Creating a Democratic Culture in Managing Classroom Contexts of Disability – PART 1

Abstract

The Department of Basic Education (DBE) in South Africa ratified Education White Paper 6: Building an Inclusive Education and Training System- a policy document which made an explicit declaration to create inclusive classroom contexts within a targeted period of 20 years. Succinctly, this declaration has cast the year 2021, as a major social justice milestone for citizens with disabilities. The chapter strongly believes that this milestone deserves to attract both critical dialogue and empirical engagements as to determine the impact of the Education White Paper 6. Internationally, there are various policy guidelines available, in the quest to create a democratic classroom context with the objective of accommodating diversity, more specifically to address oppressive and non-inclusive disability contexts. The reader audience will be taken across various discourses on disability rights and literature readings responding to redress within the realm of the World Health Organisation and the International Labour Organisation, among others. Before the chapter concludes, a reflective activity is provided; together with a practical assessment activity where the authors create a democratic culture-centric lesson plan meant to support teachers in their inclusive education quest to create ideal democratic classroom contexts.