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Developing inclusive education systems: what are the levers
for change?
Mel Ainscow
October, 2004
Paper to appear in the Journal of Educational Change
2
Developing inclusive education systems: what are the levers for
change?
Abstract
This paper argues that inclusion is the major challenge facing
educational systems around the world. Reflecting on evidence from
a programme of research carried out over the last ten years, it
provides a framework for determining levers that can help to ease
systems in a more inclusive direction. The focus is on factors within
schools that influence the development of thinking and practice, as
well as wider contextual factors that may constrain such
developments. It is argued that many of the barriers experienced by
learners arise from existing ways of thinking. Consequently,
strategies for developing inclusive practices have to involve
interruptions to thinking, in order to encourage an exploration of
overlooked possibilities for moving practice forward.
The issue of inclusion is the big challenge facing school systems throughout the
world. In the economically poorer countries the priority has to be with the millions of
children who never see the inside of a classroom (Bellamy, 1999). Meanwhile, in
wealthier countries many young people leave school with no worthwhile
qualifications, whilst others are placed in various forms of special provision away
from mainstream educational experiences, and some simply choose to drop out since
the lessons seem irrelevant to their lives.
In some countries, inclusive education is thought of as an approach to serving children
with disabilities within general education settings. Internationally, however, it is
increasingly seen more broadly as a reform that supports and welcomes diversity
amongst all learners (UNESCO, 2001). The argument developed in this paper adopts
this broader formulation. It presumes that the aim of inclusive education is to
eliminate social exclusion that is a consequence of attitudes and responses to diversity
in race, social class, ethnicity, religion, gender and ability (Vitello & Mithaug, 1998).
As such, it starts from the belief that education is a basic human right and the
foundation for a more just society.
Ten years ago the Salamanca World Conference on Special Needs Education
endorsed the idea of inclusive education (UNESCO, 1994). Arguably the most
significant international document that has ever appeared in the special needs field,
the Salamanca Statement argues that regular schools with an inclusive orientation are
‘the most effective means of combating discriminatory attitudes, building an
inclusive society and achieving education for all’. Furthermore, it suggests that such
schools can ‘provide an effective education for the majority of children and improve
3
the efficiency and ultimately the cost-effectiveness of the entire education system’
(UNESCO, 1994).
During the subsequent ten years or so, there has been considerable activity in many
countries to move educational policy and practice in a more inclusive direction
(Mittler, 2000). In this paper I use evidence from research carried out during that
period in order to consider what needs to be done to build on the progress that has
been made so far. In particular, I consider the question: What are the ‘levers’ that
can move education systems in an inclusive direction?
Mapping the issues
As countries have tried to move their education systems in a more inclusive direction,
with my colleagues I have carried out a programme of research in order to learn from
their experiences. Whilst much of this research has been carried out in the United
Kingdom, it has also involved projects in countries as diverse as Brazil, China, India,
Romania, Spain and Zambia (Ainscow, 2000a). These have focused on: the
development of classroom practice (e.g. Ainscow, 1999 and 2000b; Ainscow &
Brown, 2000; Ainscow, Howes, Farrell & Frankham, 2003); school development (e.g.
Ainscow, 1995; Ainscow, Barrs & Martin, 1998, Booth & Ainscow, 2002); teacher
development (e.g. Ainscow, 1994; 2002); leadership practices (Kugelmass &
Ainscow, 2003); and systemic change (e.g. Ainscow & Haile-Giorgis, 1999;
Ainscow, Farrell & Tweddle, 2000), particularly in respect to the role of school
districts (e.g. Ainscow & Howes, 2001; Ainscow & Tweddle, 2003). At the same
time, through the work of the Enabling Education Network (EENET), we have
encouraged links between groups around the world that are trying to encourage the
development of inclusive education (Further details can be obtained from
www.eenet.org.uk). Together the findings of these studies provide the foundations for
the argument I present in this paper.
Much of our research has involved the use of an approach that we refer to as
‘collaborative inquiry’. This advocates practitioner research, carried out in
partnership with academics, as a means of developing better understanding of
educational processes (Ainscow, 1999). Kurt Lewin’s dictum that you cannot
understand an organisation until you try to change it is, perhaps, the clearest
justification for this approach (Schein, 2001). In practical terms, we believe that such
understanding is best developed as a result of ‘outsiders’, such as ourselves, working
alongside practitioners, policy makers and other stakeholders as they seek practical
solutions to the problems they face.
