International Congress on Inclusive Education and
XXVII National Conference of Special Education and Universities
University of Cantabria
Santander, Spain
24 - 26 March, 2010
Conference theme
Inclusive Education Today: Scenarios and actors
Paper
THE VOICE OF STUDENTS IN AN INCLUSIVE SCHOOL
Michael Fielding
Institute of Education, University of London, UK
ABSTRACT
Despite the remarkable range of developments in the field of student voice in
the last twenty years there a number of serious problems that lie just beneath
the surface. Prominent amongst these are issues of inclusion. Against the
distortions endemic in dominant neo-liberal, market-led approaches to
education a more generously conceived, humane alternative is proposed,
namely person-centred education and democratic fellowship. Having looked
briefly at four mini case studies of inclusive student voice within mainstream
and special school contexts, the paper puts forward ten aspects of an
approach that provides the beginnings of a framework, not only for student
voice and inclusion, but for intergenerational learning as a central task of
democracy as a way of life.
Michael Fielding
Emeritus Professor
Faculty of Policy & Society
Institute of Education, University of London
20 Bedford Way
London WC1H OAL
England, UK
Email m.fielding@ioe.ac.uk
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Introduction
I am honoured to be invited to address this International Congress on
Inclusive Education. I am honoured, too, to be in Spain. Despite my
disgraceful lack of Spanish I feel so good to be in a country whose culture I
admire so much. As a young man I read Federico Garcia Lorca (in
translation), listened to Pablo Casals and Narciso Ypes, and admired Goya,
Picasso and Dali.
I begin by briefly sketching out something of the remarkable range of
developments in the field of what in the last 20 years has come to be known
as student voice. I then identify a number of serious problems that lie just
beneath the surface of much of the work. In particular, I suggest that issues of
inclusion have either been ignored or seriously distorted by the bulk and
weight of neo-liberal expectation. In exposing the main philosophical and
ideological flaws within the neo-liberal project I argue for the viability of a more
inspiring and more generously conceived humane alternative, namely personcentred education and its companion organisational motif which I call
democratic fellowship.
From the vantage point of this particular values base I then explore a number
of examples of inclusive student voice within mainstream and special school
contexts. Finally, in the light of these mini case studies and earlier discussion,
I put forward ten aspects of an approach that provides the beginnings of a
framework, not only for student voice and inclusion, but also for
intergenerational learning as a central motif of democracy as a way of life.
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Taking stock of student voice
New forms of student involvement are now an established part of most
schools’ approach to the curriculum and to leadership and school
development. Thus there is
 Peer listening - activities that suggest young people benefit, both socially
and academically, from listening to each other’s voices whether
individually,
e.g. buddying, coaching, mentoring and peer teaching,
or more collectively,
e.g. prefects, student leaders and class and schools councils
 Student / teacher learning partnerships - in which students are given
responsibility for working alongside teachers and other adults in a
developmental capacity
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
e.g. student-led learning walks, students as co-researchers and lead
researchers, Students as Learning Partners (SALP), student
ambassadors, and student lead learners
Student evaluation of staff / the school - activities in which students
express their views on a range of matters, sometimes after collecting and
interpreting data, either on individual members of staff, schools teams or
departments, the school as a learning community, or the wider community
to which the students belong
e.g. students as observers, students as informants in teacher consultation
about effective teaching and learning, students on staff appointment
panels, students as governors, student focus groups and surveys,
students as key informants in the processes of external inspection and
accountability, junior leadership teams, and student action teams
identifying key community issues to be addressed.
