Challenges and Future Trends of Inclusion and Equity in Education

Dear Colleagues,

Since the enactment of the Salamanca Statement (UNESCO, 1994), the discourse surrounding equity and inclusion in education has been key to regional, national and global concerns in education policies and practices. Having emerged from the struggles of activists, families and teachers to eliminate exclusions and discrimination within schools, the statement upheld the right to equitable and inclusive education for every child, regardless of social, economic, race, gender and ability backgrounds. It granted access to regular schools for children identified as having Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) and ‘accommodate[d] them within a child-centred pedagogy capable of meeting these needs’ (UNESCO, 1994, p.viii-ix).

Since then, countries in the Global North and South have been issuing legislation according to its principles of equity and inclusion, working towards teaching and learning practices that could meaningfully and effectively include each child in the classroom. Indeed, on a micro level, the inclusion project undoubtedly created more opportunities for children from minority backgrounds, with a growing number of pupils benefiting from regular education.

However, despite global, national, and local efforts, inclusive education is still far from becoming the reality. Reasons for its failure have been identified, such as the difficulties of inclusive education’s univocal definition; the economic disparities among countries between the Global North and South; widespread standardizing and performative requirements on a global level and their reverberation in national contexts and local dynamics that relentlessly marginalize schools and children that do not perform efficiently. A dominant systemic culture exists in education that propagates ableism and furthers eugenic positions; hegemony and established norms in education and society determine what is valuable and what is not. Furthermore, austerity measures and market-driven practices have hindered the enactment of equitable education, defunding public education and advantaging children who are from more affluent backgrounds, white and able.

Inclusive education has therefore been defined as a feel-good attitude, supported by the benevolent humanitarianism of its experts who relentlessly, although many times unconsciously, repeat the same vertical relations that do not allow for children’s and their families’ voices to be listened to and enacted upon. Special educational practices have been increasingly subsumed under the definition of inclusion, and disability studies scholars and activists problematized its Global North origins, remarking how its language, thinking and objectives have been imposed on the Global South, disregarding local practices and expertise.

The pandemic has worsened this situation. Despite leaders from international organizations calling to seize the opportunity of the pandemic to enact better inclusive education through technologies, children identified as having SEND and those at the intersection of minoritized social markers have been disproportionately affected, raising questions of the efficacy of new technologies if prior problematics have not been firstly addressed.

This Special Issue creates a space for new thinking and fresh critical perspectives to re-purpose inclusion, informed by the rich knowledge of lived and collective experience and holding at its core the ethics and practice of equal collaboration and partnership. It aims to problematize our current understanding and practices in inclusive education, seeking to create a space for the discussion and imagination of its future trends and directions.

We invite contributions that explore, but are not limited to:

• The importance of grassroots and community organizations; activism, associationism and alliances in shaping inclusive education in schools and communities;
• Collaborative and cooperative practices, collective thinking, voices, lived experiences and other theoretical critiques and practical examples of models to achieve inclusive progression in education and society;
• The intersection of equity and social justice on a global and local level and the influence of international organizations (networks, policy and connections to the North and South) and the private sector in shaping inclusive education policies;
• Analytical tools to understand the schooling/education experience of disabled students, teachers and families and the role of technologies during and beyond the global pandemic;
• The project of decolonizing curricula, pedagogies, and teaching and learning practices and the importance of enabling pluralities of experiences in education;
• The intersection of disability and other social markers including race, ethnicity, indigeneity, gender, sexual orientation and class, among others, and the impact of intersectional experiences on modalities of teaching and learning inclusively;
• Inclusive education and transitions from schools to post-16 education, higher education and to the labor market—exclusions, discriminations and potentialities;
• Challenges of language in defining inclusion and the impact of the pandemic on the spaces of inclusion (i.e., growing levels of elected home education since lockdowns) and the voices and experiences that are informing this process. 

Prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors should initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400-600 words, summarising their intended contribution, by 15 December 2022. Please send this to the Guest Editor Dr. Suanne Gibson ([email protected]), Dr. Francesca Peruzzo([email protected]), or to the Education Sciences Editorial Office ([email protected]). The Guest Editor will review abstracts to ensure proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review and should be approximately 6,000 words each.

• Manuscript deadline: 4 June 2023
• Abstracts deadline: 15 December 2022

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Suanne Gibson
Dr. Francesca Peruzzo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• inclusion
• social justice
• collaboration
• partnership
• equity
• lived experience
• decolonization
• voice
• power
• policy
• disability