inclusion

Who isn’t coming to the Father’s Day breakfast?

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My daughter is in a Grade 6 class with a Nigerian boy called Ibrahim. He has lived with his mum here in Melbourne since fleeing the forests of Nigeria two years ago. Ibrahim’’s father now lives in Canada. They were a family unit when Ibrahim was a baby but Ibrahim has not had a continuing relationship with his Dad for many years. Ibrahim cannot remember his father but he tells the kids in his class that he knows him.

This morning it is the Father’s Day celebration at school. To blend in, Ibrahim has told his classmates that his mum is bringing him to school for the Father’s Day breakfast. His mother will not be coming to the breakfast, as she starts work at the factory at 5 am. Ibrahim knows this but plays along with the charade of attending anyway.  

The masks people wear

My daughter and I have been talking about the masks people wear. We are thinking that Ibrahim has a mask. We think he may have worn his mask this past week when the teacher gave him a Father’s Day card with ‘father’ blanked-out on the front, so he could write to someone else instead … someone who was not his father … someone who could replace his father. Ibrahim bravely asked for a Father’s Day card instead of the blanked-out version but the teacher refused him. Possibly she thought she was doing the right thing because Ibrahim didn’t have a relationship with his father anyway.

In a democratic inclusive community all  voices of people in our school communities need to be heard but on days like Father’s day, media and the status quo dominate. In thinking about Ibrahim’s situation let’s consider which people in our school communities may feel challenged by or uncomfortable on Father’s Day celebrations at school.

Let us also take into consideration this discontent in the days and weeks before Father’s Day where it is heavily publicised in social media, on the TV and in our magazines and newspapers.  Reflect upon a child whose father has died or a child whose father has been incarcerated. Perhaps a child who has lesbian parents or who is fostered or adopted. Consider a child where the mother is the sole parent through separation or divorce or a child conceived by an anonymous donor.

How does the child feel?

Perhaps contemplate how Father’s Day feels for a child whose father abuses them? From a wellbeing perspective on days like Father’s Day, Mother’s Day and Grandparent’s Day the dominant culture in schools may be inadvertently re-traumatising some children because of our socio-cultural inability to look grief and loss in the eye. Perhaps it is easier for the majority of the school community to look away from the pain and maintain the status quo.

Back to Ibrahim . During this school week the children made Father’s Day gifts twice … once with the homeroom teacher and once with the library teacher. I wonder if these teachers knew that Ibrahim wanted a ‘real’ fathers day card for his dad. Ibrahim was required to make a gift for someone else who was not his father.  As with the Father’s Day card incident this denotes three times where Ibrahim has to face his father’s absence in the presence of a classroom full of children.  Then he has to navigate his father’s absence again when he brings the card and gift home for his mother to see.

Children like Ibrahim could write someone else’s name on the blanked out version of the card and bring their uncles or their grandfathers to breakfast but it would seem that any way you look at it, their father’s absence is still highlighted. The difference between children who have a father present and those children who do not becomes obvious when they are required to participate in these activities.

Fear and taboo

For instance, consider the reaction of volunteer staff when a child who has been bereaved of their father fronts up to the Father’s Day gift stall with their class and the volunteer behind the desk says ‘What would you like to get your Dad?’ and the child says ‘my dad’s dead’. This type of situation highlights possible feelings of fear and taboo around the topic of death and the struggle to meet others’ grief head on.  

Let’s look briefly at what re-traumatisation could mean for parents who have suffered grief or loss. Every week for the last six weeks I have read on the header of the newsletter ‘Father’s Day breakfast, Friday 5th September’.

That is one evening every week for the past six weeks that I think of Ibrahim’s mother. I think of her reading this and reflecting on Ibrahim’s absent father or worrying how her son will navigate the Father’s Day breakfast at school. I wonder how she will traverse Father’s Day at home when her son presents the gift he has made, while she grieves the loss of a partner and a father for her son.

Family structures have changed

Family structures have changed and no longer solely represent the 1950’s nuclear family type in a white western construct. Schools have the chance to lead and celebrate the diversity of families rather than focus on the gendered exclusive representation of a male or female parent. Schools might choose to celebrate these days differently or not at all. Perhaps renaming them as a ‘Family Day’ or ‘Carer’s Day’  will meet the need of present-day family structures.

Taking the opportunity to celebrate or mourn the changed or changing nature of family life allows compassion to thrive instead of ignoring the silenced minority and their wish to just blend in. Paying attention to who might be missing this year at the Father’s Day Breakfast may be the first step forward. It may mean a move towards a compassionate, inclusive school community. I hope this morning at breakfast that someone … anyone … will take a look around and ask, ‘Where’s Ibrahim?’

Carla J Kennedy is a lecturer/researcher in education with the School of Education/Arts/Community at Federation University, Victoria, Australia. Her research using social inquiry has focused on school communities investigating compassion, existing power and inequalities in schools.

Image of orange jigsaw with the word Family. Some pieces are scattered

Who is not coming to the Father’s Day breakfast?

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The idea of celebrating Father’s Day in schools is contested.

Why? It can be hard to navigate these type of celebratory days which have a reliance on outdated family structures. The nuclear family type has now changed to more diverse family representations. This results in differing points of view depending where you fit.

From the study  I conducted with school community members including teachers, students, parents and principals who had experienced a close bereavement I discovered thoughts and feelings of marginalisation within their school community. This was particularly pronounced when discussing Mothers, Father’s and Grandparent’s Day. This provoked interesting perspectives and an unearthing of discontent and uncomfortableness for students, parents, teachers and principals alike.

In a democratic inclusive community all  voices of people in our school communities need to be heard but on days like Father’s day, media and the status quo dominate . . . let’s consider which people in our school communities may feel challenged by or uncomfortable on Father’s Day celebrations at school.

Read Carla J Kennedy’s personal reflection

A story of discontent

Opinions from parents from education and health backgrounds tell the story of discontent by suggesting how these celebratory days can change and what considerations need to be made. Principals are in a difficult space, trying to meet the needs of all different types of family. However, the often marginalised voices of bereaved individuals in school communities go unheard and need to be highlighted when thinking about these celebratory days.

