This case study was located in a primary mainstream school in Greece with the aim to explore how the Special Educational Needs (SEN) legislative reforms with regards to inclusion and inclusive practice have been developed and implemented in Greece. Prior to the study a critical analysis of the Greek SEN laws (Law 2817 and Law 3699) was undertaken to better understand how SEN and inclusion have been conceptualised and how practice has been guided and legislatively established in Greek mainstream schools. The analysis of the policy documents and the literature review indicated that the most dominant form of inclusive practice in mainstream schools has been the operation of ‘Inclusive Classes’ (ICs). Therefore, the case study aimed to unfold deeper understandings underpinning inclusive decisions and practices for students, their parents and school staff in the school setting, including mainly the IC and play area. Following an exploratory case study design and employing Grounded Theory (GT) processes, reciprocal relationships of inclusion were reconstructed, deconstructed and understood based on the policy documents’ analysis, the observations of actual practice and the participants’ experiences and understandings gained through interviews. The findings suggested omissions at both policy level and within educational practice. These omissions imposed restraints on students’ social development, as well as in the pedagogical approaches employed by the teachers due to confusion and lack of knowledge and training with regards to SEN inclusive practice and notions. The analysis concludes with a key finding of ‘vague inclusive realities’, where terms of inclusion were used to describe processes resulting in exclusion. The discussion and future recommendations are conceptualised on the basis of identifying barriers between policy and practice (special versus general education) as a means to achieve more effective inclusion and an effort to decrease possible practices or behaviours that may lead to ‘vague inclusive realities’.

The purpose of this research study was to explore and describe the experience of primary school educators of inclusive education. Educators experience inclusive education with dissimilar attitudes and perceptions. Educators constantly have to cope with large numbers of learners in the classroom, an inflexible curriculum and a lot of administration work. All these things make implementation of inclusive education difficult. I perceive that there is a need to re-evaluate the existing curriculum and come up with new teaching methods to assist the educators to cope with their dilemma. The objectives of this study were to explore and describe the experience of educators in a primary school of inclusive education and to describe guidelines to assist educators to facilitate a positive experience of inclusive education. The study was qualitative, explorative, descriptive and contextual in approach and it therefore became necessary to use phenomenological semi-structured interviews with educators involved in inclusive education. Before the interviews, trust was build through a written request of permission to the principal of the school concerned to conduct the research study. The participating educators were also informed of what the research is all about before the main interview. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews focusing on the experience of primary school educators of inclusive education. Data were analysed utilising Tesch’s (Cresswell 2004:192) method of open coding. Trustworthiness was ensured throughout the study by applying Guba’s approach (Lincoln and Guba 1995:15) including the service of an independent coder. Results were recontextualised within the literature. Most educators view inclusive education as beneficial to the educators, the parents, the school and the learners as a whole; “a tool to make every learner a winner.” There are challenges that make inclusive education difficult to implement and are voiced by educators through a feeling of disempowerment. Support systems presently implemented by educators are met with varying opinions about the efficiency in inclusive education. There is an increased need for support systems for educators involved in inclusive education. Guidelines to assist educators to facilitate a positive experience of inclusive education were developed based on the above theme. / Prof. C.P.H. Myburgh Prof. M. Poggenpoel

