What is undermining inclusive education? Looking beyond visible patterns
Olja Jovanović
University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy, Serbia
olja.jovanovic@f.bg.ac.rs
Inclusive education is widely promoted as a means of ensuring equitable access to quality education for all learners, particularly those who face barriers due to dominant societal beliefs about diversity (e.g., race, disability, or other marginalized identities). However, in practice, inclusive education often falls short of its goals. This is reflected in the increasing placement of students in segregated settings, the overrepresentation of racial and ethnic minority students in special education, exclusionary practices, and persistent discrimination against marginalized learners.
A systems thinking approach encourages us to look beyond these surface-level issues and examine the underlying structures and beliefs that sustain them, in order to advance inclusive education. With this approach, this symposium seeks to investigate the systemic structures and mental models that undermine the promise of inclusive education, drawing on diverse country contexts and disciplinary perspectives.
Merl will present findings from an ethnographic study of three self-proclaimed inclusive schools in Germany, highlighting how implicit norms shape what is considered acceptable practice in inclusive education. Pesonen and colleagues will explore how the language used in inclusive education shapes our understanding of it, proposing a new approach that emphasizes collaboration in supporting students. Jovanović and co-authors will share findings from a narrative inquiry examining how educational participants in Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Serbia narrate their motivation for engaging in practices that contradict inclusive education principles.
Together, these presentations will challenge us to reflect on two key questions: What underlying beliefs and structures shape inclusive education? and How can we change them to better support inclusive education?
We invite researchers and practitioners to join us in this critical discussion on reimagining inclusive education.
Talks
What is undermining inclusive education? Looking beyond visible patterns
Olja Jovanović1, Thorsten Merl2, Henri Pesonen3
1University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy, Serbia, olja.jovanovic@f.bg.ac.rs
2University of Koblenz, Germany, tmerl@uni-koblenz.de
3University of Oslo, Department of Special Needs Education, Norway, henri.pesonen@isp.uio.no
Inclusive education is widely advocated as a means to ensure equitable access to quality education for all learners, particularly those facing barriers stemming from dominant beliefs about learner diversity (e.g. race, disability, or other marginalized identities). However, in practice, inclusive education often fails to meet its intended goals. This is evident in trends such as the growing number of students placed in segregated educational settings, the persistent overrepresentation of students from racial or ethnic minority groups in these settings, ongoing exclusionary practices, and the widespread discrimination experienced by students from marginalized communities in so-called inclusive schools and other educational contexts (e.g., Morgan, 2020; Selfe & Richmond, 2020; Webster, 2022). Viewed through a systems thinking perspective (Senge, 1990), these trends could be considered as visible patterns.
However, based on the same perspective, to truly transform systems, we must look beyond visible patterns to examine the deeper structures and mental models that sustain and perpetuate them. According to Senge (1990), understanding underlying structures—such as the arrangements of people, procedures, resources, and policies—is crucial, as these elements shape individual actions and create the conditions under which certain patterns emerge. However, understanding structures alone is insufficient. To address the root causes of these persistent issues, we must also interrogate the mental models—those deeply ingrained assumptions and generalized beliefs—that not only sustain structures but also influence how we understand inclusive education and, ultimately, how we act upon it.
This symposium aims to go beyond the visible patterns of inclusive education to investigate the systemic structures and mental models that undermine its promise, drawing on diverse country contexts and disciplinary perspectives.
The first contribution investigates implicit norms within three self-proclaimed inclusive schools in Germany. Drawing on insights from an ethnographic study, it unpacks how these norms shape what is considered acceptable practice in the context of inclusive education.
The second contribution focuses on the role of language in shaping educational practices. By analyzing the term ‘demanding special support children’ in the Finnish context, it interrogates how such terminology reflects and reinforces specific conceptions of inclusion. It goes further to propose an alternative conception—one that emphasizes collaborative approach to supporting students.
The third contribution draws on a narrative inquiry conducted in Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Serbia. Through the stories of participants, it explores practices which contradict the principles of inclusive education, and how participants narrate the motivations which drive such practices within their specific professional context. This contribution highlights how structural incentives and systemic constraints create opportunities for such problematic practices to emerge and persist.
Together, these contributions encourage us to critically address a question: What are the mental models and (structural) mechanisms shaping inclusive education? How might they influence the participants’ values, beliefs, and behaviors within this system? By examining these deeper layers, the symposium aims to open pathways for reimagining mental models and structures that can better support inclusive education.