Such research leads to detailed examples of how those within particular contexts have
attempted to develop inclusive policies and practices. It also provides frameworks
and propositions that can be used by those within other contexts to analyse their own
working situations. One such framework provides a useful map for the argument I
develop in this paper (see Figure 1). It is intended to help us focus on factors that
bear on inclusive developments within an education system. More specifically, it
focuses our attention on possible levers that can help to move the system forward.
4
Figure 1: Levers for change
Senge (1989) sees ‘levers’ as actions that can be taken in order to change the
behaviour of an organisation and those individuals within it. He goes on to argue that
those who wish to encourage change within an organisation must be smart in
determining where the high leverage lies. Too often, he suggests, approaches used to
bring about large-scale changes in organisations are ‘low leverage’. That is to say,
they tend to change the way things look but not the way they work. Possible
examples of low leverage activity in the education field include: policy documents,
conferences and in-service courses. Whilst such initiatives may make a contribution,
they tend not to lead to significant changes in thinking and practice (Fullan, 1991).
Our aim, therefore, must be to identify what may turn out to be more subtle, less
obvious and higher leverage efforts to bring about change in schools.
The framework places schools at the centre of the analysis. This reinforces the point
that moves towards inclusion should focus on increasing the capacity of local
neighbourhood mainstream schools to support the participation and learning of an
increasingly diverse range of learners. This is the paradigm shift implied by the
Salamanca Statement. It argues that moves towards inclusion are about the
development of schools, rather simply involving attempts to integrate vulnerable
groups of students into existing arrangements. It is, therefore, essentially about those
within schools developing practices that can ‘reach out to all learners’ (Ainscow,
1999).
At the same time, the framework draws attention to a range of contextual influences
that bear on the way schools carry out their work. As I will explain, these influences
School review
and
development
Principles
Community
Forms of
evaluation
Education
Department
5
may provide support and encouragement to those in schools who are wishing to move
in an inclusive direction. However, it also draws our attention to how the same
factors can act as barriers to progress.
These influences relate to: the principles that guide policy priorities within an
education system; the views and actions of others within the local context, including
members of the wider community that the schools serve and the staff of the
departments that have responsibility for the administration of the school system; and
the criteria that are used to evaluate the performance of schools.
In what follows I examine these wider influences in more detail. Before doing so,
however, I will summarise what our research suggests about the way inclusive
developments can be encouraged at the school level.
Developing inclusive practices
We have recently completed a three-year study that has attempted to throw further
light on what needs to happen in order to develop inclusive practices in schools
(Ainscow et al, 2003; Ainscow et al, in press). The study, which defined inclusive
practices as involving attempts to overcome barriers to the participation and learning
of students, involved teams from three universities working with groups of schools as
they attempted to move practice forward. It led us to conclude that the development
of inclusive practice is not, in the main, about adopting new technologies of the sort
described in much of the existing literature (e.g. Stainback & Stainback, 1990;
Thousand & Villa, 1991; Wang, 1991; Sebba & Sachdev, 1997; Florian et al, 1998).
Rather, it involves social learning processes within a given workplace that influence
people’s actions and, indeed, the thinking that informs these actions. This led us to
interrogate our evidence in order to seek a deeper understanding of what these
processes involve. To assist in this analysis we used as our guide the idea of
‘communities of practice’, as developed by Etienne Wenger (1998), focusing
specifically on the way he sees learning as ‘a characteristic of practice’.
Although the words ‘community’ and ‘practice’ evoke common images, Wenger has
particular definitions of these terms, giving the phrase ‘community of practice’ a
distinctive meaning. A practice, for example, need not be framed as the work and
skill of a particular practitioner. Rather, a practice consists of those things that
individuals in a community do, drawing on available resources, to further a set of
shared goals. This goes beyond how practitioners complete their tasks, to include, for
example, how they make it through the day, commiserating about the pressures and
constraints within which they have to operate.
Wenger provides a framework that can be used to analyse learning in social contexts.