There are also a number of typologies which aim to go beyond the excitement
of lists and headline examples and give us a feel for the different ways in
which adults and young people work together, particularly with regard to
issues of leadership, power and responsibility. Perhaps the best known are
from the field of youth participation e.g. Roger Hart’s ‘ladder of participation’
(Hart 1992) and the equally interesting and useful ‘pathways to participation’
developed by Harry Shier (Shier 2001). Within the school sector some of my
own work over the last decade has developed a typology rooted in similar
concerns and aspirations (Fielding 2004(a), 2009)
Problematising student voice
Much of this immensely varied and energetic activity has been encouraged by
regional and central government departments as well as by very powerful
teacher professional associations, many national and international NGOs
(non-governmental organisations) and also by national (ESSA – English
Secondary School Students Association) and international student
organisations (OBESSU - Organising Bureau of European School Student
Unions). Such an overwhelming embrace suggests at least two things: firstly,
there is likely to be something important and interesting going on here;
secondly, the sheer range and depth of development within twenty years in
which neo-liberalism has become increasingly ascendant across the world
might point to a potential confluence of interests that affects how student voice
is understood and encouraged.
Given these possibilities and contradictions there is, needless to say and quite
properly, a lot of disagreement around what student voice is really about and
why it is flourishing in its ‘new wave’ forms in such a remarkable way in many
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countries across the world (see, for example, Fielding 2004(a)(b),2009,
Thiessen & Cook-Sather 2007, and International Journal of Leadership in
Education 2006). My own view, which I will develop a little more in a moment,
is that whilst much of this activity is driven by the national and international
imperatives of neo-liberal forms of global capitalism, it nonetheless has within
it spaces for alternative views and possibilities, some of which are inclusive
and life-affirming in ways this International Congress would approve of.
Before coming to the development of inclusive possibility which is at the heart
of what I want to explore in this paper, I will say a little about some of the
apprehensions I have about neo-liberal forms of student voice which dominate
the international scene at the present time. Perhaps the overriding concern is
that the current vogue for student voice is primarily an instrument of control
driven by narrow adult purposes linked firmly to economic performance and
the continued ascendancy of those in positions of power. Promotion of student
engagement turns out to be about the development of essentially disciplinary
devices aimed at increased compliance and enhanced productivity. The entry
of student voice into the previously forbidden territory of teaching and learning
is neither innocent nor innocuous. In re-articulating the largely predictable list
of what makes a good teacher, a good lesson or a good school, students
become unwitting agents of government control. Equally unsatisfactory is the
atomistic individualism typical of neo-liberal thinking, its ironically
undifferentiated account of ‘voice’, its pervasive silence about issues of power,
and its highly instrumental view of learning.
Thus, within the current valorisation of student voice there is no convincing
account of the common good. Neither is there any recognition that not all
voices are the same – that some students are more privileged and better
placed than others to articulate their needs in the dominant discourse (see
especially Rubin & Silva 2003, Silva 2001). Nor is there any
acknowledgement that the cultural and structural arrangements and spaces
within which student voices are heard are themselves shaped and controlled
by positional interests (Fielding 2004b).
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Student voice and inclusion
For those working with young people who, for a range of reasons, are
marginalised or silenced by the societies in which they live at least two major
concerns are beginning to emerge. Firstly, there are still a relatively small
number of student voice studies which focus on the needs of young people
within the field of special education. Citing the work of John Davies (Davies
2005), Carmel Cefai and Paul Cooper’s recent paper, originally and
evocatively entitled, ‘Students without voices’ (Cefai & Cooper 2009) suggests
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that, ‘whilst the number of studies on students’ voice is increasing, those on
the voice of students with SEBD are still relatively few’ (Cefai & Cooper
2009:??).
Secondly, for many of us there is considerable disquiet about the ways the
voices of students with special needs are heard, interpreted and used within
the wider school system. My own take on this suggests three different
orientations – marginalisation, condescension, and prudential inclusion which are typical of the current practices within mainstream schools. In
contrast to these, there are two other, positive orientations - person centred
education and democratic fellowship - that advocate and enact a quite
different view of how adults and young people might listen to and learn with
and from each other in formal school settings and it is these that form the
intellectual and experiential basis of this paper.
