Inclusion and education

FIGURE 1.1: 
A popular representation of equality and equity is 
misleading

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The experiences of people with disabilities have
helped shape perspectives on inclusion
Education was recognized as a human right in 1948.
In 1960, the UNESCO Convention against Discrimination 
in Education specified what governments must do to 
prevent ‘nullifying or impairing equality of treatment 
in education’ (Article 1). It focused on ensuring that 
all learners enjoyed equal access to, and quality of, 
education with respect to human dignity but did not 
include disability among characteristics that could 
lead to ‘distinction, exclusion, limitation or preference’ 
in education. In 1994, the Declaration of the World 
Conference on Special Needs in Salamanca, Spain, 
made a strong and clear case for inclusive education. 
The 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons 
with Disabilities (CRPD) guaranteed the right to 
inclusive education. Article 24, aiming to realize the 
right to education of people with disabilities ‘without 
discrimination and on the basis of equal opportunity’, 
committed countries to ‘ensure an inclusive education 
system at all levels and lifelong learning’.
The article’s first paragraph captured its spirit: Inclusive 
education would ensure the development of the ‘sense
of dignity and self-worth’ of people with disabilities and 
of ‘their personality, talents and creativity, as well as their 
mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential’ to 
enable them to ‘participate effectively in a free society’. 
The second paragraph contained the key means of 
fulfilling the right, including access to education ‘on an 
equal basis with others in the communities in which they 
live’ and ‘support required, within the general education 
system’ (United Nations, 2006).
Although absent in earlier drafts, the commitment to 
inclusion in school placement not only broke with the 
historical tendency to exclude children with disabilities 
from education altogether or to segregate them in special 
schools, but also distinguished inclusion from integration. 
Ensuring access to mainstream schools but placing 
children with disabilities in separate classes for much of 
the time, not providing them with needed support or 
expecting them to adapt to available services is at odds 
with the goal of inclusion, which involves changes in 
school support and ethos (de Beco, 2018). This approach 
reflected radical changes in perception of disability over 
the last 50 years that led to the social model of disability, 
which the CRPD takes as its foundation (
Box 1.1
).