1
Associate professor Simon Michelet,
Faculty of Education, Oslo University College
Box 4 St. Olavs plass, 0130 Oslo, Norway
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T: +47 22 45 21 25
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Academic and social inclusion in the classroom
Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University of Geneva, 13-15 September 2006
Abstract
The paper discusses the preliminary understanding of inclusive interaction as part of and expressing inclusive peer culture, based on the project Between pupils.Interaction, support and tensions in an inclusive peer culture (2005-2009). An example from a classroom observation is sketched, describing seven-years-old pupils working on an open group assignment. Based on research literature, a possible understanding of inclusive interaction in the classroom is given, emphasising community, participation, democratisation, benefit and confidence. The example is tentatively used to illustrate some of the dimensions of the preliminary concept of inclusive interaction. Inclusive peer culture is understood through dominating norms, values and ways of understanding that may support inclusive interaction.
Simon Michelet:
Academic and social inclusion in the classroom
I am working on a ph.d project called Between pupils.Interaction, support and tensions in an inclusive peer culture (2005-2009). The project will examine the relation between pupils’ work at school and the interaction in the peer group, enlightened by the concept of culture. The purpose is to investigate if the concept of culture might contribute to new comprehension. The concept of culture has often been used as the theoretical framework for research in different social groups, but seldom in the study of peer groups in school. Based on these perspectives, my main research question is: How do pupils’ cultural interaction, support and tensions affect their study work in arenas of learning at school?
The research question focuses possible relations between study work and an inclusive peer culture. In this paper I will discuss my preliminary understanding of inclusive interaction and peer culture. My empirical work is observations and individual interviews. I use video to record observations, as well as field notes. My informants are pupils in ordinary public school. I started my field work at the beginning of the school year in august 2004 in two classes in the first grade and two classes in the eight grade. I’m going to follow these classes for three years. In the first phase of my work I have prioritised developing my theoretical framework on how inclusive interaction may be both expressed and part of inclusive peer culture. At the next pages I will give an example from a school lesson and try to examine how I may use this to illustrate my preliminary understanding of inclusive interaction in the classroom.
An example from the first grade: Using blocks for building
I have from my field work focussed at open group tasks to be solved by pupils together. These situations often include negotiations about who is to do what and the pupils tend to expose views and judgements seldom possible to observe elsewhere. In the first place I’ve tried to find interaction and communication expressing how the pupils experience situations and work in the classroom. Gradually I will look for indications of dominating perceptions of reality, norms and values of the peer culture.
I want to give an example from a lesson where five pupils in the first grade were interacting, using blocks for building. The assignment was open: build something together. The pupils were alone in a small room containing stacks of big blocks for building. Through their work they had recurring negotiations about what to build and who should do what. Their negotiations were carried out through physical action more than verbal during the first minutes:
98Charles enters ((into the frame of the camera)). Eric turns around and starts
building together with Charles
099 Penny fetches blocks for Nancy
100Ian is building alone
101Penny: Yes, that’s good, it fits
(hb004, line 098-101)[1]
The pupils create three groups while starting up their own building process: Eric and Charles, Nancy and Penny, and Ian alone. At the beginning their projects do not clash with each other. The pupils don’t express anything verbal about what they are building and they don’t give any opinions of the other’s buildings. But they do create for themselves positions in the room and in the activity through physical actions. After a couple of minutes the three different constructions are initially starting to shape up. The pupils discuss if and how they might coordinate their constructions to something mutual:
162 Penny ((to Eric and Charles)): It’s gonna be a little house!
163The other two turn around and look at the construction
164Unidentified boy:[2] Would someone like to join us?
165:Penny: Yes, we just have to (…)
166Unidentified boy: (…)
167Ian: Listen! This could be the garden
168Penny: I can build the bed
169A small discussion about who is going to build the bed starts. Penny soon
withdraw from the discussion
All the five pupils participate in this initial nonverbal and verbal discussion. Everyone has a say and everyone is met by mutual recognition. Everyone is seen and heard when they speak. Through the following ten minutes they continue building: Eric and Charles work on the house, Ian on the garden and Penny and Nancy on the bed. Suddenly there are no building blocks left. The pupils ask each other for blocks to complete their own project. No one is willing to give blocks away, and the building process stops. The situation is solved by Penny and Nancy. They change their mind and agree to tear down their bed in order to get enough blocks for the house.
After a while there are once more no more blocks left. The four pupils now involved in the house building suggest to Ian that he quits his garden project and donate the blocks to the house. Ian disagrees violently, but gives in after a while:
429Charles is coming out of the house
430Ian is talking to Davis while making gestures
431Ian: (…) even more, AND a veranda
432Charles is on his way to tear down a block from Ian’s garden
433Ian: NO, Charles!
