Why inclusive education falters: a Bernsteinian analysis

Abstract

The inclusive education policy agenda has not made a signi fi cant impact on the global problem of educational exclusion. Explanations for this lack of impact include inadequate teacher education, lack of resources, negative attitudes, and a policy-practice gap. This paper takes a di ff erent turn and, using the concept of classi fi cation, argues that the challenge to achieve more inclusive education is more fundamental than has been previously articulated. Key tenets of the inclusive education agenda demand a weakening of the insulation between categories that are sustained and advanced by current marketised and standards-driven education systems. Inclusive schooling weakens spatial insulation, collaboration weakens professional insulation, transformability weakens ability insulation, intersectionality weakens identity insulation, and inclusive pedagogy weakens pedagogical insulation. When inclusive education is mapped onto strongly classi fi ed education systems, limited instantiations of inclusive education are inevitable, and di ff erence and exclusion are re-inscribed. Change is possible if 1. Those advancing the inclusive education agenda acknowledge the identities and defences that classi fi cation constructs. 2. The workings of power that sustain insulation between categories in education are identi fi ed. 3. Counter-hegemonic action that weakens insulation and blurs boundaries is encouraged.