Negative orientations - marginalisation, condescension, and prudential
inclusion
The marginalisation perspective is best illustrated by the fact that in most
forms of student voice in many countries in the world there is a pervasive
disregard of minority groups of students, including those who have special
educational needs. On the one hand such students are demonised; on the
other, and even in best cases scenarios, insufficient attention is paid to the
voices of young people who are marginalised within the system. In either
case, there is no attempt to recognise and understanding the silences and
absences that contribute to what Jean Rudduck used to call ‘the acoustics’ of
the school (Rudduck 2006)
Secondly, there are approaches to engaging students with special needs that
range from the tokenistic to the condescending. Here there is a thin
recognition of the legitimacy of their points of view, but they are often rearticulated and incorporated within dominant staff perspectives and paraded
as a kind of passing puppetry of recognition. In cases where more sustained
support is forthcoming it is often given on the basis of a suffocating
recognition of difference that traps young people and adults within a culture of
benign deprecation devoid of ambition, hope or any real sense of uniquely
placed possibility for reciprocal learning with peers and adults in the
mainstream .
Thirdly, even where there is an attempt to redress these states of affairs the
motivational thrust of the reparation often has its roots in the same ideological
soil that nurtured the dismissal of certain students as less worthy of attention
and respect than the majority of their peers. It becomes prudentially inclusive,
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in two respects. On the one hand it is driven by apprehension that, for
example, the school’s results profile will be adversely affected or that
disaffection amongst marginalised students will become evident through
disruptive behaviour which will then draw in precious staff resources and time.
On the other hand, if only occasionally, it is driven by the possibility of
impressing external (usually inspection) authorities and school ‘customers’
that the school is an institution that welcomes diversity and difference.
Of the three orientations it is this third, prudential approach to inclusion that is
most prevalent and in many respects the most worrying. It either feigns
concern and interest or, in cases where it is genuine, the weight of external
pressure and the narrowness of the dominant view of schooling squeezes and
distorts what is creative, caring and worthwhile into a smiling caricature
corrosive of any genuinely inclusive aspirations. Prudential inclusion is typical
of what I have called ‘high-performance schooling’. Here we have a mode
which says, ‘Have a nice day’, as part of a human relations mantra, rather
than one which advocates what I call a ‘person-centred’ approach within
which such a greeting is genuinely welcoming and engaging of us as
individual human beings. Here we have a mode which uses extra time for
tutorials and listening to the voices of special needs students to raise test
scores and head off disruption, rather that placing personal encounter through
dialogue at the very heart of its daily educational processes and intentions.
Here we have a mode in which the sanctioning of creativity, openness and the
notion that every child matters is primarily the servant of the familiar narrow
standards agenda, rather than one in which creativity and the engagement
with young people as persons is the harbinger of a much richer, more
demanding fulfilment of education for and in a democratic society.
They are worlds apart; their felt realties are utterly at odds with each other.
And yet, it is not always clear which frame is dominant, whose purposes are
being served, whether we are the victims of those whose interests are quite
other than those we would applaud, or whether we are part of something
which is likely to turn out to be fulfilling and worthy of our support. In sum, it is
not clear whether a more sophisticated engagement with the voices of
marginalised young people is a seductive re-articulation of institutional
insinuation or a genuinely different orientation to what we do and how we
might do it.
Putting philosophy to work
It seems to me that philosophy has an important role to play here. We need a
way of understanding and articulating the fundamental differences between
these two approaches that on the surface often seem to share the same
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language, but actually intend quite different understandings both of education
and the nature of the good society. Drawing on the work of the Scottish
philosopher, John Macmurray, I posit a four-fold framework which suggests
fundamentally different relations between two necessary, interdependent
forms of relationship that underpin all forms of human society. These are (a)
‘functional’ or instrumental relationships which are defined by the tasks or
roles they are required to perform and (b) ‘personal’ relationships which
provide the interpersonal context within which we are able to be and become
ourselves as persons, as human beings in its fullest and most rounded sense.