434Charles: Well, yes
435Ian ((talking to Charles)): We can’t build the garden if we (…)
436
437Unknown boy: Can’t build the garden. We don’t need it!
438Penny: Not everybody have a garden
The two girls are not as active as the boys in these negotiations. Still Ipresume Penny’s utterance about not everyone having a garden (line 438) expresses both her support to the house as the joint project, her decision to be part of that project and her backing for the suggestion of using all the bocks for the house. After the following discussion, Ian gives up his garden and joins the house project. Through the following ten minutes the house is completed. Ian enters the house and participates actively in the building process, together with the other two boys. Nancy and Penny take the initiative to join in several times, but they are refused:
517Nancy is helping, placing a block in the right position
518Penny is dancing around, coming closer to have a look
519Nancy: I can do it!
520Nancy takes a block the boys haven’t succeeded to place in the right position. She tries to put it right from her position, outside the house.
521Charles: Wait! Wait!
522Charles making his way out of the house, takes the block from Nancy, mumbling ((to himself)): I know what I shall do
523Charles is outside, continues to build
Taking the step from giving orders to physically take a building block out of Penny’s hands (line 522) may be seen as using power. But from what Penny and Nancy say and do there still are indications of their understanding of being part of the building process as a common project, in spite of they being refused participation several times:
492Penny: That’s good! We’re able to stand up!
…..
497Penny ((proud)): It’s getting high!
…..
659The peers are allowed to come into the room to have a look
660They are not allowed to come inside the house
66100.28.51 ((hh.mm.ss))
662Nancy ((proud)): I can just go inside
663The teacher Evy: Sorry everybody, it’s time for cleaning up
Penny and Nancy give several positive and partly enthusiastic opinions through and after the building process. Further Nancy enters the house when her classmates are allowed to have a look at the end of the lesson. She emphasises that she is allowed to do so, contrary to the audience. I see this as an expression of her view of the house being a common product where she has a part. My observations indicate that the five pupils position themselves as one group when the audience enters the room. Fellowship in the group seems temporary more important than the differences between the members.
The concept of inclusive interaction - based on research literature
How to understand the relation between inclusion and exclusion is depending whether inclusion is understood as a condition or a process (Topping og Maloney 2005). If inclusion is understood as a condition, inclusion and exclusion will describe mutually excluding situations. Exclusion would imply for example pupils who are banned from the community in mainstream school (Blyth and Milner 1996). The reasons for such practices are mainly concerned with what is supposed to be the wellbeing of the majority. But inclusion and exclusion might as well be used to describe qualities of social interaction. Understanding inclusion as process is corresponding to that. Seen in this perspective, it will never be possible to achieve inclusion once and for all. Inclusion is qualities of the ever ongoing negotiations and interactions which are a part of living in a community (Arnesen 2002, Nes og Strømstad 2001). A community which has qualities of inclusion to the extent that it will not break down or exclude members when the norms for interaction are not obeyed is the ideal, not harmony. An inclusive community as an ideal means both offering and appreciating basic participation and belonging for everyone, in a way that every member may trust their belonging, even when they experience to be refused from time to time.
I understand inclusive interaction as a process characterised by tensions between inclusion and exclusion, where nobody still is generally or permanently excluded from academic or social interaction. Interaction is both to express and to be part of an inclusive peer culture. Here the concept of culture is understood to refer both to the individual and the community, both to ideas, actions and material expressions (Geertz 1973, Gullestad 1989). To understand the web tying pupils together as culture implies to emphasise dominating norms, values and ways of understanding as constituting the frames of interaction. An inclusive peer culture will give resistance to interaction dominated by exclusion or assimilation both in academic and social life in school.[3]
Haug (2003, 2004) operationalises the concept of inclusion in school as lasting development in four areas: community, participation, democratising and benefit. I have tried to look into this frame of understanding in relation to possible characteristics of an inclusive peer culture. This might give dimensions to further field work. Looking for possible interaction dimensions amongst a limited number of pupils, I’ve also found one of Clifford Geertz’ (1973) general points about social science inspiring:
If we want to discover what man amounts to, we can only find it in what men are; and
what men are, above all other things, is various. It is in understanding that variousness
- its range, its nature, its basis, and its implications – that we shall come to construct a
concept of human nature that, more than a statistical shadow and less than a primitivist dream, has both substance and truth.
(1973, p. 52)
In my empirical work I will look into local, specific interaction and ideas amongst pupils in my four school classes. Their experiences and opinions about conditions for having a good social and academic interaction at school will probably differ between individuals, probably partly connected to gender, ethnicity, religion and disabilities. I believe one of my major challenges will be to look for possible patterns and structures in this limited material, but I still find it encouraging that material like mine probably is one important source to knowledge about an inclusive peer culture in a school for all.