On the Legitimizing Power of Special Education and its Undermining of Inclusion
Thorsten Merl
University of Koblenz, Germany, tmerl@uni-koblenz.de
Inclusion in the school system has experienced a significant rise and was once understood as a means to overcome the exclusionary aspects of special education. However, the growing number of students identified as having special educational needs and attending segregated schools indicates a resurgence of special education. This suggests that special education serves a function within the school system that inclusive education does not, ultimately undermining the latter. A central function of special education—whether welcomed or not—is to provide knowledge about differences: norms and deviations, categories of difference, and pathologies. This knowledge serves a critical function that inclusive education does not fulfill: it authorizes teachers to differentiate. The presented research is based on an ethnographic study of teaching practices in inclusive schools in Germany. The study focuses on how teachers balance equal treatment with differentiation, a practice that often leads to accusations of favoritism and challenges to the teachers’ authority. Data was collected through participant observation conducted two days a week for one year across four classes in three secondary schools, and was analysed using Situational Analysis (Clarke, 2005). Based on the findings, I argue that it is within this context that special education serves a legitimizing function: By providing knowledge about relational differences (i.e. norm/deviation, dis/abled, etc.), special education offers the necessary authorizations for pedagogical differentiation. Inclusive education, with its emphasis on universalism and singularity, lacks this specialized relational knowledge and, consequently, the associated authorizations. Thus, the prevailing notion of equal treatment as inherently legitimate is the deeper layer that leads to special education undermininig inclusive education.
Keywords: inclusive education, special education, legitimization, equality, differentiation
From Labelling Children as Demanding to Collaborative Support: Why Do We Need a Shift in Concepts?
Henri Pesonen1, Aino Äikäs2, Noora Heiskanen2, Eija Kärnä2
1University of Oslo, Department of Special Needs Education, Oslo, Norway, henri.pesonen@isp.uio.no
2University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland
In this presentation, I will focus on our research and expertise in the problematic concept of ‘demanding special support children’ in Finnish early childhood and basic education, and the limited international research in this field, to propose a concept regarding multidisciplinary and collaborative support for children. Our conceptualization is based on the review of all our publications (e.g., articles, technical reports, student theses, etc.) focusing on various forms of support (e.g., multi-agency) and inclusive education produced within our projects since 2012. We applied the principles of educational design research in which we had cycles of designing a model depicting collaborative support approaches across different disciplines (e.g., education, health care, social work, etc.) including focus group discussions with various actors (e.g., professionals from different fields). The focus group and conceptualization discussions, which included an analytical framework for creating theoretical models and concepts led to proposing a concept and theoretical model of “Significant Interprofessional Support (SISU)”. The model and proposed tools include dimensions of the student, family/guardians, school or early childhood education setting, legislation, and interprofessional and multidisciplinary actors, among others. Our conceptualization shifts the focus away from children’s deficits to effective collaborative practices surrounding the child. This approach can facilitate comprehensive support practices without labeling children as ‘demanding’ based on their disabilities. This type of model and its tools have the potential to lead to the development of inclusive school systems.
Keywords: inclusive education, interprofessional support, collaborative support, early childhood education, basic education
How Did We End Up with Integration? Insights from Character Mapping
Olja Jovanović1, Mihaylo Milovanovitch2, Tinde Kovacs Cerović1
1University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy, Serbia, olja.jovanovic@f.bg.ac.rs
2Center for Applied Policy and Integrity, Sofia, Bulgaria
Inclusive education is widely understood as the process of removing barriers to access, participation, and achievement for all children, including those with additional support needs (ASN). Although research highlights improved access to education for children with ASN, it suggests that inclusion in practice often reduces to integration, with barriers hindering full participation at various levels. This study employs the OECD’s INTES framework to explore how educational participants narrate the shift from inclusion to integration. The methodological approach was grounded in activity-meaning system design and implemented through three-day workshops in Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Serbia. A purposive sample of 55 participants, representing diverse regional backgrounds, roles in inclusive education, and attitudes toward inclusion, took part. Participants initially wrote stories about harmful practices in inclusive education that they had experienced, heard of, or imagined. By the conclusion of the workshops, they revisited their stories and developed „happy endings“ to address the challenges described. This activity produced 44 narratives spanning different stages of a child with ASN’s educational journey. This presentation focuses on analyzing 15 stories centered on providing additional learning support in the classroom. Using character mapping, the analysis highlights diverse characters with distinct roles, motives, and interrelationships. The findings show that teachers were frequently portrayed as „villains“ (14 stories), neglecting students with ASN or failing to provide necessary accommodations—illustrating how inclusion often reverts to integration. These harmful actions were typically represented as collective, with school principals, staff, and parents of students with ASN described as complicit in perpetuating these practices. The analysis of characters’ motivations reveals that teachers’ actions were often interpreted as a consequence of inadequate support, such as insufficient assistance in accommodating teaching, planning additional support for students, and documenting their progress, while principals’ actions were primarily seen as driven by financial incentives linked to school funding criteria. Parents, in contrast, were motivated by a desire to protect their child’s well-being, navigating a complex web of motives and structural barriers. This highlights the need to look beyond harmful practices, raising questions about teacher professional development, funding arrangements, and available support mechanisms as examples of how structures incentivize and enable such practices.
Keywords: inclusive education, integration, educational policy, narrative approach