Lorenzo, a bereaved parent whose daughter died and who works as a teacher, makes comment about how as a school community we can open up to conversations about diversity

He says: The key behind it (Father’s Day) is to actually you know bring up and talk about what it is to be part of a family… not doing colouring activities that’s based upon you know a coloured in rose picture for your mother or a coloured in hammer picture for your dad. You know it’s more complicated than that. Families are different … what your family looks like, it might not be what anybody else’s family in your classroom looks like and it might be great for them to hear … you live with your granddad and your dad because you know both of their partners have passed away or you live with two mothers and because you know you’ve got gay parents.

. . . I think that those opportunities are too valuable to pass up. And it kills bigotry and it kills racism and it kills homophobia and all that stuff if you’re exposed to those things as a young person. If you’re sheltered from it and you live in a homogenous, you know sanitised world, then it’s easy to see the other as being very different. Whereas, if it’s in your face and it’s there, then it’s really hard to foster those opinions that aren’t very helpful.

Renaming these days

Differently, Jonathon as a health worker and bereaved spouse, considers his children on Mother’s Day and promotes the idea of renaming these days instead.

He says: I think the challenge around Mother’s and Father’s Day and things like that when you’ve had a parent that’s died or a parent that you don’t have, is a big challenge for schools around how they manage that. I think the challenge with Mother’s Day or generally is that it’s heavily promoted. My kids always get tetchy around that time and we have discussions about it … for schools it’s much better to say … you know ‘Carers Day’ or to kind of work in a way that says ‘how to celebrate the people that care for us’ would be a much better framework …

Sensitivities for families

Jane, as a lead teacher and a person who has lost both her parents, makes comment about sensitivities for families around this time.

She says: I guess it’s about reaching out and being aware of different peoples’ situations. Even today (Father’s Day), it’s a tricky time. How we publicise that, invitations, it can so easily slip off the tongue. It’s Father’s Day or something … no, it’s just a day that we acknowledge someone special in our lives. I think it’s being mindful. It’s raising a flag and saying let’s broaden that so it’s not a reminder I’m different. Yes, it’s a reality you may have lost a parent. We know that, but it’s another stab in the heart about that person’s absence. I think we need to be very sensitive to that.

A common thread

These three statements pose very different considerations going forward. The common thread is that celebratory days are a challenging space and sensitivity is critical. Schools are encouraged to consider the perspectives of marginalised populations in their school. The following recommendations  are also offered for schools wanting to take action on these issues

  • Actively discuss with teachers, parents and students how the diverse range of family structures are acknowledged on celebratory days
  • Consider the relevance of these days in a changing culture
  • Listen attentively to the advice and opinions of marginalised voices in your school community. What do same-sex parents, adoptive parents, bereaved parents, sole parents and grandparents as carers think about Father’s day this year?
  • Develop policy to ensure all family types are considered in decision-making.

Every year many schools actively promote and participate in Father’s, Mother’s and Grandparent’s Day activities. They rightly want to celebrate these dedicated family members. However, it is important to recognise that families do find these days sad and/or uncomfortable. If we are truly working towards an inclusive environment all voices in school communities need to be heard.

Carla J Kennedy is a lecturer/researcher in education with the School of Education/Arts/Community at Federation University, Victoria, Australia. Her research using social inquiry has focused on school communities investigating compassion, existing power and inequalities in schools.

subject selection represented by arrows

Students in Year 10 are set to choose senior subjects. Those with disability miss out. Why? 

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It’s around this time of the year students in Year 10 across Australia attend career events and interviews to select their subjects in Year 11 and 12.  

Many students feel anxious about their future choices, leading to a variety of myths circulating among students, parents, and sometimes teachers.   

Making decisions about the future while still in secondary school can be a challenge for most young people, but it can be even more complex for students in equity groups, especially students with disability.   

Transition to post-school life  

Research on post-school transition and student aspirations suggests that higher socioeconomic backgrounds continue to shape aspirations towards prestigious careers and pathways. While gender and school achievement play a significant role in the decision to pursue university studies, schools’ geographic location and socioeconomic makeup can also impact the subject options available to students. 

In recent years, rapid changes to school-to-work pathways have resulted in fewer stable, long-term employment opportunities for young people. There is increased pressure on young people to pursue university pathways, a trend further reinforced by government higher education policies shaping public perceptions of what success after school looks like.  

Adding to the complexity is a vocational education and training (VET) system that is often undervalued, can be difficult to navigate, and is troubled by rogue providers.    

The Australian government has made significant changes to enabling programs designed to help students from equity groups access university education. However, government discourse and policies continue to portray students from equity groups as having low aspirations, while failing to adequately recognise the barriers these young people face during school years and beyond.  

Many students find themselves adjusting their aspirations downward as they navigate the realities and uncertainties of secondary school. Various forms of disadvantage, like living in a remote location and having a disability can also overlap and create additional barriers to achieving educational and career aspirations. 

Low aspirations or low expectations? 

Research on career aspirations of students with disability in regular schools in Australia is limited. My research, which focuses on the aspirations of students with disability in general education in Queensland, found that barriers often begin much earlier—sometimes in primary school or even before students start school.  

Most students in my study faced a culture of low expectations, inconsistent provision of reasonable adjustments, and inadequate consultation about their adjustment needs or their plans for life after school. These barriers significantly affected the options available to them in Year 10. 

Although the selection of senior subjects may not be the most significant factor influencing most young people’s careers, limited options during the senior phase of learning can further reduce opportunities for people with disability to pursue and realise their aspirations.  

Students with disability are more likely to have lower educational attainment,  experience bullying and be suspended, with almost 1 in 4 students with disability leaving school before the age of 15. Alternative pathways do exist, but they can be time-consuming and costly and may not translate into increased university participation. 

The Australian Universities Accord Final Report found that students with disability have achieved parity targets, so what is the problem? 