If we apply these categories to different approaches to education and
schooling we come to understand the stark differences between ‘highperformance’ and ‘person-centred’ models (see Figure 1 below) In the case of
the high-performance approach the ‘personal is for the sake of the functional’;
people and relationships are the servant of instrumental ends. In the ‘personcentred’ approach the relations are reversed. Here ‘the functional is for the
sake of and expressive of the personal’. Means must express ends and since,
in education, the ends are primarily personal and communal - i.e. how we lead
good lives together - then all functional relationships and arrangements should
be directed at human ends and intentions. It is those deeper and broader
human aspirations that are the arbiters of legitimacy and the goals towards
which we should strive.
Figure 1
A relational typology of education and schooling
Schools as
Schools as
Schools as
Schools as
Impersonal
Affective
High Performance
Person-Centred
Organisations
Communities
Learning
Organisations
Learning
Communities
The Functional
Marginalises the
Personal
The Personal
Marginalises the
Functional
The Personal is used
for the Sake of the
Functional
The Functional is
used for the Sake of
the Personal
Organisational Type
Organisational Type
Organisational Type
Organisational Type
Mechanistic
Organisation
Affective
Community
Learning
Organisation
Learning
Community
Characteristic Mode
Characteristic Mode
Characteristic Mode
Characteristic Mode
Efficient
Restorative
Effective
Morally and
Instrumentally
Successful
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Positive orientations – person-centred education and democratic fellowship
In contrast to the three negative orientations, I wish to advocate and support
approaches to student voice that are driven, not by the instrumental
imperatives of adults under various kinds of pressure, but rather by a set of
educational perspectives and values that have their centre of interest and
obligation in the child herself and in the wider commitment to how we lead
good lives together. Such approaches reject the predations of market-driven
schooling which dominate the education system in my country and many
others at the present time.
Rather than seeing the child as the focus of organisational performance and
economic success, in the person-centred education and democratic fellowship
perspectives young people and adults are seen as partners and co-creators of
wider, more generously conceived notions of learning and being in the world
that will often include measurable results, but will not be constituted or
adversely constrained by them. Approaches to student voice here are
emergent and dialogic, relational and reciprocal both in the manner of their
engagement and the intentions to which they aspire. It is about students and
teachers working and learning together in partnership, rather than one party
using the other for often covert ends. Relationships between students and
staff are based on mutual trust, care, autonomy, and respect and have a
double significance. First, they transform the mechanics of consultation and
the interstices of power through which young voices are heard, dialogue
enacted and action taken. Formal and informal arrangements become
expressive of the spirit of enquiry and committed engagement, not merely
minimal gestures of thin entitlement and little consequence. Secondly, they
succinctly articulate and underscore key aspirations of a democratic way of
life.
The form of student voice that brings together the creative richness and
adventure of person-centred education within the wider frameworks and
dispositions of democracy which it presumes I have called ‘democratic
fellowship’. Here we have the full unity of intergenerational educational
engagement and democratic political community. Here, as in person-centred
education, student voice retains its identity and achieves its full, dialogic
potential within the larger framework of democracy as a way of life. Issues of
power and hierarchy are at once more transparent and less secure than in
other organizational orientations and the place of values is explicit and central,
rather than peripheral or opaque.
Both person-centred and democratic fellowship modes of student voice work
tend to be student driven, staff supported and often a genuinely joint
endeavour. Whilst not eradicating either hierarchy or power, the centrality of
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negotiation, the foregrounding of values and the willingness to work through
their consequences in an iterative way, the explicitly exploratory nature of
what is undertaken, and the tolerance of ambiguity and unpredictability do a
great deal to address both hierarchy and power in a recursive, on-going way.
Finally, in the context of democratic fellowship there is substantial emphasis
on two mutually interdependent features of its commitment to a model of
participatory rather than representative democracy. These are, firstly, that the
school operates some form of ‘shared responsibility’ in which staff and
students meet as a whole community / sub-community on a regular
(sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, sometimes half-termly) basis to reflect
on their work together, share their aspirations and decide on appropriate
courses of action. Secondly, in order to make sure all persons at the Meeting
are confident enough to speak and that the Meeting is genuinely inclusive and
welcoming of diversity, the school will actively develop what are sometimes
called ‘subaltern’ or minority spaces within which the appropriate dispositions,
attitudes and skills developed.
