Teaching and Learning Research Programme
Annual Conference Papers
5th Annual Conference, 22-24 November 2004
Cardiff Marriott Hotel
Title
Author
Institution
NB: This paper was presented at an internal TLRP conference; if you wish to quote from it please contact the authors directly for permission. Contact details for each project and thematic initiative can be found on our website (www.tlrp.org).
Standards and inclusive education: schools squaring the circle
Mel Ainscow, Tony Booth and Alan Dyson
October 2004
Abstract
This paper reports a collaborative action research project involving teams from twenty-five schools in three LEAs working with researchers from three universities in an attempt to develop more inclusive practices. Unusually in this field, the schools were not selected because of any exceptional commitment to inclusion and the notion of inclusion was defined broadly as the attempt to reduce barriers to learning and participation that might impact on a wide range of students. A common process of development emerged across the schools, which started with the disturbance of existing practices and was nurtured by a range of institutional and external factors. The national ‘standards agenda’ shaped the directions taken by schools, yet also stimulated them to pay attention to hitherto marginalized groups. The paper concludes that a modest shift in this agenda might be the best hope of creating a school system that is more genuinely and sustainably inclusive.
In a recent paper, Phillips and Harper-Jones (2003) claim that ‘New’ Labour’s education policy has been characterised by four themes:
A determination to raise educational standards;
A quest to undertake the modernisation of educational systems, structures and practices;
A commitment to promoting choice and diversity within education; and
A preoccupation with…the culture of performativity.
(Phillips & Harper-Jones, 2003: 126, emphases in original)
These themes are, of course, in many ways a continuation of the marketising and centralising policies of previous Conservative governments and are what have led some American researchers to describe England as ‘a laboratory where the effects of market-like mechanisms are more clearly visible’ (Finkelstein and Grubb, 2000, p.602).
However, what possibly differentiates this Labour government from its predecessor is a 'fifth theme', which Phillips and Harper-Jones rather gloss over. That is, a broad commitment to equity in and through education, variously badged as 'inclusion' or 'social inclusion'. Indeed, the 1997-2001 government was the first in this country to commit itself explicitly to the development of inclusive education and, specifically, to the principles of the UNESCO's Salamanca statement (UNESCO, 1994) which have been so influential in other parts of the world (DfEE, 1997).
There are many possible reasons as to why this 'fifth theme' might be overlooked. Prominent amongst these is the evident tension between market-led and standards-based policies on the one hand, and the equity and social justice concerns of the inclusion agenda on the other. Not only has this tension been widely reported in this country (Bines, 1999, Booth et al., 1997, 1998, Rouse & Florian, 1997, Thomas & Dwyfor Davies, 1999, Thomas & Loxley, 2001, Audit Commission, 2002), but there is also evidence of its existence other countries which have moved down the road of standards-based reform (McLaughlin & Rouse, 2000). In the face of this evidence, some have assumed that the government's commitment to inclusion is fatally compromised. Even if the commitment is genuine, the argument goes, the powerful imperatives of market-led and standards-based policies will inevitably lead schools towards less rather than more inclusive practices. However, alongside this 'pessimistic' analysis sits a more 'optimistic' view (Dyson, 2001) focusing on schools which apparently break out from the constraining effects of national policy and arguing that there are distinctive internal processes which enable them to develop inclusive practices even in the context of a non-inclusive system (see, for instance, Ainscow, 1999; Skrtic, 1991a).
Clearly, it would help our understanding if these two views could be reconciled in some way. However, the current state of knowledge does not make this easy. Evidence on exceptionally inclusive schools is precisely that - evidence about exceptions (Dyson et al., 2002). The fact that, under particular circumstances - the presence of charismatic leaders, the emergence of a distinctive staff culture, a sequence of events which provokes a radical response - a few schools can buck the trend does not tell us what is likely to happen in the majority of schools where such circumstances do not obtain. Likewise, single-point cross-sectional studies of such schools do not tell us about their longer-term trajectories. Moreover, on closer inspection, the seeming inclusiveness of such schools sometimes turns out to be much more ambiguous and problematic than it may at first appear (Dyson & Millward, 2000). On the other hand, repeated analyses of the non-inclusive aspects of national policy and of its negative impacts on schools does little to explain how exceptions occur or - perhaps more important - how much room for manoeuvre even non-exceptional schools have in developing more inclusive practices, given what we know to be the complex, multi-dimensional and multi-level process of policy formation (Ozga, 2000). There is, then, much that we still need to understand.