In Mainland China, a national education policy called ‘Learning in Regular Classrooms’ (LRC) has been implemented for over 25 years to support the inclusion of disabled children in regular schools. Although the LRC policy framework has been gradually adapted in response to the global movement for inclusive education, little is known about what is happening in classrooms and schools. In particular, disabled children’s views and experiences of their school lives remain unknown. Drawing on perspectives from inclusive education, pupil voice, disability studies and childhood studies, this research is driven by a theoretical stance that positions disabled children as active and competent social actors whose voices should be valued and heard. This exploratory inquiry adopted an ethnographic approach. I conducted the fieldwork in 4 state primary schools in Shanghai, with 11 disabled children (designated as LRC pupils and labelled as having Learning Difficulties), 10 class teachers and 3 resource teachers. The Framework for Participation (Florian & Black-Hawkins, 2011) was used to inform data collection and analysis. Multiple methods were utilised including participant observation, interviews and participatory activities. Rich, in-depth and contextual data were collected and thematically analysed. This research highlights several key findings. First, the necessity of listening to pupil voice is reaffirmed. Children’s views of schooling revealed hidden knowledge that had been unknown to teachers. The child participants were sensitive, observant and reflective, exercising their agency to negotiate the circumstances in which they were living. They offered informative comments on school practice and shared aspirations for improvement. Second, it was found that the meaning of inclusive education failed to be addressed in everyday schooling process, although there had been rhetorical change in LRC policy, and its implementation helped to secure disabled children’s access to regular schools. Disabled children were still facing forms of marginalisation and exclusion, such as limited participation in decision-making, restricted opportunities to access extra-curricular activities and spaces, lack of support for academic learning, and negative experiences of bullying from peers. The existing special educational provision such as the ‘resource classroom’ was found to interrupt children’s sense of togetherness and generate negative labelling effects for them. Third, facilitators of and barriers to disabled children’s learning and participation were identified. The exclusionary process affecting disabled children was strongly fortified by the introduction of special educational thinking and practice, which not only marked out these children as incompetent and in need of protection, but also underrated the existing inclusive practice in regular classrooms. The process was further reinforced by the charitable model of disability in Confucian society and the prevailing competitive and performative school culture. Nevertheless, teachers could play important roles in negotiating all pupils’ learning and participation. Among the insights gained into teachers’ practice, a connection between teachers’ attentiveness to children’s worlds and their demonstration of inclusive practice was noticed, on the basis of which I discussed the implications of pupil voice for developing inclusive practice, and explored a working model for moving towards inclusive education in China with pupil voice as a core starting point. In China, there is still a long way to go before realising all children’s learning and participation. This research calls for a paradigm shift within the country to encourage new ways of thinking and researching, in which children must be seen as essential partners in the process of transforming and imagining possibilities for inclusive education.

India's colonial legacy and linguistic diversity has given English language a prominent role in the country. This research, through a historical analysis, first understands the factors behind the persistent prevalence of the language in India. The reasons go beyond colonial legacy and globalisation, and enters the domain of economics. Particularly, India’s reliance on the service sector plays a role in accrediting the language with a superior status. Having entered the economic arena, the research, using India Human Development Survey Round 2, conceptualises and quantifies the impact of English language on economic indicators including wage rates and GDP. The results reflect a significantly positive relationship between the language and income. A fluent English speaker earns 34 percent more than a non-English speaker. Furthermore, the empirical results highlight that the response of growth to investment in a state is greater the higher the number of English speakers. The substantiation of the importance of language’s perpetuation from service-based growth is further embedded by the fact that there exists a positive and statistically significant relationship between the number of fluent English speakers in a state and the growth rate of the Gross State Domestic Product of services. The thesis further investigates the relationship between the language and the inclusivity of growth. The results highlight that the likelihood of fluent English speakers moving out of the ‘deprived’ income strata by earning INR 1.5 lakh or more annually is 33 percentage points higher than that of non-English speakers. The research thus, empirically proves that though English is helping economic growth, it is simultaneously hindering development in terms of inclusivity, hence paving way for a dichotomy that policy makers need to resolve. Finally, the research aims to suggest a solution to the dichotomy through an analysis of the education system in India. Particularly, using primary data collection in Delhi, Chandigarh and Shimla, the research evaluates the pedagogy of English Language, and its impact on the learning levels. It highlights that the pedagogy of the language within the CBSE framework requires editions to lead to an inclusive learning of the language.