Disability advocates have criticised the Accord Report due to questionable data on disability prevalence and participation rates in higher education. More importantly, the Accord report concluded that it had done enough for students with disability.   

There is a lack of recognition in both school education and higher education policies regarding the need to invest in the educational achievement of students with disability. Despite poorer academic outcomes, students with disability continue to be left out of priority equity targets.  

The flow-on effect of educational barriers 

Young people with disability face ongoing barriers to finding and maintaining meaningful employment because of discrimination, a lack of employer understanding of reasonable adjustments, and inaccessible recruitment processes.  

For some disabilities, like autism, the unemployment rate is almost six times higher than that of those without disability and more than double the rate for people with disability. To improve employment outcomes and economic participation of people with disability, the Australian Government awarded $22.1 million to establish Australia’s first Disability Employment Centre of Excellence earlier this year. 

Re-imagining aspirations and achievement for students with disability  

Education is a human right that enables all other rights. Hence, schools and universities play a vital role in improving equity, inclusion, and participation of young people with disability in the Australian economy and society.  

While educational institutions in themselves cannot resolve labour market challenges or guarantee employment outcomes for students with disability, they have a moral and legal responsibility to provide access and participation of people with disability on the same basis as their peers without disability. Inclusive practices have also been shown to improve academic outcomes for students with and without disability.  

For Australia to realise its aspirations of excellence and equity as set in The Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration, schools and universities must become genuinely inclusive. A prosperous future for Australia hinges on our collective commitment to advocate for all and ensure that no one is left behind.   

Lara Maia-Pike is a postdoctoral research fellow with the Centre for Inclusive Education at Queensland University of Technology. Her research focuses on student transitions and accessible practices. She is also a sessional academic in the School of Education.

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‘Woke’: Australian teaching must hold tight to the fair go

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When asked last week what he would do about the “the woke agenda” in education, federal opposition leader Peter Dutton raised the prospect of tying government funding to teaching of the curriculum. He said: “Kids… should not be guided into some sort of an agenda that’s come out of universities”.

No details were offered as to what exactly this woke agenda is. Nor could anyone point to specific examples of what is currently being taught in Australian schools or universities that shouldn’t.

Dutton is copying Donald Trump. “DEI” has been branded as “woke” by Trump’s MAGA movement.

As citizens of a sovereign country, Australians might not pay all that much attention to what the president of another country says and does. But those politics are rearing their ugly heads here. It is time to pay attention.

Importation of Trumpian ideals, such as his war on ‘woke DEI policies’, threatens our way of life, one that has long been underpinned by the idea of a ‘fair go’ for all.

This is the essence of the trick being played. DEI is an acronym for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Turning these words into an acronym and dismissing them as ‘woke’ is a way of disguising what these groups are really against. They are against diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Let me say that again. They are against diversity, equity, and inclusion.

So, what are diversity, equity, and inclusion? Is the derisive branding deserved? Are they “an agenda that’s come out of universities”? 

Um, no. But these concepts do inform our teaching and it’s critical that they do. We will start with diversity and why it’s important to be aware of it.

Diversity

Recognising that people are not all the same and that we experience the world differently is not just common sense. It’s a necessity for good public policy decision-making. Let’s take what happened in Melbourne during COVID as an example.

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, nine Melbourne public housing towers were placed in hard lockdown with no warning.  Bewildered residents were met by police who began locking entrances at the foot of the towers as the Victorian premier announced the lockdown via a televised press conference broadcast. In English. 

Many of the more than 3000 tower residents fled wars in their home countries. They were frightened because they could not understand what was being said. They did not, therefore, know what was going on. Imagine how they felt.

The whole situation could have been averted if those in charge of the emergency response had thought ahead about the need to communicate the need for the lockdown in a range of languages.

Looks like there were no bilingual people on that team, hey?

This is just one public policy fail due to lack of recognition that people are different and need different things. There are more. What about the Queensland government’s purchase of 75 new trains that did not meet disability access standards?

The lack of accessibility inconveniences people with a disability. It prevents them from getting to work or moving about freely as others do. But it also means the government must now spend even more to retrofit the trains.

Being aware of diversity, realising not everyone experiences the world the same way you do, and factoring it into decision-making is smart. It’s not ‘woke’. So is paying attention to equity.

Equity

The concept of equity is over 2000 years old, yet it is commonly misunderstood. It’s misunderstood – even by politicians, who really should know better, given our modern system of taxation is informed by the principle of distributive justice.

In a nutshell, equity is about fairness. The aim of equity policies is to reduce impacts of inequalities arising from circumstances individuals have no hand in choosing. This is what is meant by Aristotle’smaxim “Treat equals equally and unequals unequally”.

Right-wing commentators in the US and Australia have dismissed equity as ‘Cultural Marxism’ but they are wrong. It would be more accurate to describe them as Rawlsian, after Nobel Prize winning political philosopher John Rawls (1921-2002). His Theory of Justice articulates a range of principles aimed at resolving the tension between liberty (or freedom) and equality.

Veil of ignorance

One of  Rawls’s thought experiments asked us to imagine that we do not know our place in society, nor our abilities or talents. We are behind a ‘veil of ignorance‘. From this position, we are asked to design the rules and structures of society. 

When faced with making a decision without knowing our own position in society, Rawls reckoned we would each want to ensure that the least advantaged members of society are cared for because we might be among them. 

You can test this by getting two kids to divide a Mars Bar. The rule is that one divides it, and the other chooses from the results. Nine times out of 10 the divider will try to get the two halves as equal as possible because they don’t want to end up with the smaller bit. Smart, not woke.

In today’s world, Rawls might be described as a “latte-sipping leftie“, but he wasn’t and nor is the concept of equity. Extreme inequality is not a good thing. It dampens productivity, leads to revolutions, and is best avoided through mechanisms that enable a more even playing field. Mechanisms like inclusive education.

Inclusion

Within two months of Trump taking office, a teacher in Idaho was instructed by her school administration to remove a poster on her classroom wall because it was “an opinion” with which not everyone agrees.