In this paper, we use evidence from a recently completed programme of research in order to throw further light on these challenging policy issues. This leads us to articulate some possibilities for moving thinking and practice forward.
Inclusive Practices
‘Understanding and Developing Inclusive Practices in Schools’ was one of four national research networks funded as the first phase of the Economic and Social Research Council’s Teaching and Learning Research Programme. The Network involved small teams of researchers from three higher education institutions (Manchester and Newcastle Universities, and Canterbury Christ Church University College) in working with twenty-five schools, in three Local Education Authorities (LEAs). The overall strategy involved two interlinked cycles of action research carried out in partnership by practitioners and researchers. The first of these cycles was driven by the agendas of the partner LEAs and schools, and set out to use existing knowledge within these contexts, supplemented by further research evidence, as the means of fostering developments in the field. The second cycle attempted to scrutinise these developments in order to address the overall agenda of the Network, using existing theory and previous research, including our own work, as a basis for pursuing deeper understandings
The research process varied somewhat from site to site in response to local priorities and possibilities. In most cases, however, the school established a small project team, including the Headteacher, and identified a focus for its work. This took the form of an aspect of its current practice and provision that it wished to review and develop in order to become more inclusive. The school teams were supported by their LEAs and teams of university researchers in this development, and in evaluating their work. Evidence was gathered to varying extents by the schools and by the university researchers, with meetings between the two teams to exchange data and explore implications. These processes of exchange and exploration were extended by meetings of schools within each LEA and by four national conferences for school, LEA and university teams from across the Network.
The evidence-base from the study is substantial, drawn as it is from work across four school years (from 1999-2000 to 2002-2003) with nearly one hundred participating teachers and LEA personnel. It comprises interview data from professionals, parents and students, notes from informal discussions and meetings, school-generated evaluation data, attainment data, observation notes and videos, discussion documents prepared by school and university teams and the outputs from local and national conferences. In view of the extent of these data, it is inevitable that we can report them only a limited selection here, focusing instead on some of the theoretical resources we have used and developed in the course of our analysis. Other publications present the data in fuller form (e.g. Ainscow, 2002; Ainscow, Booth & Dyson, 2004; Ainscow et al, 2005).
Given the policy issues referred to above, some of the starting points for the Network are particularly significant. First of all, the university teams – and, with their encouragement, the schools - operated with a broad definition of inclusion. This was largely in line with the approach recommended by the Index for Inclusion (Booth et al, 2000), and, to a lesser extent, by Ofsted's guidance document, Evaluating Educational Inclusion (Ofsted, 2000), which had recently been made available by central government to all schools as part of the inclusive thrust in national education policy. This definition moved away from seeing inclusion in terms of the placement of students with special educational needs in mainstream schools, towards a much wider focus on the reduction of barriers to learning and participation for all students.