This thesis brings together two fields of theological ideas. On the one hand, at the heart of Christian theology and faith are the person and work of Jesus Christ, centred on God's initiative of Atonement through the cross. Here God addresses the whole condition of creation and humanity, usually expressed in terms of dealing with sin. On the other hand, the growing field of Christian disability theology is seeking a positive theological account of disability, viewing it as an integral part of the variety of humanity, and resisting normate assumptions that cast what is regarded as disability in a wholly negative light. Drawing these fields together, does the way we think about the Atonement, and what God addresses and achieves through the Atonement, need to be disrupted and re-formed in light of the insights of disability theology? Conversely, if disability theology is to be distinctively Christian, should the Atonement play a far more foundational role within it than it has to date? If so, given the often negative juxtaposition of disability and sin within theology and in biblical texts, how is all this to come about? The approach taken is first to examine both of these fields and the extent of their current interaction. In particular, their use of ideas and metaphor are explored, to determine whether these provide the means for making that interaction more fruitful. However, the interaction is found to be partial at best, and the ideas and metaphors shared are not found to provide the means for the task at hand. Based on that work, however, a proposal is developed for reconsidering what sort of event the Atonement is, and the nature of God's presence within it. Building on insights from Frances Young, Jurgen Moltmann, Eberhard Jungel and Paul Fiddes, it is proposed that the Atonement should be understood as God's deepest, once for all participation in the risk (both moral and contingent) of creation, through which all that alienates us from God and each other is addressed. This opens up a theological space to talk of disability, sin and the cross together, one that does not require all aspects of what we identify as disability to fit into a binary sin/not sin analysis. This Atonement-as-participation also provides an account of the Atonement that is inherently inclusive of humanity in all its variety, where disability is not a special case. This enables God's initiative of the Atonement to function as a foundation for the various themes within disability theology as these continue to develop.

The importance of Web sites that can be accessed and used regardless of an individual?s disability is critical. One barrier to improved accessibility of Web sites relates to the gap between Web authors? technical knowledge of Web accessibility guidelines and a broader understanding of the challenges facing disabled people when interacting with Web sites.This thesis describes the development and evaluation of a Web accessibility auditing methodology with the dual aims of accurately identifying accessibility barriers present in a Web site, and presenting the audit findings and recommended actions in a way that informs, educates and engenders an improved understanding of accessibility amongst the audience.The methodology was piloted amongst a sample of Web sites, validated against other published accessibility evaluation methodologies, and adopted for subsequent audits carried out on a commercial basis. The impact on recipient organisations and individuals of a sample of 14 commercially commissioned audits was then evaluated. Audit recipients were surveyed, and each Web site audited evaluated to identify any changes to accessibility, and the presence of evidence of changes or improvements to accessibility strategy.Strong indications were found that the audits had a positive impact both on individuals and on the commissioning organisations. The audits were identified as having a particularly positive educational and motivational impact on recipients who did not identify themselves as having expertise in Web accessibility. There was also evidence that the design approach promoted by the audits had been adopted and applied by some of the commissioning organisations. The majority of respondents cited the recommendations for improvement as the most valuable feature of the audit. This illustrates a tension between the importance of presenting specific recommendations for actions and providing richer narrative accounts of evaluation stages to encourage a more holistic appreciation of accessibility.The particular benefits of the study are found in the identification of evidence of impact of commercially-commissioned Web accessibility audits over a period of time to recipients of varying characteristics. A number of areas for further investigation have been identified, focusing on investigating the potential value of the accessibility audit in providing more ?experiential? evaluation stages.

This study focused on the relationship between gender and science.The position taken was that this relationship is in need of theoretically informed clarification, from a perspective which allows for the questioning of taken-for-granted assumptions about knowledge. Thus, the sociology of knowledge, a discipline concerned essentially with the ideological basis of knowledge, provided the theoretical underpinnings for the study.The study's overall purpose was to advance understanding of the gender/science relationship through the development and testing of a theory. Secondary school science, an area in which the problematic gender/science relationship is of particular concern and an area which suffers acutely from lack of theory in this regard, was selected as the specific focus.The problem central to the study concerned the manner in which the structure of curriculum and assessment in secondary schools appears to influence the relationship between gender and science. In addressing this problem, the study involved two major tasks. The first task was to develop a theory which reconceptualises and integrates three strands of previous research, namely, (i) theories about the sociology of knowledge and the school curriculum, drawing initially on the research of Bernstein (1971b), Young (1971b) and Broadfoot (1979); (ii) empirical research, conducted mainly by science educators, concerning the manner in which science curriculum and assessment policy and practice appear to interact with gender; and, (iii) theories developed from the postmodernist feminist critique of science. The second task was to test this theory through a socio-historical analysis of patterns of sex differences in participation and achievement in secondary school science in one Australian State, namely Western Australia.The theory of the gender code of school science is the major outcome of the integration ++ / of the intellectual and empirical activities described in this thesis. Essentially, it is a conceptual, sociological framework in which gender is a central category. It is shown, in this study, to have both descriptive and predictive power with respect to the gender/science relationship at secondary school level.