The differences and inter-relationships between the three main orientations to
student voice - high performance schooling, person-centred education, and
democratic fellowship - are set out in diagrammatic form in Figure 2 below
Figure 2
Contrasting approaches to student voice
High Performance
Learning Organisation
Person Centred
Learning Community
Democratic
Fellowship
The personal is for the sake of the
functional
The functional is for the sake of
the personal
The political is for the sake of
the personal
Student Voice – How & Why
Student Voice – How & Why
Student Voice – How & Why


Wide ranging formal +
informal consultation making
current arrangements more
effective
Wide ranging formal +
informal mutual engagement
in order to develop wise
persons
Relationships

Instrumental use of trust and
relationships
Shared responsibility for +
commitment to the common
good
Relationships

Arrangements
for Listening
 Multiple managed
opportunities for staff and
students to listen to young
people’s views of what staff
are interested in

Mutual trust, care and respect
Relationships

Arrangements
for Listening

Reciprocal listening resulting
in emergent foci and wideranging agendas
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Shared commitment to
deepen democratic living
and learning together
Arrangements
for Listening

Importance of community
Meeting + range of smaller
spaces that foster diverse
identities
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Inclusive student voice in action
Interrogating professional practice
Whilst I believe person-centred perspectives and values provide a more
hopeful basis for the development of inclusive student voice practice than their
neo-liberal counterparts I am also mindful of the dangers and challenges that
face practitioners and researchers in largely unsympathetic contemporary
school systems.
As a result of many years of work in this domain I developed a simple
framework of evaluative questions to ask of any student voice initiative
(Fielding 2001 + see Figure 3 below) and it may well be helpful to bear them
in mind when reflecting on the different examples of interesting and
predominantly inclusive practice I am about to offer. The questions which
make up the framework cluster round eight core considerations - to do with
speaking, listening, skills, attitudes and dispositions, systems, organisational
culture, spaces for making meaning , and action for the future - on which the
success of student voice work would to a considerable degree depend.
Figure 3
Evaluating the Conditions for Student Voice
Speaking
Listening
Skills
•
•
•
•
Who is allowed to speak?
To whom are they allowed to speak?
What are they allowed to speak about?
What language is encouraged / allowed?
•
•
•
Who is listening?
Why are they listening?
How are they listening?
•
Are the skills of dialogue encouraged and supported through
training or other appropriate means?
Are those skills understood, developed and practised within the
context of democratic values and dispositions?
Are those skills transformed by those values and dispositions?
•
•
Attitudes
&
Dispositions
Systems
•
•
How do those involved regard each other?
To what degree are the principle of equal value and the
dispositions of care felt reciprocally and demonstrated through the
reality of daily encounter?
•
How often does dialogue and encounter in which student voice is
centrally important occur?
Who decides?
How do the systems enshrining the value and necessity of student
voice mesh with or relate to other organisational arrangements
(particularly those involving adults)?
•
•
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Organisational
Culture
•
•
•
Do the cultural norms and values of the school proclaim the
centrality of student voice within the context of education as a
shared responsibility and shared achievement?
Do the practices, traditions and routine daily encounters
demonstrate values supportive of student voice?
•
•
Where are the public spaces (physical and metaphorical) in which
these encounters might take place?
Who controls them?
What values shape their being and their use?
Action
•
•
•
What action is taken?
Who feels responsible?
What happens if aspirations and good intentions are not realised?
The Future
•
•
Do we need new structures?
Do we need new ways of relating to each other?
Spaces& the
Making of
Meaning
Working against the grain
Thus far I hope to have suggested that genuinely inclusive approaches to
student voice are few and far between, largely because the overriding
assumptions and aspirations of neo-liberalism take a severely instrumental
view of education and schooling. Whilst it might steal the discourse of the
personal - as, indeed it does with e.g. talk of ‘personalisation’ and ‘Every Child
Matters’ - in actual fact neo-liberalism denies the intellectual and existential
legitimacy of the kind of person-centred, democratic fellowship for which I am
arguing.