Secondly, participating schools were not invited to join the Network because of any exceptional achievements in inclusive education. Rather, they were schools with a broad commitment to 'doing the best' for all of their students, and a sense on the part of themselves and their LEAs that they might have something to learn from looking more closely at how particular students or groups of students were faring within their current practices. In many ways, therefore, these were 'typical' schools, struggling with the practical challenges of educating diverse populations and with the imperatives of a particularly demanding external policy environment. They also included some schools that had recently faced periods of difficulty (i.e. special measures and serious weaknesses),
Thirdly, the research process turned, effectively, into one of 'critical action research' (Carr & Kemmis, 1986) or, more accurately, 'critical collaborative action research' (Macpherson et al., 1998). Given the definition of inclusion with which we were operating, we had no pre-prepared model of practice to offer schools, nor was the action-research directed at pre-specified aspects of practice or desired outcomes. Rather, we worked with schools on a critical analysis and development of their practice in the light of broad inclusive principles. This inevitably involved a similarly critical analysis of how that practice related to national policy imperatives and where they could find room for manoeuvre within those imperatives. To some extent, we shared the assumptions of the 'optimistic' view described above - that schools were capable of developing more inclusive practices and that there might be processes which facilitated this development. However, the continuing critical engagement with actual practice meant, we believe, that we were able to avoid the trap of describing apparently inclusive surface features of practice beneath which lurked distinctly less-inclusive processes. Moreover, the quasi-longitudinal nature of the study meant both that we stood a better chance than cross-sectional studies of tracing the trajectories of schools and identifying the developmental processes driving those trajectories.
Developing inclusive practices
Much work within the 'optimistic' perspective has emphasised the crucial role of particular sorts of collaborative cultures within schools in supporting the development of inclusive practices (Dyson et al., 2002). Some of this work simply notes the connection between collaboration and inclusion, seeing the former as setting a 'tone' for relationships between teachers and students, or creating a context within which teachers feel able to take risks. Other work is more concerned with the potential for collaborative cultures to support particular kinds of professional and organisational learning, which in turn promote the development of inclusive practices (Ainscow, 1999; Carrington, 1999; Skrtic, 1991a). Our own study leads us to strengthen our subscription to this latter view and to extend it in important ways.
Some cameos provide a flavour of what happened in the Network schools:
· In an urban high school, university researchers participated in a voluntary group of teachers interested in developing their teaching and enhancing the learning of their students. The initial discussions of this group gave an insight into the culture of teaching and learning in the school, and into some of the barriers to learning experienced by students. To provoke teachers and challenge some of their assumptions about certain groups of students, video recordings were made of lessons taught by members of the group, and other staff conducted interviews with students about their experience in school. The videos seemed to encourage reflection on thinking and practice, and the sharing of ideas about how colleagues could help one another to make their lessons more inclusive. For example, the recording of an excellent modern language lesson focused the group’s attention on issues of pace and support for participation, whilst discussion of the strengths of a science lesson indicated the value of students generating their own questions to deepen their understanding of subject content. In each case, it was evident that the discussions contained moments of uncertainty for other teachers who were confronted with examples of practice that challenged their own assumptions. This was potentially threatening, particularly because the school was in the throws of post-inspection activities, and it was necessary to frame the discussions carefully to distinguish them from quality assurance and performance management procedures. The group did manage to nurture each other's sometimes fragile hopes for improvement by providing mutual encouragement and practical ideas.
· In a primary school, students identified as having 'moderate learning difficulties' were taught separately from their peers for substantial parts of the school day in a 'resource base'. When teachers were asked about this, the explanation offered was that this was the only way in which they could be educated effectively. The university team raised this with the school as an issue of equity and inclusion. This provoked a debate within the school about the inevitability of current practice, which coincided with some work by an advisory teacher on developing group work and problem-solving approaches in classrooms. At the same time as teachers experimented with these approaches they also began to accept students with learning difficulties into their classrooms and found, to their surprise, that the children could achieve far more than their teachers had supposed. By the end of the project, these students were spending the majority of their time in mainstream classes.
· Visits between schools were part of the developmental process built into the work of the Network. Schools from two of the LEAs, where the approach to inclusion was low-key and pragmatic, were much influenced by visits hosted by a third LEA with an explicit commitment to inclusive education. One of the most cautious of the visiting headteachers, who was highly suspicious of the rhetorical nature of the host schools' commitments and had been skeptical of the value of Network throughout, nonetheless found his own fundamental assumptions called into question. He commented, ‘I wonder now whether we started at the ‘wrong end’? I feel we focused very much on improving learning. Maybe we should have taken a broader view like [the host authority].’