The poster, which this brave teacher has since put back on her classroom wall, features images of children’s hands of varying skin tones with the statement, ‘Everyone is welcome here’.

Welcoming, respecting, and valuing diversity is a key principle of inclusion, an approach to education that seeks to remove barriers to access and participation with the aim of producing fairer (more equitable) outcomes for all.

While some right-wing commentators dismiss this as social engineering, greater equity in educational outcomes is good for everyone. Even those motivated purely by self-interest should be a fan of inclusion because more kids doing better at school means fewer unemployed adults on Jobseeker.

Removing barriers to access and participation is not “dumbing down” or “lowering standards”. It means getting rid of the things that get in the way so that everyone can achieve to their fullest potential.

That doesn’t mean that everyone gets an A or that everyone passes. It means that impediments that may prevent an individual from passing are no longer a factor in their achievement.

We’ve recently demonstrated that this approach benefits all students: those with a disability and those without. Why would anyone be against that?

Is any of this taught in universities?

Yes. Because Australia has laws against discrimination and university graduates must abide by them when they enter the workplace. 

As future architects, journalists, managers, doctors, teachers, nurses, and more (including politicians and political staffers), university graduates will one day make decisions that have the potential to impact other people.

Do we really want government procurement officers to continue purchasing trains that don’t meet accessibility standards?

And do we want government staffers to continue organising press conferences that exclude the very people at the centre of the crisis?

Do we want university graduates to find themselves in trouble with their employer’s Human Resources department because they have crossed the line in their interactions with others?

Ignorance of diversity, equity, and inclusion leave our institutions in danger of perpetuating unconscious bias and discriminating on the basis of race, gender, disability and other attributes that are protected by law.

Universities didn’t create those laws. Politicians did in response to public demand. And because history has demonstrated what happens in the absence of such laws.

Valuing diversity, aiming for equity, and being inclusive isn’t woke. It’s how mature liberal democracies survive, avoiding revolution through a social contract that prevents the depth of inequity that has upended so many nations over time.

We are now witnessing the wanton destruction of that social contract in the United States. Only someone who didn’t pay attention in their high school history class would invite that to Australia.

Linda J. Graham is director of the Centre for Inclusive Education and a professor in the School of Education at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). She is the editor of the best-selling book, Inclusive Education for the 21st Century: Theory, Policy and Practice, and is lead chief investigator of the award-winning Accessible Assessment ARC Linkage Project.

The header image of Peter Dutton, taken in 2021, is from Wikimedia Commons and used under this licence.

How to succeed at inclusion

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The first of our intermittent blogs during the #AARE2022 conference. If you want to cover a session at the conference, please email jenna@aare.edu.au to check in. Thanks!

This blog was put together by Lara Maia-Pike, the centre coordinator in The Centre for Inclusive Education QUT and an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Thom Nevill & Glenn Savage, University of Western Australia The changing rationalities of Australian federal and national inclusive education policies

In this session the presenters discussed their recent paper focusing on developments of inclusive education in federal and national reform. They started by providing a historical and conceptual analysis of inclusive education policies, particularly during the period of 1992 to 2015.

Political rationality refers to logical ways of thinking about policy development. The methodology used in their paper involves intervention approaches to policy analysis, paying close attention to context and how meaning is constructed in policy. They identified three phases of policy development: one, standardisation, two, neo-social and three, personalisation.

Phase 1: Rationality of standardisation (1992-2005): mode of reason, clear consistent and national guidelines (for example DDA & DSE). 

Phase 2: Review on the standards impact: emphasis on economic goods, producing wider education reforms (for example, the National Disability Strategy and NDIS). Banner of “education revolution”. Role in fostering economic productivity, emphasis of economic benefits of inclusion, broader productivity agenda.

Phase 3: The rise of personalisation, refers to how a service can be made more effective by tailoring to the needs of the students. Teachers can make education more inclusive and equitable by tailoring it to student needs (for example, the NCCD)

What are the implications? There is the shift from conceptualising inclusion collectively to personalisation of inclusion AND there is a responsibilisation of teachers and mothers.

Key insights:

  1. Rationalities that underpin inclusive education policies evolved and mutated over time. Economic rationalities have rearticulated the meaning and practices of inclusive education.
  2. Emerging and unexplored tensions between rationalities of standardisation and rationalities of personalisation.
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Ilektra Spandagou, The University of Sydney Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Early Interventions; Tensions for Inclusion

The presenter explored how early intervention is constructed within the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals. The concept of early intervention is deceptively simple, often refers to early actions that could prevent future complication or need. Early intervention goes beyond education and has been critiqued because often is not distinguished from early childhood development. 

Under the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) (UN, 1989) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) (UN, 2006) early intervention is a established right for children with disability. Early intervention in International Conventions often sits within Health-related conventions. Early intervention in the Sustainable Development Goals carries policy narratives and a collective approach across different regions of the world. Findings include universal interventions, general targeted initiatives, targeted-mixed interventions (targeting disadvantages with interventions that reduce poverty) and interventions specifically targeted to disability. 

Universal interventions are varied, many are integrated programs that combine health, social and educational services. In some countries early interventions look into reducing poverty. 
Early interventions matter and can change the experience of disability. It sits across several fields which are often ignored from the field of inclusive education. While many of these initiatives in early intervention are necessary, the critique is that early intervention needs to be done in an inclusive way. 

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Kate de Bruin, Monash University Why Inclusive Education Reforms Fail in Australia: A Path to Dependency Analysis

The presenter focused on the question as to why policy reforms fail. The presenter discussed Path Dependency Theory, which is often applied in economics, and explains the resistance to change. The theory has three essential components: first, refers to initials’ conditions; second subsequent event and finally institutions reproduced it. Institutions become self-reinforced.