At the centre of this framework is the concept of a ‘community of practice’, a social
group engaged in the sustained pursuit of a shared enterprise. Practices are ways of
negotiating meaning through social action. In Wenger’s view, meanings arise from
two complementary processes, ‘participation’ and ‘reification’. He notes:
Practices evolve as shared histories of learning. History in this sense is
neither merely a personal or collective experience, nor just a set of
enduring artefacts and institutions, but a combination of participation
and reification over time. (Page 87)
6
In this formulation, participation is seen as the shared experiences and negotiations
that result from social interaction within a purposive community. Participation is thus
inherently local, since shared experiences and negotiation processes will differ from
one setting to the next, regardless of their interconnections. So, for example, within
schools in our study we saw how hours of meetings, shared experiences and informal
discussions over hurriedly taken lunches, also involved the development of particular
meanings of frequently used phrases such as ‘raising standards’ and ‘inclusion’.
These shared meanings help to define a teacher’s experience of being a teacher. In
the same way we can assume that groups of colleagues doing similar work in another
school have their own shared histories that give meaning to being a teacher in that
particular context.
According to Wenger, reification is the process by which communities of practice
produce concrete representations of their practices, such as tools, symbols, rules and
documents (and even concepts and theories). So, for example, documents such as the
school development plan or behaviour policy, are reifications of the practice of
teachers. They include representations of the activities in which teachers engage, and
some illustrations of the conditions and problems that a teacher might encounter in
practice. At the same time, it is important to remember that such documents often
provide overly rationalized portrayals of ideal practice in which the challenges and
uncertainties of unfolding action are smoothed over in the telling (Brown and Duguid,
1991)
Wenger argues that learning within a given community can often be best explained
within the intertwining of reification and participation. He suggests that these are
complementary processes, in that each has the capacity to repair the ambiguity of
meaning the other can engender. So, for example, a particular strategy may be
developed as part of a school’s planning activities and summarised in a set of
guidance for action, providing a codified reification of intended practice. However,
the meaning and practical implications of the strategy only becomes clear as it is tried
in the field and discussed between colleagues. In this way, participation results in
social learning that could not be produced solely by reification alone. At the same
time, the reified products, such as policy documents, serve as a kind of memory of
practice, cementing in place the new learning. Such an analysis provides a way of
describing the means by which practices develop within a school.
At this stage in the argument it is important to stress that I am not suggesting that
communities of practice are in themselves a panacea for the development of inclusive
practices. Rather, the concept helps us to attend to and make sense of the significance
of social process of learning as powerful mediators of meaning. Wenger notes:
"Communities of practice are not intrinsically beneficial or harmful….
Yet they are a force to be reckoned with, for better or for worse. As a
locus of engagement in action, interpersonal relationships, shared
knowledge, and negotiation of enterprises, such communities hold the
key to real transformation - the kind that has real effect on people's
lives… The influence of other forces (e.g. the control of an institution or
the authority of an individual) are no less important, but… they are
mediated by the communities in which their meanings are negotiated in
practice" (ibid. p.85).
The methodology for developing inclusive practices must, therefore, take account of
these social processes of learning that go on within particular contexts. It requires a
7
group of stakeholders within a particular context to look for a common agenda to
guide their discussions of practice and, at much the same time, a series of struggles to
establish ways of working that enable them to collect and find meaning in different
types of information. The notion of the community of practice is a significant
reminder of how this meaning is made.
Similarly important is the development of a common language with which colleagues
can talk to one another and indeed to themselves about detailed aspects of their
practice (Huberman, 1993; Little & McLaughlin, 1993). It seems, moreover, that
without such a language teachers find it very difficult to experiment with new
possibilities. It has been noted, for example, that when researchers report to teachers
what has been observed during their lessons they will often express surprise
(Ainscow, 1999). It seems that much of what teachers do during the intensive
encounters that occur in a typical lesson is carried out at an automatic, intuitive level,
involving the use of tacit knowledge. Furthermore there is little time to stop and
think. This is perhaps why having the opportunity to see colleagues at work is so
crucial to the success of attempts to develop practice. It is through such shared
experiences that colleagues can help one another to articulate what they currently do
and define what they might like to do (Hiebert, Gallimore, & Stigler, 2002). It is also
the means whereby taken-for-granted assumptions about particular groups of students
can be subjected to mutual critique.
