Inclusive research and inclusive education: unnecessarily unconnected?

Melanie Nind

The Philosophy of Inclusive Education Day Conference, 5 November 2012, University of Stirling.

For copies of the paper email M.A.Nind@soton.ac.uk

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Addressing unanswered questionsWhy is it that the moves towards inclusive research have happened largely outside of the discipline of education and distinctly unconnected to the field of inclusive education?

How viable are the claims to the moral superiority of inclusive research?

What kinds of knowledge are produced by inclusive research?

What does quality look like in inclusive research?

What does all this mean for inclusive education?

Why the disconnection?

• First, I will define some concepts

• Second, I will examine influences and drivers

• Third, I will look for common and distinct ground

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Inclusive research: a cluster of approaches

Participatory research • Bourke (2009, p. 458): ‘a research process which

involves those being researched in the decision-making and conduct of the research, including project planning, research design, data collection and analysis, and/or the distribution and application of research findings’.

• Motivations can be: listening/ accessing perspectives/ understanding experience/ consulting/ involving participants in decision-making/ working together to make something happen (Greene, 2009).

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Emancipatory research• Under the control of, e.g. students, disabled

people, and in their interests

• Otherwise researchers are part of the problem/exploiting people whose data we build our careers on

• The researcher is either on the side of, e.g. disabled people, or one of the oppressors (Barnes 1996)

• Changing social & material relations of research production (Zarb 1992, Oliver, 1992)

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Blurring the boundaries• Difference ‘more a matter of emphasis than kind’

(Kiernan, 1999, p.45) vs ‘research by children is fundamentally different from adult research about children (Kellett, 2005)

• A continuum of approaches from adult-centred, adult-led to youth-centred, youth-led research (Freeman & Mathison, 2009).

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Inclusive research• Walmsley & Johnson (2003) propose term Inclusive

research - allowing for the continuity and reciprocity between participatory & emancipatory research:

– ‘must address issues which really matter to people with learning disabilities, and which ultimately leads to improved lives for them’,

– ‘must access and represent their views and experiences’ in a collaborative process, and

– reflect ‘that people with learning disabilities need to be treated with respect by the research community’ (p.16).

Influences • Changing model of childhood - children should be

studied in and for themselves, connected to wider rights and citizenship debates - shift focus from children as object of research to actors in research

• Social model of disability – barriers to participation and participatory rights perspectives, heightened awareness of marginalised position

• Search for inclusive methods of working with marginalized and excluded voices -leading to PAR in health, human geography

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Influences • Sociology of early 70s – concern with ‘cooperative

experiential enquiry’– research that addresses co-researchers’ priorities and enables their deeper understanding.

• Policy/ UN rights conventions – focus on rights for voice to be heard and participatory citizenship

• Theory – especially Freire’s praxis and rise of Social constructionism – active meaning makers in co-construction of knowledge

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‘Rights’, ‘right on’ & the ‘right thing to do’• ‘Rights’ - rights agendas have produced a political

and legal environment that encourages more participative approaches

• ‘Right on’ - ethical and moral superiority

• ‘The right thing to do’ - methodological superiority - ‘better’ data or research outputs and research engagements.

(Holland et al.,2008)

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Self-advocates speak out

‘People who are not in the same boat as us don’t understand what it is like to be us, they have not had our experiences. … Because of this people will want to talk to us. We know what they are talking about and understand them’ (Townson et al. 2004: 73)

People-led research ‘is started and led by us, we are not following someone else, or being partly included, which also means partly rejected, by someone else.’ (Townson et al. 2004: 73)

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Drivers – the desire for

• Empowerment - transformation

• Disruption of hierarchy/dichotomy (powerful/powerless)

• Active citizenship/involvement

• Authenticity – knowledge grounded in experience

• Accessibility – research open to all

• Ethics – respectful treatment

• Recognition of competence

• Inclusion –

Echoes in inclusive ed: concern with…• Transformation rather than tinkering

• Active participation – not just a gesture/desk

• Inclusion – ethic of everyone

• Accessibility – open up to all by addressing barriers

• Ethics – right thing to do

• Recognition of competence – history of under-estimation

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But• Education is not at the forefront of

power/voice/citizenship work – stronger discourses and policies in health and social work, human geography, childhood studies

• Focus in research by (learning) disabled adults is mostly on disabled adults’ lives

• Focus in research by children is rarely on inclusive education

• Position of teachers in inclusive research is at troubled boundary of powerful/powerless

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Moral superiority of inclusive research? • Important for whether we should be worried about

this at all

• Does it transform power relations?