Despite the difficulty of working against the grain of such a powerful and
sophisticated status quo, there are, nonetheless, some remarkable examples
of inclusive student voice work that presume a more holistic understanding of
education and practice it, albeit imperfectly and with difficulty, in ways which
deserve our admiration and support. It is to a small number of these examples
which ignite a sense of possibility that I now turn in order to develop a feel for
what student voice looks and feels like within an inclusive school.
My first example comes from a special school and focuses on student
involvement in their Annual Reviews. (See Fielding and Kirby (2009) for a
comparative look at what we call Student-Led Reviews in primary, special and
secondary schools). Drawing on the work of Leora Cruddas, my second
example looks at highly innovative work supporting young women with serious
emotional and behavioural issues in mainstream secondary schools. The third
example is also drawn from a mainstream context, but focuses on the key
liberating contributions of a young man with special educational needs whose
influence on his mainstream peers enabled a high-profile student voice project
to break important new ground in ways which would not have been possible
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without his leadership and courage. My fourth and final mini case study
exemplifies my faith in democratic fellowship as an important direction for
future work in our field. Set in a residential special school, it briefly recounts
the practice of a daily Meeting that ran on democratic lines and shaped the
day-to-day life and future direction of the school’s development as an
educational community.
Case Study 1 - Annual Reviews at Harding House Sixth Form
Harding House Sixth Form caters for SLD (Severe Learning Difficulties) /
PMLD (Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities) students aged 16 -19 and
is part of the Vale Federation of Special Schools. Students were not originally
involved in the running of their own review meetings and were not invited or
empowered to make decisions about any matters of significance. Now, for the
majority of the meeting it is the student who talks or someone presents on
their behalf. Students are involved in every stage of planning for their meeting
including deciding who to invite (this may include a friend), choosing the
venue, sorting out refreshments, seating plan and so on, and designing
invitations and tracking responses.
Before the meeting students prepare a written contribution using a template
which can be adapted to the needs of each person (e.g. using symbols, tape
recording). They write about a range of issues, including what they like about
being at Harding House, why they came to the school, current achievements
and aspirations. They also set themselves Individual Education Plan (IEP)
targets, which include things they want to do in-school, out of school and postschool: for example, ‘I want to learn to manicure my own nails’, ‘I want to
travel on the bus on my own’ or ‘I want to initiate conversations with peers in
my group’. The emphasis in the meeting is on celebrating their achievements,
and students present a life story via video and/or powerpoint presentation
which, together in a group of peers, they spend a long time preparing in
advance. Experience suggests every student is highly motivated and excited
by presentation of their contribution to the Review and that part of this
excitement has to do with the freedom they are given to create their own
presentations which embrace their lives and hopes as persons, not just their
aspirations as skilled adults. Part also has to do with the vibrancy and support
that comes from sharing and developing their work with their peers. The
warmth and humour combine with a seriousness of purpose that is lifeaffirming and practically enabling.
The presentation includes background information about their family and past,
and about their lives now (friends, interests, targets, aspirations, etc). When
presenting they can choose whether to talk personally at the meeting, to
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include a pre-prepared voice over or for a personal tutor to present the
powerpoint / video. There follows a group discussion exploring the young
person’s targets and aspirations and an action plan is agreed. Next there is a
contribution from the young person’s family, and residential care and
Transition Team, but all discussion is directed to the young person, rather
than to professionals or parents. It is clear to all that outside professionals are
present solely because they can offer support to the young person. Little time
is spent on the young person’s statement - only to check whether it is still relevant
- as these are considered too full of jargon and not engaging for young people.
After the meeting students receive a summary of review notes in a meaningful
form and, in order to ensure they have the capacity and motivation to engage
in an ingoing way with the kind of agency illustrated in these examples,
students have ongoing, explicit teaching on relevant communication,
negotiation and decision-making skills. The statement is reviewed in more
detail within staff team meetings. After the staff meeting great emphasis is
placed on making sure that action takes place quickly and that the young
person is made aware of everything that happens.