The initial conditions of Victorian education focused on creating a workforce to develop and sustain the economy. This led to the early critical juncture rise of Eugenics, which was enthusiastically taken by medical associations. Tools to screen for deviance and intelligence were developed, screening a large number of children. More and more children were identified, more and more assessors needed, growing exponentially, and leading to the creation of special schools. IQ tests became an intrenched mechanism leading institutions defend and reproduce segregation, through a legitimate-based mechanism. The moral argument was reconstructed by the legitimacy argument. During the 1980 categorical models were developed, where children had to meet a minimum threshold and category, and IQ tests were still used to segregate people, despite the development of conventions and legislation on the rights of people with disability regarding their education. With the development of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) (UN, 2006), the right to inclusive education was clearly defined under the General Comment No.4, Despite human rights recognition and legal obligations to implement inclusive education, many institutions still benefit, including profit making, from segregation. 

 

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What I learned from my first year of teaching

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“Ring the bells that can still ring, 

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack, a crack in everything, 

That’s how the light gets in”.*

Trauma walks to its own beat. As with adults, children and young people who have experienced trauma, or any other adverse experiences often seem to have a different rhythm than children of a similar age. This is because of the way their sensory system makes meaning of the information around them, the information they see, hear, touch, taste, or smell. I recall one of my students, on a school excursion, responding in horror when we walked into the education room. He pointed to a corner of the ceiling and called out, “they are coming…with big horns on them”. His distress so intense, I took him outside until he felt safe and settled. We then returned to our school; he was too distressed to join the rest of the group. No-one suggested another possibility for him to participate in the event. He was excluded.

My first-year teaching in a program for children with disabilities, was filled with experiences like this. It became apparent that all of my assumptions about children, about language, about the very meaning of the objects and situations around me, belonged only to me. The children in my class had other ways of communicating, of seeinging and of understanding the world that was uniquely their own. A uniqueness many schools interpreted as a problem, a “developmental delay”. A perspective, I found only expressed what my students were not yet able to do compared to other children. A perspective supporting the existence of two school systems in Australia, schools for specific purposes (SSP’s) and schools for everybody else.

Last week the disability royal commission heard about the experience of students and their families in both school settings. Despite the legal right of students with a disability to a free education, “on the same basis” as students without a disability, SSP’s appear to be increasing. A phenomenon that is at odds with the overwhelming research in support of inclusive education. Research that outlines how education can be accessible for all.

Education that is accessible for all is not about changing students. It does not problematize students by attempting to (as I did in my early career) correct their differences, their differences in language, communication, the differences in their literacy, numeracy, or the differences in the way they played. It should not be about “getting children ready for big school”, and attempting to shape them into a size to fit a school for which they had never been considered.

It is an approach, as one mother told the disability royal comission, “that will never work”.

Or until we learn to do otherwise. About a year into my teaching, I was introduced to AMICI Dance Theatre at an Orff Schulwerk Conference in Sydney. Wolfgang Stange, the artistic director led us through a series of workshops that for my thinking and teaching were transformational. At the heart of his practice, was a belief in the contribution of everyone to dance, a unique contribution that should be valued and recognized. It was an approach that challenged the notion that there was only one way to do things and explored the possibilities of many, including those dependent on spoken language.

I danced back to my classroom with not only a range of approaches and strategies for children to express their ideas, make choices and reveal themselves in a way that was uniquely their own. I had been given a way “to see” the children and everything that they were doing, a complete contrast to the view of everything they were not. Now the light was getting in.

A light that gave me the permission to bring my knowledge of theatre, drama, and puppetry into the classroom. The puppets helped me not only to “see” but to “listen” to the children. To discover their interests, their strengths and how much they could contribute to their learning at “big school”. I wondered how much “big school” would contribute to them. 

Twenty years later, I am still wondering, wondering if children and young people, walking to their own beat will belong in all our schools.  Testimonies by children, families and young people at the Disability Royal Comission speak of their experience of being excluded. My research told the story of how puppets and the creative arts could bring about alternative ways of teaching and connecting with ALL children. To remove the barriers to communication and self expression through the object of the puppet was a revelation and one that allowed the children and I to learn together, to see our differences and embrace them. 

Teaching is problematic. It asks that teachers be responsive, be reflexive and embrace the idea that every day is not the same and that every child is unique. To let the light shine in.

Olivia Karaolis teaches across the School of Education and Social Work at Sydney University. She completed her research at USYD after working in the United States in the field of Early Childhood Education and Special Education. Her focus has been on creating inclusive communities through the framework of the creative arts.

What we should all know about authentic inclusive classrooms

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Kids with learning and behavioural difficulties couldn’t possibly tell us anything about quality teaching… could they?

Anti-inclusion sentiment has reached fever pitch following the most recent Hearing of the Disability Royal Commission; one that aimed to hear both sides of a so-called “binary” debate.

If folks were hoping the hearing would prove that it’s all unicorns and rainbows in special schools, they would have been disappointed. 

Former students and distraught parents enumerated the many ways respective school systems had failed them, both when students were in mainstream schools and when they were in or had moved to a special school.

There have been dark mutterings in various fora since the Hearing. Frustratingly, but as usual, those mutterings have conflated mainstreaming with inclusive education. 

Advocates of the latter are being framed as dangerous ideologues who are arguing for the impossible, especially when it comes to students with challenging behaviour.

So, what is this ‘impossible’?

The goal of inclusive education is to reform schooling, such that all schools are capable of including all students, especially those with a disability. 

The goal is not simply to move students with disability from segregated settings to mainstream schools. That’s integration (or what used to be called mainstreaming). Integration is what is currently happening in most schools, and we learned waaaay back in the 1970s that it doesn’t work.

Inclusive education is different. It is also a human right under Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability (CRPD). The Australian government ratified the CRPD in 2008, which means that it agrees to be held legally accountable to its terms.

After a decade of relative inaction that the CRPD Committee correctly surmised was influenced by confusion as to what inclusive education really is, inclusion was defined in General Comment No. 4, as:

“…a process of systemic reform embodying changes and modifications in content, teaching methods, approaches, structures and strategies in education to overcome barriers with a vision serving to provide all students of the relevant age range with an equitable and participatory learning experience”.

