the demands of the 'new times,. The paper concludes with an outline of a research agenda that is more comprehensive in scope and more finely tuned into the politics of 'identity'.