This thesis suggests that students with (dis)abilities are immersed in, and emerge from powerful discourses within classrooms named `inclusive'. It suggests that resilient and normative psycho-medical discourses and discourses of special education work to maintain the deep structures of schooling, and work against a valuing of difference, and of the Other, within schools and classrooms named `inclusive'. The inquiry that is the basis of this thesis works with textual representations of `inclusion' and `inclusive schooling' and works to address issues of identity and subjectivity within the various discourses from which `inclusion' and `inclusive schooling' might be understood to emerge. It is sited within Western philosophical streams concerned with language and meaning, discourse and narrative, texts and textuality. It emerges from a qualitative research paradigm and is deeply influenced by the earlier works of Michel Foucault (1969, 1970, 1972, 1991). Through these works Foucault develops `genealogy' as a form of historical analysis. This thesis engages genealogy as a form for critical interpretative inquiry into schooling practices named `inclusive' of students with (dis)abilities. The genealogy admits the historical, social, theoretical and political contexts which frame research, inquiry and interpretation within the social sciences. The inquiry emerges from an epistemology of tentativeness and uncertainty. It accepts that knowledge is contextual, contingent and indeterminate. It addresses the associated `crisis of representation' (Denzin & Lincoln 1994, 1998) related to what might constitute an adequate description of the sets of social relations and spaces named `inclusive schooling' through interpretative processes of opening questions and sets of questions. / This genealogy develops understandings of `inclusion' and `inclusive schooling' through unfolding sequences of questions as 'thought-lines' that are strategies for this interpretative inquiry. Three thought-lines are woven from the questions which both propel, and emerge from, the processes of this critical interpretative inquiry: The 'self-other' thought-line; The 'included-excluded' thought-line; The 'particular-general' thought-line. Thought-lines transgress the borders of form and content in this inquiry. They are enmeshed to become the fabric of the genealogy. The thesis is in three sections, the first, Shaping a Genealogy, offers a theoretical and methodological perspective. The second, Squinting and Connecting, is in the form of a suite of interpretations, and the last, Developing Understanding, offers a range of ways in which inclusion and inclusive schooling might be understood. The thesis culminates in a set of new questions that represent a range of understandings of inclusion and inclusive schooling.

Abstract not available

The purpose of this research was to examine teacher perspectives and attitudes on inclusive education for children with disabilities in Fiji. Teachers' perspectives and attitudes are crucial in providing insights that could help improve education and services for children with disabilities in regular schools in Fiji. A qualitative approach using semi structured interviews was selected as the methodology for this research. Nine teachers from nine different schools in Suva, the capital city of Fiji, participated in this research. The nine participants were selected from three different school settings. Three of the participants were from special schools, three were from primary schools and three were from secondary schools. Data collected showed that teachers support inclusive education, however, they had reservations on the inclusion of students with severe disabilities. Several factors were identified to influence teachers' attitudes towards inclusion. The most common factors were severity of disability that the students had, inadequate training of teachers on teaching students with disabilities, inadequate government funding, lack of specialised resource personnel and lack of appropriate equipment and resources to support students and teachers in the teaching learning process. Limited commitment from the Ministry of Education and limited participation and consultation of teachers on policy and curriculum design were also identified as contributing factors for non inclusion of students with disabilities in regular schools. Teachers need to change their perspectives and attitudes and schools need to be welcoming and prepared to accept all students with disabilities into the general education system in Fiji.