To make this right a reality, we need to seriously lift the quality of teaching in everyday classrooms. We need to move it from integration (which GC4 also defines) to genuine inclusion.

We can’t do it by using existing pedagogical frameworks and measures because—like the idea of balanced literacy—the approach is skewed towards a perceived majority, ergo “the mainstream”, and is based on what has been shown to work with them. 

Assessing quality teaching 

What happens when you flip from teaching to reach most to teaching to reach all? What does that add to existing conceptions of quality teaching? 

Can teaching even be considered to be quality, if it fails to reach all students? Do students with disability need something different that the average student doesn’t need or do they need something better? 

We wanted to know, so we went to the students that few people think have anything to offer by way of insight into teaching and learning, and we asked them.

They weren’t hard to find. We were already working in complex secondary schools serving disadvantaged communities; schools with higher than average suspensions, high numbers of teachers on contract, schools where the quality of teaching matters most to kids’ lives. 

We pointed to the Positive Behaviour for Learning triangle and asked the school leadership teams from each school to nominate the kids in the “red pointy end”. The ones with a long record of behaviour incidents, especially involving conflict with teachers. Kids who have familiarised themselves with the principal’s office, who may have been previously suspended or excluded and who, when they weren’t truanting, were generally not engaging and not learning.  

The leadership in these schools had no trouble identifying them.

We ended up with a Brains Trust comprising 50 pointy end kids across Grades 7 to 10. We asked them lots of questions. About school, whether they liked it, what they did and didn’t like about it, when they started disliking it, what they typically get in trouble for, about conflict with teachers, and even what they think they’d be like as a teacher! 

Around the middle of the interview we asked them “What makes an excellent teacher?” 

They were free to say whatever they liked and our job was to make sense of those responses.

The idea for our new paper on the quality of teaching necessary for the inclusion of these students formed when we were conducting the interviews because it became clear very quickly that there was a strong pattern in the responses. 

Kids talked differently in response to this question than they did our questions about teachers they got along with (or didn’t). They did not—in the main, for this specific question—refer to teachers they liked, they talked about teachers who taught well. 

More than just teaching well, these kids from the pointy end of the behaviour support triangle who some people think have nothing of value to add, described practices that help them to learn.

What did they say about excellence in teaching?

Our 50 participants generated 90 statements that we coded into four categories. Three were based on the domains of teaching quality described in the Classroom Assessment Scoring System, “emotional support”, “classroom organisation”, and “instructional support”. Because there is strong popular belief that these kids want ‘fun’ and ‘funny’ teachers, we added a fourth category, “temperament/personality”.

Only 16.1% of statements related to teachers’ temperament or personality. Importantly, while students said that they appreciate teachers who are bubbly, fun, and good-natured, they clarified that excellent teachers still make sure that students are learning. 

“Just have a bit of fun in the classroom but still on task and that type of stuff” (Grade 10, School A).

A slightly higher percentage of statements (18.3%) related to classroom organisation. Students told us that excellent teachers kept them on the ball but were fair and kind in how they did it. 

“Mr V. He cares for basically the whole school. He gives us reasonable detentions and gives us fitness if we don’t do what he says, and he’s just a very nice teacher” (Grade 8, School A).

Almost one quarter (24.7%) of students’ statements related to emotional support: the positive climate that teachers fostered in their classrooms, teachers’ sensitivity to their students, and their responsiveness to student perspectives. 

“…their understanding and their kindness… if you get a teacher like that, then you automatically you feel safe, so you’re like, “Okay, well I can learn with this teacher. I know that they’re going to help me and understand me” (Grade 9, School D).

The majority of statements (40.9%) fell into the instructional support domain which is sometimes referred to as ‘cognitive activation’. This domain includes practices that scaffold and support and extend intellectual demand, such as feedback, modelling and explicit teaching.

One student talked about how this prevented student-teacher conflict: 

“It’s like he always like stops fights before they happen. He like – so like say that a student doesn’t get it he stops and like he explains it like multiple times until like the person actually gets it and does demonstrations, get the students up there. Like the students that don’t get it and gets them to do it, so they get it” (Grade 9, School A).

Other students said excellent teachers were those who checked in with students to make sure they had understood and who then clarified if they didn’t. 

“They explain everything, they take time out of the lesson to ensure you’re okay and see if you’re on track and always supportive and even if you’re not normal, they support you no matter what” (Grade 9, School D).

A really important finding from our work with these students is that they do not need something that other students don’t need. They just need quality teaching to be accessible.

We also concluded that existing pedagogical frameworks and measures of quality teaching do not emphasise accessibility, and nor do they go to the granularity necessary to help teachers produce a level of quality teaching that is good enough for these students.

So what now?

This work is informing the Accessible Assessment ARC Linkage project, now in its second year. 

From the 400-plus Grade 10 students participating in this Linkage, we have identified a subgroup of 63 with identified language and/or attentional difficulties. In student interviews, we are checking their views on teaching excellence.

This time we have provided a matrix describing the four categories above and have asked students to select which element is most important to them.

When presented with the matrix, students have ruminated, “Well, they’re all important but if I had to say most, I’d say…”

Instructional support, which we have described as teachers helping students to learn by explaining things well and providing examples, still came in first (42%). 

The pattern shifted slightly after that with just over a quarter (27%) choosing temperament and personality. Emotional support came in third with 19% of responses, and classroom organisation came in last (13%). 

The schools that we are now working in are not as complex as our previous high schools and this may explain the change in pattern. Overall however, the students we are working with say the same thing: they need accessible quality teaching and they rate the teachers who strive to provide them with it.

Although we are yet to crunch the masses of data being produced in this project, we are already seeing benefits from our work with these students’ teachers.

In an interview last week, both interviewer (Graham) and teacher (who we’ll call “Miss Maudie”) were in tears as Miss Maudie described what the various refinements to her practice, that we proposed during this term’s program of learning, had achieved. 

In doing she talked about “Patrick”, a “solid D” student who had finally made it to a C-. More than the grade though, for Miss Maudie, the positive impact came from the fact that Patrick had for the first time really engaged and that he believed he could achieve the task being set.