Community
Haug (2004) emphasises every child’s right to be a member of a mainstream class at their local school, the childrens participation in social life at school and that no one should be stigmatised because of their special features. I will further develop my understanding of participating in social life at school. How does the concept inclusive interaction imply that every child should be a member of her or his local school and should experience interaction without stigmatisation?
Diversity
I suppose the experience of community as a basic dimension of the concept of inclusive interaction can not imply similarity, but equality despite differences as a quality. The value in question is discussed among others by Arnesen (2004). She emphasises that diversity covers a lot more than mere tolerance. Referring to Derrida and Lévinas, she argues that respecting the Other includes a committed appreciation of human variety in ways expressed in daily interaction. Diversity is not just to be accepted more or less reluctantly. Diversity is to be appreciated as a basic condition to develop our own humanity. It does not imply that every type of difference is an enrichment to the community and to individuals. But it does imply that we need to be confronted by mutually contradictory ways of acting, experiencing and thinking to develop our own.
Pupils might differ in a variety of ways, for example in gender, ethnicity, social background, disabilities, interest, motivation, propensity, etc.
In my example gender is striking. Charles’s use of power to get his will is indeed more distinct versus Ian than versus Penny and Nancy. But further on Ian is accepted as a partner, while Penny and Nancy are rejected several times. It can’t be judged from one example weather this is connected to gender or not. I have noticed that a lot of situations in my material indicate gender differences as an important aspect of interaction in my classes. But if and how this contributes to diversity as norms, values and ways of understanding, remains to be examined.
Belonging
Belonging is referred to as an important dimension of inclusion by Arnesen (2004). According to Haug’s (2004) four areas of development this may be understood as a part of the area community. I understand belonging to be a part both of the participants’ experience and of norms demanding that each person is to be a part of the collective. Because belonging has a taken-for-granted character it can be difficult to identify. It might be expressed through periods of absence, if the participant misses the community and if the community register the absence. It may also be expressed in daily interaction, for example when pupils are looking at themselves and are being looked upon by the community[4] both as participants in processes and as jointly responsible for the products made.
If and how the pupils experience their participation as important is the main focus in my understanding of the term academic belonging.[5] Social belonging implies if and how the school offres an arena where the pupils usually expect to be part of social interaction, in addition to establish and maintain relations of friendship. In these areas it will be considerable differences between the pupils. Diversity has to be a basic value in the community if the interaction still is to be inclusive.
I find the tensions between excluding dimensions in the interaction and yet an articulated experience of belonging to be striking in the building example. If belonging is supposed to express the community’s appreciation of every pupil, this is less visible in the example. Penny and Nancy’s willingness to give up the bed as their building project could be understood as a contribution to the group’s common game. It is a quite common competence for children at this age to understand the dynamics of the game where someone has to give up their point of view for others to have it their way. But if this is a prevailing pattern with the same pupils in the same positions, the interaction may be more characterised by assimilation than inclusion.
Participation
The pupil’s interaction may be characterised as true participation, as emphasised by Haug (2004). By true participation he means the possibility of both giving and receiving, in a way where everybody has the possibility and is expected to contribute to the community according to their ability and receive according to their needs.
Participation is primarily connected to actions, and also to the actors’ experience of the actions. Pupils might seem not to participate, but still themselves experience participation. Or pupils might seem to participate, but do not feel themselves to be part of the interaction going on. These are situations that should be included in my descriptions and analyses of interaction.
Academic and social participation
If and how the pupils are actively present in study work at school I describe as academic participation.[6] This participation includes experiences of joint influence in the development of learning situations at school, of relevant challenges according to the pupils’ qualifications, of coherence between the core school elements and the pupils’ knowledge and of acceptance of the pupils and their way of acting at school. Resent classroom research has critically discussed how these aspects are taken care of at school (Stigler and Hiebert 1999, Alexander 2000, Klette 2003, Mortimer and Scott 2003). There are different points of view of to what extent schools in different countries manage to support academic participation. There is less discussion about the necessity of academic challenges to require the pupils’ personal effort towards individual goals as well as their contributions to the community. The challenges must activate the resources of the individuals and the community. I connect social participation to if and how the pupils are actively present in social interaction at school in a way that includes all the participants. This participation should foster common influence, mutual recognition, care, respect, acceptance and preferably appreciation of diversity being expressed.
My rather simple example may show how life in a classroom contains complex interaction, partly connected to different interests, domination and submission. I am not sure how I can manage to capture these differences and tensions in my description and analysis. Maybe this may be pictured in Haugs’ (2004) dimensions of inclusion in education.