Inclusion guilt

Inclusion appears to be in something of a sorry state, characterised by confusion, fiustration, guilt and exhaustion. Disabled commentator Tom Shakespeare (2005) suggests that there is also a measure of hysteria, moral panic and an alarming... 

The difficulty in embracing fnU inclusion has produced, as well as a sense of failure, considerable guilt about the youngsters who, it is felt, are being let down. One teacher described her npset at the prospects of one violent youngster being ruined by inclusion ... 

Inclusion becomes a headache that won t go away (Baker, 2002, p. 697) and this seems particularly the case for students with behavioural difficulties. Inclusion for these children appears elusive, a ghostly presence that can never quite be achieved. These inclusion ghosts , fuelled by guilt that inclusion is not yet there, turn nasty ... 

If inclusion was recognised, not as fixed entity, practised upon a discrete population, but as a continuous struggle, which, like the rhizome, was never complete, there would be less frustration and guilt among teachers about their apparent failures -children still waiting to be included. If the struggle for inclusion was understood, not... 

The hostility to inclusion has arisen, I have suggested, from confusion about what is involved, frustration at the climate of accountability within which inclusion is supposed to take place, guilt at what hasn t been achieved and exhaustion from efforts which have seemed futile. It is little wonder that inclusion has been viewed as an impossibility, a step too far for teachers. During Inclusion Week in 2002, my gloomy reflections on the prospects for inclusion in the Times Educational Supplement (AUan, 2002) were met with an angry response from a teacher ... 

---