Our research has drawn attention to certain ways of engaging with evidence that seem
to be helpful in encouraging such dialogue. Our observation is that these can help to
create space for reappraisal and rethinking by interrupting existing discourses, and by
focusing attention on overlooked possibilities for moving practice forward. These
approaches involve:
• Surveys of staff, student and parent views;
• Mutual observation of classroom practices, followed by structured discussion
of what happened;
• Group discussion of a video recording of one colleague teaching;
• Discussion of statistical evidence regarding test results, attendance registers or
exclusion records;
• Data from interviews with students;
• Staff development exercises based on case study material or interview data;
and
• School to school cooperation, including mutual visits to help collect evidence.
Under certain conditions all of these approaches can provide interruptions that help to
'make the familiar unfamiliar' in ways that stimulate self-questioning, creativity and
action. Here, as Riehl (2000) suggests, the role of the school principal in providing
leadership for such processes is crucial. So, for example, Lambert and her colleagues
seem to be talking about a similar approach in their discussion of what they call ‘the
constructivist leader’. They stress the importance of leaders gathering, generating and
interpreting information within a school in order to create an ‘inquiring stance’. They
argue that such information causes ‘disequilibrium’ in thinking and, as a result,
provides a challenge to existing assumptions about teaching and learning (Lambert et
al, 1995).
We have found that these kinds of actions, involving an engagement with various
forms of evidence, may create space and encourage discussion. However, they are not
8
in themselves straightforward mechanisms for the development of more inclusive
practices. The space that is created may be filled according to conflicting agendas. In
this way, deeply held beliefs within a school may prevent the experimentation that is
necessary in order to foster the development of more inclusive ways of working. So,
for example, at the end of a lesson in a secondary school during which there was a
very low level of participation amongst the class, the teacher explained what had
happened with reference to the fact that most of the class were listed on the school’s
special educational needs register.
Such explanations make us acutely aware that the relationship between the
recognition of anomalies in school practices and the presence of students presenting
difficulties as the occasions for such recognition is deeply ambiguous. It is very easy
for educational difficulties to be pathologised as difficulties inherent within students,
even when those same difficulties are used productively to interrogate some aspects of
school practice. This is true not only of students with disabilities and those defined as
‘having special educational needs', but also of those whose socioeconomic status,
race, language and gender renders them problematic to particular teachers in
particular schools. Consequently, it is necessary, I suggest, to develop the capacity of
those within schools to reveal and challenge deeply entrenched deficit views of
'difference', which define certain types of students as 'lacking something' (Trent et al,
1998).
Specifically, it is necessary to be vigilant in scrutinising how deficit assumptions may
be influencing perceptions of certain students. As Bartolome (1994) explains,
teaching methods are neither devised nor implemented in a vacuum. Design,
selection and use of particular teaching approaches and strategies arise from
perceptions about learning and learners. In this respect even the most pedagogically
advanced methods are likely to be ineffective in the hands of those who implicitly or
explicitly subscribe to a belief system that regards some students, at best, as
disadvantaged and in need of fixing, or, worse, as deficient and, therefore, beyond
fixing.
The wider context
So far I have focused on factors within schools that can act as ‘levers for change’.
However, our experience suggests that developments within individual schools are
more likely to lead to sustainable development if they are part of a process of
systemic change. In other words, inclusive school development has to be seen in
relation to wider factors that may help or hinder progress.
Through our collaborative action research with local education authorities (LEAs) in
England and school systems in other countries, we have tried to map factors at the
district level that have the potential to either facilitate or inhibit the promotion of
inclusive practices in schools. These are all variables which education departments
either control directly, or over which they can at least exert considerable influence.
We intend that this work will eventually lead to the development of a framework
instrument that will provide a basis for self-review processes (Ainscow and Tweddle,
2003). Some of these factors seem to be potentially more potent. However, our
research suggests that two factors, particularly when they are closely linked, seem to
be superordinate to all others. These are: clarity of definition, and the forms of
evidence that are used to measure educational performance.