We want many more Patricks and Miss Maudies to feel like this, rather than how our original pointy end kids and their teachers did. 

We have a lot more work to do but the revolution has started. And it isn’t going away.

From left to right: Linda J. Graham is Director of The Centre for Inclusive Education (C4IE) in the Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Her research focuses on responses to students experiencing difficulties in school and with learning. Ms Haley Tancredi is a PhD candidate on the Accessible Assessment ARC Linkage project, investigating the impact of accessible teaching practices on the engagement, experiences and outcomes of students with language and/or attentional difficulties. She is also a senior research assistant within C4IE. Dr Jenna Gillett-Swan is an Associate Professor and researcher in the Faculty of CI, Education, and Social Justice at QUT. Her research focuses on wellbeing, rights, voice, inclusion, and participation.

Towards a culture of inclusion: teaching to bell hooks

Inclusive Education, ,

 “If we are to reach our people. All people, if we are to remain connected…we must understand that the telling of one’s story provides a meaningful example, a way for folks to identify and connect” 

bell hooks (2014, p. 77) 

The words of the incredible bell hooks, who died in December last year, remind me of the importance of sharing our stories and of their potential to bring about understanding, promote change and encourage new ways of thinking. Her work asked us to consider education as a “practice of freedom” one that could lead to a community for all, irrespective of our differences. 

Too often, students who experience disability are not part of this education. Their stories remain only of their difference, untold and unrecognized for their own uniqueness. Classrooms that continue to separate some students from others, denying the variation of our experience cannot help but deny the individuality of everyone. A practice that seems at odds with our teaching standards and in particular, “know students and how they learn”. Unless I missed the memo, this asks us as educators to be open to every student and to embrace the complexity of who they are, their culture, their language, their history and their disability. 

Research tells us that teachers, for the most part, support the idea of inclusion. Research also tells us that teachers who teach inclusively provide all students with rich learning environments. Finally, (yes, all things come in threes) research shows that inclusion benefits us academically, socially and economically. Young children in my study developed their creativity, self expression and spontaneous, imaginative play. Teachers learned to use drama and puppetry as tools to support inclusive practice, opening up the possibility for every child to be part of their learning story in a way that was uniquely their own. By observing the children, often through a puppet, teachers were able to gain an appreciation and insight about the children, particularly children with a disability.

My story speaks to this, it is a story that is inspired by children, children who showed adults that disability is natural. I happened to be at the right place, at the right time, having just piloted a school-based teacher professional learning program that placed me alongside a primary school teacher in a “collaborative” class. Collaborative being the terminology for a class that included children who did and did not experience disability. The response to the professional learning was incredibly positive, with teachers introduced to new ways of seeing, listening and knowing their students through the creative arts. The most powerful place to see was the playground, watching children that have never played together…play together. Los Angeles Unified School District asked me to become their Inclusion consultant.  

I continued to see, listen and soon know my students and their teachers. We communicated with drums, feathers, watercolors and tuille. We danced and made short films, films that told their story and the story of their teachers, teachers with strong opinions about the possibility of inclusion. Teachers’ beliefs about inclusion are formed from a variety of sources, including personal experience and teacher education, they are reinforced by schools, policy and society. Their beliefs are highly variable and may be inconsistent with their practice. For many teachers, a huge shift in thinking is required to become an inclusive teacher. I encourage my pre-service teachers and the teachers I work with in schools to consider the scope of disability, to think about anyone they know who has a disability, to share their stories of disability, to explore their attitudes, and how they were formed. We explore these ideas with image work, drama, with questions, visible thinking routines and by sharing our stories. Stories that become the foundation of our beliefs.

Inclusion appreciates our differences and considers this difference as natural and a resource in the classroom. Inclusion is not a choice, a place or a privilege. Inclusion is a way of thinking, a belief in the value and contribution of every student. Inclusion does not label students or place them in boxes. Inclusion is the story of every child, an education that is “practice of freedom”.  

 And again: “If we are to reach our people. All people, if we are to remain connected…we must understand that the telling of one’s story provides a meaningful example, a way for folks to identify and connect” 

bell hooks (2014, p. 77) 

Olivia Karaolis teaches across the School of Education and Social Work at Sydney University. She completed her research at USYD after working in the United States in the field of Early Childhood Education and Special Education. Her focus has been on creating inclusive communities through the framework of the creative arts.

People call me “bogan”: how to mend the country-city divide in higher education

belonging, rural and regional education, rural and regional students,

Rural and regional students want to go to university – but they don’t, at least not in the same proportion as their urban counterparts. Education needs to be accessible to everyone regardless of where they live to ensure that diverse perspectives are valued in society.

We aren’t suggesting that university is for everyone or that university is the only positive post-school pathway but underrepresentation of regional and rural students in university populations persists. The government’s focus on initiatives to get non-metropolitan students to university, such as increases in scholarship programs, and increased ATAR loadings for completing schooling outside a metropolitan location, are noteworthy but they are not having the desired outcomes.

With this in mind we bring a new ‘take’ to understanding this dilemma. We undertook research that explored the experiences of rural students at university in 2019 and 2020 (prior to COVID-19) with the aim of understanding sociocultural factors that were influencing their success. 

We spoke to a total of 25 current university students in group and individual interviews at four universities in NSW and the ACT. Students were asked to describe their experiences of moving to the new location their university is situated in, making friends, socialising, participating in the coursework, and experiences going back home. In these discussions regional students expressed feeling distinct social and cultural differences compared with their metropolitan peers, and that these differences impacted their sense of belonging at university. Two main overarching themes were evident in the students’ experiences: using different knowledges, and impacts on belonging in ‘home’ and ‘university’ spaces.

Using different knowledges

Students identified a distinct difference in the nature of knowledges that were valued in their home town compared to the nature of knowledges  valued in their university town, a factor that also impacted on their relationships.  This was evident in the conversations that occurred across each space, the knowledges that were valued in their coursework, and their career expectations when they graduate. 

