The Future of Inclusive Education

This book addresses the tensions of existing theories and practices of inclusive education from an international perspective. Adopting Disability Critical Race Theory in Education (DisCrit) and Critical Disability Studies (CDS), the authors expose how race neutral knowledge characterizes inclusive education and exhorts readers to consider how intersectional perspectives provide more complex and nuanced understandings about ways in which racism and ableism simultaneously circulate as intersecting oppressions in schools and societies and across geographical borders. The authors begin by engaging in a critical analysis of the genesis of inclusive education before exploring how existing policies and practices of inclusive education in the global North evade the collusive nature of oppressions faced by minoritized students with disabilities and are uncritically transferred into the global South. Ultimately, the book encourages readers to reconceptualize inclusive education and move towards developing and sustaining transformative notions of global justice.

“This volume tackles enduring questions and tensions about the nature and telos of inclusive education. Migliarini and Elder disrupt a benign framing of inclusion and examine its conceptualization and implementation through an interdisciplinary and intersectional lens. This nuanced representation inspires alternative futures for inclusive education in a world of differences.” (Alfredo J. Artiles, Lee L. Jacks Professor of Education, Stanford University, USA)

“Drawing on DisCrit and decolonial insights, this important, well researched, and timely text convincingly argues for the need for inclusive education to more fully account for the ways that multiple forms of oppression create even more ‘insidious’ forms of exclusion. The result is a call for dismantling all forms of marginalization in schools and society and supporting more expansive notions of equity and justice.” (Beth Ferri, Professor of Inclusive Education & Disability Studies, Syracuse University, USA)

“A very important text that critically questions and dislocates multiple fixities and assumptions about inclusive education, especially those fabricated in and exported from hegemonic centers in the Global North, while offering solid, nuanced, contextualized and human options for what a sensitive and responsive inclusion might look like on the ground. Highly recommended reading for readers posing necessary critical questions on inclusive education and beyond.” (Shaun Grech, The Critical Institute, Malta)

 “The Future of Inclusive Education is meant to become a milestone in the integration of insights from Disability Studies with Critical Race Theory. With its focus on three quite different socio-historical contexts, namely the US, Italy and Kenya, the book challenges canonical representations of disability, while appreciating impact and needs of students at the crossroads of race, gender, class, and disability, successfully contributing to set the path for re-imagining inclusive education.” (Gaia Giuliani, Author of Race, Nation and Gender: Intersectional Representations in Visual Cultures)

“As teachers we often use the word inclusion, but how many of us implement it in our classrooms? First of all, for this to happen we must do personal work of decolonization and fight against social and racial injustices. The book guides us by placing the students at the center, highlighting their intersectionality and suggesting that we build a community of people who promote an inclusive school through frameworks such as CDS and DisCrit.” (Rahma Nur, Primary School Teacher and Poet)

Valentina Migliarini is Assistant Professor in Education Studies in the Department of Education and Social Justice in the School of Education at the University of Birmingham, UK. Her work addresses educational inequities for students living at the intersections of race, dis/ability, language, citizenship and migratory status, in Europe and the United States.

Brent C. Elder is Associate Professor of Inclusive Education in the Department of Wellness and Inclusive Services in Education (WISE) in the College of Education at Rowan University, USA. His work focuses on the development of sustainable inclusive education practices in under-resourced schools in the United States and around the world.