Inclusion and education

BOX 1.1: 
The evolving interpretation of disability has shaped education provision
Evolving perceptions of people with disabilities shaped three approaches 
to their education (Al Ju’beh, 2015). The charity model viewed people 
with disabilities as victims or objects of pity. They were considered 
uneducable and excluded from education, although some religious 
institutions provided education alongside care.
The medical model saw disability as a problem stemming from 
impairment that made some people differ from what society widely 
considered normal and need treatment to meet societal expectations. 
The perceived challenges of learners with disabilities arose from their 
deficits rather than school and classroom organization, curriculum and 
teaching approaches that might be inadequate and lack the flexibility 
to offer needed opportunities and support. Consequently, such learners 
are often categorized and labelled by type and severity of disability 
and placed in separate provision, where they are educated through 
specialized approaches. The medical model can give rise to the idea that 
medical personnel should lead assessment of such learners and that 
only teachers with training in special education can provide for them. 
This reinforces the perceived need for separate provision and individual 
approaches that often carry lower expectations throughout learners’ 
school career. The language associated with the medical model includes 
terms such as special needs, therapy, rehabilitation, handicap, defect, 
disorder and diagnosis.
Starting in the 1970s, the social model contrasted the biological 
condition (impairment) with the social condition (disability).
In this approach, disability is not an individual attribute. It emerges 
because individuals face barriers they cannot overcome in certain 
environments. It is the system and context that do not take the 
diversity and multiplicity of needs into account (Norwich, 2014).
The social model is linked to the rights-based approach to inclusion 
and the idea that education needs to be available, accessible, 
acceptable and adaptable (Tomaševski, 2001). Functioning and 
capability approaches are central to its focus on what a person has 
difficulty doing. Society and culture determine rules, define normality 
and treat difference as deviance.
In 2001, the World Health Organization issued the International 
Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, which synthesized 
the medical and social models of disability. Although it listed 
1,500 disability codes, it stated that disability resulted not only from 
physical conditions and biological endowment but also from personal 
or environmental contexts (WHO, 2001). A shift towards the social 
model must be accompanied by a change in language, which moves 
from medical and needs-based terms towards language placing 
learners’ rights at the centre of planning and decision making in a 
model that prioritizes identification and removal of attitudinal, physical 
and organizational barriers. 
All stakeholders need to understand the underlying thinking related to 
inclusion. The concept of barriers suggests many people are at risk of 
education exclusion, not just people with disabilities. Social and cultural 
mechanisms drive exclusion on the basis of ethnicity or poverty, for 
instance. In education, the concept of barriers to participation and 
learning is replacing that of special needs and difficulties.
Yet awareness raising remains a challenge in many countries.
The CRPD stopped short of a precise definition of 
inclusion in education. The term therefore remains 
contentious, lacking a tight conceptual focus, which may 
have contributed to ambivalence and confused practices 
(Slee, 2020). While the CRPD endorsed actions that 
could lead to enrolment in mainstream schools, it did 
not suggest that special schools violated the convention 
(De Beco, 2018). Some argue that, in favouring an anti-
discrimination perspective over a needs-based one, Article 
24 privileged ‘mainstream educational environments as its 
presumed substantive standard rather than the provision 
of quality instruction in an appropriate setting (including 
specialized settings) tailored to the particular educational 
needs of each individual student’ (Anastasiou et al., 2018, 
pp. 9–10). Reports to countries by the Committee on the 
Rights of Persons with Disabilities confirm that inclusion 
is the ‘governing paradigm’ for special and segregated 
education (Cisternas Reyes, 2019, p. 413).
Ultimately, the CRPD gave governments a free hand in 
shaping inclusive education, which may be seen as implicit 
recognition of the dilemmas and tensions involved in 
overcoming obstacles to full inclusion (Forlin et al., 2013). 
While exclusionary practices by many governments in 
contravention of their CRPD commitments should be 
exposed, the difficulties in making mainstream schools and 
education systems flexible should be acknowledged.
In addressing inclusion in education as a question of 
where students with disabilities should be taught, there 
is potential tension between the two desirable goals of 
maximizing interaction with others (all children under 
the same roof) and fulfilling learning potential (wherever 
students learn best) (Norwich, 2014). Other considerations 
include the speed with which systems can move towards 
the ideal and what happens during transition (Stubbs, 
2008), and the trade-off between early needs identification 
and the risk of labelling and stigmatization (Haug, 2017).
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C E N T R A L A N D E A S T E R N E U R O P E , C A U C A S U S A N D C E N T R A L A S I A

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Rapid change may be unsustainable, potentially harming 
those it is supposed to serve. Including children with 
disabilities in mainstream schools that are not prepared, 
supported or accountable for achieving inclusion can 
intensify experiences of exclusion and provoke backlash 
against making schools and systems more inclusive. 
Advocates for exceptions have also appropriated the 
language of inclusion, generating confusion (Slee, 2020).
Inclusion in education means education of good 
quality for all
These ambiguities led the Committee on the Rights of 
Persons with Disabilities to issue General Comment No. 
4 on Article 24 in 2016, following a two-year process 
involving submissions from countries, non-government 
organizations (NGOs), organizations for people with 
disabilities, academics and disability advocates. It defined 
inclusion as involving
a process of systemic reform embodying changes 
and modifications in content, teaching methods, 
approaches, structures and strategies in education 
to overcome barriers with a vision serving to 
provide all students of the relevant age range with 
an equitable and participatory learning experience 
and environment that best corresponds to their 
requirements and preferences. Placing students 
with disabilities within mainstream classes 
without accompanying structural changes to, for 
example, organisation, curriculum and teaching and 
learning strategies, does not constitute inclusion. 
Furthermore, integration does not automatically 
guarantee the transition from segregation to 
inclusion. (Committee on the Rights of Persons with 
Disabilities, 2016, p. 4)
The committee described the right to inclusive education 
as encompassing
a transformation in culture, policy and practice in 
all formal and informal educational environments 
to accommodate the differing requirements and 
identities of individual students, together with a 
commitment to remove the barriers that impede that 
possibility. It involves strengthening the capacity of 
the education system to reach out to all learners. 
It focuses on the full and effective participation, 
accessibility, attendance and achievement of all 
students, especially those who, for different reasons, 
are excluded or at risk of being marginalized. Inclusion 
involves access to and progress in high-quality formal 
and informal education without discrimination. 
It seeks to enable communities, systems and 
structures to combat discrimination, including 
harmful stereotypes, recognize diversity, promote