In their course work, no student felt non-metropolitan communities were represented in a positive light, instead they were all represented for their problems, such as lower achievement in school, worse health outcomes, and lack of career opportunities. When asked about whether knowledges from non-metropolitan communities were considered and represented in their course work one student described feeling that:

“There’s no representative for that rural lifestyle; the whole conversation is directed from the perspective of people that live in the city the whole time, so they’re using city examples, city schools, that type of thing”.

Further, students felt that examples discussed were usually very negative:

“…there’s only 3,000 people, we have very limited services in our area and it’s been discussed, like we have to travel three hours to the nearest cancer treatment centre, we have to travel to get a cast put on your arm and because I’m in the health faculty, we discuss it a bit because our services are limited and so we look at why they’re limited and how and whatever”.

This was problematic for some students who wanted to return to rural areas for their career:

“I  don’t think anybody talks positively about rural towns. Nobody is promoted to go out there. I can’t imagine anybody in my class being like you want to go practice in a rural town like xx or xx. Even the jobs out in xx, like the requirements you need for social work, are a lot lower because no one goes out there”. 

The students also described how in the university town, conversations were different and metropolitan students were unaware of many of the issues impacting on rural communities. Students cited the example of the recent bushfires and drought, where many of the metropolitan students were unaware of how it was still impacting them and their home community:

“I know a lot of people who were affected by it on res [university accommodation] and they wanted to talk about it but no-one really gave a damn about it, and people seemed to think with the drought thing – people seemed to think, “Oh well, they’ve had rain now, the river’s flowing again, so it’s over”.  It’s not over, it’s nowhere near it”.

Many students also felt that these issues impacted on their identity and made them feel more self-conscious:

“ I know that sometimes people call me “bogan” and stuff before because of the way I talk and I have noticed it and I have actually had to curate my language sometimes for who I’m with…”

These issues all linked to the students’ sense of belonging, both in their university town and their home town. 

Impacts on ‘belonging’ at university and at home 

Although the physical spaces of their home town and university were different, students described the impact of this to be cultural, social and emotional. 

For example, although students were surrounded by more people in the university city, students often missed the sense of community and belonging from their small non-metropolitan home town: 

“I guess that’s kind of what means the most to me in a rural location is that sense of community, the sense that you know people, that you grow up with the same group of people; you have neighbourly relationships which is not really something that I see here as much”. 

Many of the students described feeling like an outsider, and felt their experiences and lives were treated as foreign and fascinating:

 “… I’m like the rural outlier sort of thing; they come to me if they want to know about a lamb or something like that you know”.

These issues all impacted on the students sense of belonging, in particular, their connection to their home town and community. For example, when asked about going back home, many described a disconnect:

“It’s ok. Sometimes it’s a bit distant, like I go back and won’t feel the same”. 

And

“… when I go back home, I’m only seeing family now; my friendship groups have changed and that’s awkward going home to because some people, they say, “Let’s catch up” and we don’t have anything to talk about anymore but I still enjoy going home”. 

As the student described, this is more than not being up-to-date with local happenings, it’s more fundamental and related to their changing understanding of the world due to higher education. These are all factors that influence a students’ self-worth and identity while navigating post school transitions. 

Implications for Universities

This research provides insight into issues of different social and cultural capitals of rural and metropolitan peoples, especially how students navigate what it means to be rural in an institution that doesn’t appear to value their knowledges and experiences. To succeed at their studies, students have to ‘learn to leave’ either mentally or physically from their place to be able to participate. Students were as a result torn between the knowledges and friendships of their home town and those of their university town, and the needs and expectations of both. For some, this made it difficult to stay connected to their home town. When thinking about accessing, and staying in, higher education, these factors are also likely to influence student retention. Some students who we interviewed considered these issues to be a key contributing factor to the high rate of student drop-out at university. 

For universities, this has implications for coursework and support services. From a coursework perspective, universities need to consider rural knowledges in their course content and value careers in rural areas. Examples from non-metropolitan locations need to be valued, rather than disincentivised through the pressure to achieve benchmarks dominated by standards from metropolitan regions. This goes beyond inclusion of examples in practice, but recognition of the epistemological dimensions of those practices. From a support services perspective, students need opportunities for students to access mentoring and support from other rural students. Further, metropolitan students need more opportunity to understand what it means to be a rural student, rather than students from rural areas having to learn to ‘be’ like the majority to succeed. 

While we continue to prioritise metropolitan places and knowledges, we will continue to contribute to the gap in rural student participation and achievement at university. We have much to learn from our successful regional university students, we need to listen and to ‘do’ university differently to be a more inclusive and desirable educational destination for regional students.

Natalie Downes works in the Rural Education and Communities Research Group within the Centre for Sustainable Communities at the University of Canberra. Her research focuses on rural-regional sustainability and the sociocultural politics of education for rural futures. She also works closely with the Student Equity, Participation and Welfare unit on equity initiatives for higher education participation.

Sam works at The University of Sydney in initial teacher education. Her work explores how teachers’ engagement with multiple knowledges effects the equity of student experience and how students’ lived experiences impact their understandings of education. Her current research projects include: evaluations of widening participation programs for students experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage; and shifting discourses of gap year and university for regional students in NSW

Kristy O’Neill is a lecturer of Health and Physical Education at the School of Education, University of New England. Concurrently, she has a decade-long professional background and strong passion for social inclusion and student equity within higher education. This grew from her time working on a range of HEPPP-funded schools outreach projects with Widening Participation and Outreach at The University of Sydney. Kristy completed her PhD at The University of Sydney in 2018.

Philip Roberts is an Associate Professor in Curriculum Inquiry and Rural Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Canberra.  He is the research leader of the Rural Education and Communities Research Group in the Centre for Sustainable Communities at the University of Canberra. His research focuses on the role of knowledge in curriculum, rural knowledges and the sustainability of rural communities.

Acknowledgement

This project also includes the team members Fran Collyer, Amanda Edwards, Laurie Poretti and Tanya Willis