9
In my own country there is still considerable confusion about what ‘inclusion’ means
(Ainscow et al, 2000). To some extent, this lack of clarity might be tracked back to
central Government policy statements. For example, the use of the term ‘social
inclusion’ has been associated mainly with improving attendance and reducing the
incidence of exclusions from schools. At the same time, the idea of ‘inclusive
education’ has appeared in most national guidance in connection with the rights of
individual children and young people categorised as having special educational needs
to be educated in mainstream schools, whenever possible. Most recently, Ofsted, the
inspection agency, has introduced the term ‘educational inclusion’, noting that
‘effective schools are inclusive schools’. The subtle differences between these
concepts adds to the sense of uncertainty as to what is intended and, of course, it is
now well established that educational reform is particularly difficult in contexts where
there is a lack of common understanding amongst stakeholders (e.g. Fullan, 1991).
This being the case, in our own work we have supported a number of English LEAs
as they have attempted to develop a definition of inclusion that can be used to guide
policy development. Predictably, the exact detail of each LEA’s definition is unique,
because of the need to take account of local circumstances, cultures and history.
Nevertheless, four key elements have tended to feature strongly, and these are
commended to those in any education system who are intending to review their own
working definition. The four elements are as follows:
• Inclusion is a process. That is to say, inclusion has to be seen as a
never-ending search to find better ways of responding to diversity. It is
about learning how to live with difference, and, learning how to learn
from difference. In this way differences come to be seen more
positively as a stimulus for fostering learning, amongst children and
adults.
• Inclusion is concerned with the identification and removal of barriers.
Consequently, it involves collecting, collating and evaluating
information from a wide variety of sources in order to plan for
improvements in policy and practice. It is about using evidence of
various kinds to stimulate creativity and problem-solving,
• Inclusion is about the presence, participation and achievement of all
students. Here ‘presence’ is concerned with where children are
educated, and how reliably and punctually they attend; ‘participation’
relates to the quality of their experiences whilst they are there and,
therefore, must incorporate the views of the learners themselves; and
‘achievement’ is about the outcomes of learning across the curriculum,
not merely test or examination results.
• Inclusion involves a particular emphasis on those groups of learners
who may be at risk of marginalisation, exclusion or underachievement.
This indicates the moral responsibility to ensure that those groups that
are statistically most at risk are carefully monitored, and that, where
necessary, steps are taken to ensure their presence, participation and
achievement in the education system.
10
Our experience has been that a well-orchestrated debate about these elements can lead
to a wider understanding of the principle of inclusion within a community. We are
also finding that such a debate, though by its nature slow and, possibly, never ending,
can have leverage in respect to fostering the conditions within which schools can feel
encouraged to move in a more inclusive direction. Such a debate must involve all
stakeholders within the local community, including political and religious leaders, and
the media. It must also involve those within the local education district office.
Our search for levers has also led us to acknowledge the importance of evidence. In
essence, it leads us to conclude that, within education systems, ‘what gets measured
gets done’. England is an interesting case in this respect, leading some American
researchers to describe it as ‘a laboratory where the effects of market-like mechanisms
are more clearly visible’ (Finkelstein and Grubb, 2000, p.602). So, for example,
English LEAs are required to collect far more statistical data than ever before. This is
widely recognised as a double-edged sword precisely because it is such a potent lever
for change. On the one hand, data are required in order to monitor the progress of
children, evaluate the impact of interventions, review the effectiveness of policies and
processes, plan new initiatives, and so on. In these senses, data can, justifiably, be
seen as the life-blood of continuous improvement. On the other hand, if effectiveness
is evaluated on the basis of narrow, even inappropriate, performance indicators, then
the impact can be deeply damaging. Whilst appearing to promote the causes of
accountability and transparency, the use of data can, in practice: conceal more than
they reveal; invite misinterpretation; and, worse of all, have a perverse effect on the
behaviour of professionals. This has led the current ‘audit culture’ to be described as
a ‘tyranny of transparency’ (Strathern, 2000).
This is arguably the most troubling aspect of our own research. It has revealed, how,
within a context that values narrowly conceived criteria for determining success, such
moves can act as a barrier to the development of a more inclusive education system
(Ainscow, Howes & Tweddle, 2004; Ainscow et al, in press). All of this suggests that
great care needs to be exercised in deciding what evidence is collected and, indeed,
how it is used.