• Does it lead to better knowledge?

• Who gets included/excluded?

• Are voices pure?

• Separation of emancipation from inclusion?

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The nature of knowledge produced?

Does inclusive research produce different kinds of knowledge?

•Grounded, experiential, practical, local

Does this help inclusive education?

•It is certainly a gap in inclusive education

•But theory still plays a key role and cannot be lost

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Quality in inclusive research?• Important if we are going to connect the two.

• Echoes of inclusion vs excellence debates.

• Quality social science and inclusiveness in research come together when: we answer questions we could not otherwise answer, but that are important; we access people and knowledge we could not otherwise access; we make reflexive use of insider, cultural knowledge; we bring authenticity to research; and we generate impact. (Nind & Vinha, 2012)

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Quality in inclusive education?

• Quality education and inclusiveness in education come together when …

• Are we in a position yet to answer this?

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Some common ground

Inclusive education

Inclusive research

About inclusion and exclusion, participation & marginalisation

Meant to be about everyone but pressure coming from those who are more marginalised who may have more

to gain(‘Only the excluded need inclusive research’ Walmsley, 2004:

69)

Assumption of competence/ potentialSubject to huge amounts of rhetoric

Like self-advocacy, much ‘claims making’ (Clement , 2003) ‘saying what is important while not explaining

the conditions which support its success; nor its challenges and difficulties.’

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What does this mean for inclusive ed?Implications are that we need to ask ourselves:

•Have we got the research priorities right? Are we asking the right questions?

•Are the right people setting the priorities, asking the questions, designing the research?

•Can inclusive education research do more to transform, emancipate, foster involvement of everyone?

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Conclusions • We concluded Doing research inclusively, doing

research well? by asserting the need for ongoing transformative dialogue and not fixing our concept of inclusive research too early or too strongly (thus avoiding creating a paradigm that is ultimately exclusive) (Nind & Vinha, in press)

• Is it helpful to retain a fluid conceptualisation of inclusive education also? Thus avoiding creating something special all over again.

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Afterthought• Oliver (1997: 25) argued “… research can only be

judged emancipatory after the event; one cannot ‘do’ emancipatory research (nor write methodology cookbooks on how to do it) …”

• At what stage do we know that our education was inclusive?

• If we cannot prescribe how to do it can we define the conditions under which it might happen?

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For more see …• Nind, M. & Vinha, H. (2012) Doing research

inclusively, doing research well? Report of the study: Quality and capacity in inclusive research with people with learning disabilities. University of Southampton.

• Nind, M. & Vinha, H. (in press) Doing research inclusively: Bridges to multiple possibilities in inclusive research, British Journal of Learning Disabilities.

• http://www.doingresearchinclusively.org

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References• Barnes, C. (1996) ‘Disability and the myth of the independent researcher’,

Disability & Society, 11(1): 107-10.

• Bourke, L. (2009) ‘Reflections on Doing Participatory Research in Health: Participation, Method and Power’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology 12(5): 457-74.

• Freeman, M. and Mathison, S. (2009) Researching Children’s Experience. New York: Guilford Press.

• Greene, S. (2009) ‘Accessing children’s perspectives and experience: Some impediments. Advancing Participatory Research Methods with Children and Young People’. NCRM/Child Well-Being Research Centre. London, 23 February 2009.

• Kiernan, C. (1999) ‘Participation in Research by People with Learning Disabilities: Origins and Issues’, British Journal of Learning Disabilities 27(2): 43-47.

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• Holland, S., Renold, E., Ross, N. and Hillman, A. (2008) Rights, ‘Right On’ or the Right ThingTto Do? A Critical Exploration of Young People’s Engagement in Participative Social Work Research. NCRM Working Paper Series 07/08. http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/460/

• Kellett, M. (2005) NCRM Methods Review Papers, NCRM/003. Children as Active Researchers: A New Research Paradigm for the 21st Century? http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/87/

• Oliver, M. (1997). Emancipatory research: Realistic goal or impossible dream? In C. Barnes & G. Mercer (Eds.), Doing disability research (pp. 15–31). Lees: Disability Press.

• Townson, L. et al. (2004) ‘We are All in the Same Boat: Doing “People-led Research”’, British Journal of Learning Disabilities 32: 72-76.

• Walmsley, J. and Johnson, K. (2003) Inclusive Research with People with Learning Disabilities: Past, Present and Futures. London: Jessica Kingsley.

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