Inclusion and the standards agenda: negotiating policy pressures in England

TLDR

The national standards agenda strongly shaped schools’ directions, and encouraging inclusive developments may complement ongoing critiques of educational policy. The study examines how 25 English schools, collaborating with three universities, can develop more inclusive cultures, policies, and practices. Unlike typical studies, the schools were selected without any explicit commitment to inclusion. Inclusive development emerged across schools through disturbance of existing practices, was guided by institutional and external factors, was constrained yet focused by the standards agenda, and can be supported even in challenging contexts.

Abstract

This paper reports on some aspects of a collaborative action research project involving teams from 25 schools in England working with researchers from three universities in an attempt to understand how schools can develop more inclusive cultures, policies and practices. Unusually in this field, the schools were not selected because of any exceptional and explicit commitment to ‘inclusion’. A common process of development emerged across the schools, which started with the disturbance of existing practices and was nurtured by a range of institutional and external factors that included ideas about inclusion. The national ‘standards agenda’ was a major force shaping the directions taken by schools. Whilst it constrained inclusive development it also provided that development with a particular focus and led schools to consider issues that might otherwise have been overlooked. The paper concludes that inclusive developments — albeit of a highly ambiguous nature — are possible even in apparently unpromising circumstances and that there may be specific ways in which these developments can be supported. Encouraging such developments may be a necessary complement to the continued radical critique of current educational polices.