English LEAs are required by Government to collect particular data. Given national
policies, they cannot opt out of collecting such data on the grounds that their
publication might be misinterpreted, or that they may influence practice in an
unhelpful way. On the other hand, LEAs are free to collect additional evidence that
can then be used to evaluate the effectiveness of their own policy and practice in
respect to progress towards greater inclusion. The challenge for LEAs is, therefore, to
harness the potential of evidence as a lever for change, whilst avoiding the problems
described earlier.
Our own work suggests that the starting point for making decisions about the
evidence to collect should be with an agreed definition of inclusion. In other words,
we must ‘measure what we value’, rather than is often the case, ‘valuing what we can
measure’. In line with the suggestions made earlier, then, we argue that the evidence
collected at the district level needs to relate to the ‘presence, participation and
achievement’ of all students, with an emphasis placed on those groups of learners
regarded to be ‘at risk of marginalisation, exclusion or underachievement’.
11
In one English LEA, for example, we are currently collaborating with officers and
school principals on the development and dissemination of its ‘Inclusion Standard’, an
instrument for evaluating the progress of schools on ‘their journey to becoming more
inclusive’ (Moore, Jackson, Fox & Ainscow, 2004). The Standard is different from
most existing inclusion awards in that it focuses directly on student outcomes, rather
than on organisational processes, and uses the views of students as a major source of
evidence. So, for example, it does not require a review of the quality of leadership in
a school. Rather, it focuses on the presence, participation and achievements of
students, on the assumption that this is what good leadership sets out to secure.
Similarly, the Standard does not examine whether or not students are given the
opportunity to take part in school activities. Rather, it sets out to assess whether
students, particularly those at risk of marginalisation or exclusion, actually take part
and benefit as a result. In these ways, the aims are: to increase understanding within
schools of inclusion as an ongoing process; to foster the development of inclusive
practices; and to use the student voice as a stimulus for school and staff development.
The intention of the LEA involved is that the Standard will become an integral part of
schools’ self-review and development processes.
Looking to the future
As we have seen, the development of inclusive policies and practices within rapidly
changing education systems is a complex business. This paper is, therefore, an
attempt to make a contribution to a better understanding of these complex issues in
the field. As such, it is intended that the ideas discussed here will stimulate thinking
and debate in ways that will enable further progress to be made in taking forward the
inclusion agenda.
As my colleagues and I continue working with the education systems in which we are
currently involved, both in the United Kingdom and in other parts of the world, we
have two inter-linked aspirations, both of which are inherent in our approach to
collaborative research. First, we hope that our partners will derive direct and practical
benefits from their involvement, and that, as a result, children, young people and their
families will receive more effective educational services. Secondly, we hope to make
further progress in understanding and articulating some of the complex issues
involved in this work. We also intend that the analysis that has been developed will
provide the basis of self-review frameworks, such as the ‘Index for Inclusion’ (Booth
and Ainscow, 2002), for the development of inclusive policies, practices and cultures
within schools and school systems.
As we take this work forward it is important to keep in mind the arguments presented
in this paper. In particular, we have to remember that much of what goes on within
organisations, such as LEAs and schools, is largely taken-for-granted and, therefore,
rarely discussed. In other words, practices are manifestations of organisational
cultures (Schein, 1985; Angelides and Ainscow, 2000). This leads us to assume that
many of the barriers experienced by learners arise from existing ways of thinking.
Consequently, strategies for developing inclusive practices have to involve
interruptions to thinking, in order to encourage ‘insiders’ to explore overlooked
possibilities for moving practice forward. Our research so far indicates that a focus
on the issues of definition and the related use of evidence has the potential to create
such interruptions.
12
Acknowledgements
1. I would like to acknowledge the contributions of my colleagues Tony Booth, Alan Dyson, Peter
Farrell, Andy Howes, Dave Tweddle, Windyz Ferreira, Sam Fox, Susie Miles and Mel West to the
ideas presented in this paper.
2. Some of the research reported in this paper was funded by Award L139 25 1001 and as such is part
of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme of the UK's Economic and Social Research
Council.
3. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the International Congress on Inclusive Education
held at the Hong Kong Institute of Education in December 2003, and at the IV International Congress
on Psychology and Education, Almeria, Spain, March 2004
13
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Correspondence: Mel.Ainscow@man.ac.uk