Case Study 2 - Young women’s ‘space to deal with ourselves’
The work of Leora Cruddas and her colleagues from the London Borough of
Newham who supported marginalised young women – girls with Emotional
and Behavioural Difficutlies (EBD) – in mainstream schools in a range of
highly inclusive ways has a wide-ranging resonance across many different
contexts and circumstances. The two year action research project (Cruddas
2001, Cruddas & Haddock 2003) provides a number of imaginative and
successful examples of ways in which a group of marginalised students in an
already marginalised sub-community can be better understood and supported
within a mainstream context.
In phase one of the two year project, members of staff were seconded from
the Local Authority and developmental work took place in five secondary
schools: three single-sex girls’ schools and two co-educational schools. In the
second year part of the funding was delegated to schools who appointed a
link member of staff who was released to work with the young women.
A range of different groups were formed in project schools. These included
peer mentoring groups, conflict management groups, focused group work
around a particular topic or theme, groups workshops, Circle Time groups,
and outdoor activity-based and problem solving groups. One of the most
successful strategies involved the use of ‘developmental group work’ which
provided a vehicle for reflection, evaluation, action and change and helped to
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make clear what the young women felt they needed in order to learn and how
they wanted their schools to change in order to meet those needs. The
intention was to create a space that liberates, one which, in the words of
Augusto Boal whose work inspired Leora and her colleagues, ‘a reflection on
reality and a rehearsal for future action.’ Although similar to Circle Time, which
has its origins in developmental group work, the latter is much less directive
and teacher-led.
Not only did the project help to support the young women involved to name
and deal with some of the key barriers to learning and participation in school
like
 emotional problems e.g. isolation and lack of self-confidence
 relationship problems e.g. friendships, parents, romantic relationships,
death and loss
 academic issues e.g. transitions, lack of oracy opportunities, pressures
to succeed
 health issues e.g. pregnancy, mental health, body image
 stereotyping e.g. sexuality, being used as agents of social control,
domestic responsibilities, reputations.
It also highlighted a number of recommendations for institutional development
and change. These were that these young women felt they needed to
 be listened to
 be heard above the boys
 be treated as equals
 have emotional space
 have friends
 share problems with each other
 be supported by better pastoral systems
Essentially, in Leora Cruddas’s words, what was being asked for was, ‘the
need for a voice and for space (in curricular, material and psychological
senses) to explore social and emotional issues – what one young woman
referred to as ‘space to deal with ourselves’ (Cruddas 2001:65). In some
instances the project led, not only to the development of a range of groups
and practices, some of which, like workshops on understanding the needs of
girls, targeted staff as well as students. It also led to the establishment of
things like ‘Girlspace’, a girls-only classroom space within a mixed sex school
where girls could go at lunchtime.
Finally, it is also important to attend to Cruddas’s reflections at the end of her
paper. Having expressed the hope that developmental group work is a
practical and realistic way in which schools can enable all young people to
explore their emotional and social worlds in constructive ways which then lead
to positive change, she then underscores the essentially relational nature of
13
education. For her ‘meaning and change is generated in and from these
relationships – in the dialogue among our various voices’ (Cruddas 2001:66),
dialogue between teachers and learners and between learners themselves.
Case Study 3 - COPS, creativity and the absolute necessity of inclusion
My third example looks at some of the ways in which students with Special
Needs can not only contribute in groundbreaking ways to mainstream school
practices, but also develop highly imaginative, holistic forms of engagement
that many outside special schools would wish to emulate. COPS, creativity
and the absolute necessity of inclusion gives a brief account of ways in which
a major, five year, cross-city student voice initiative in the city of Portsmouth
was transformed by the active participation of Special Schools students in
mainstream contexts.
In their partnership with the City of Portsmouth the University of Sussex codeveloped a significant strand of work round student voice as a key strategy
for educational renewal. The explicitly stated values of the Sussex team and
the inclusive perspectives and inclinations of many of the Portsmouth staff
with whom they worked laid the basis of some of their more successful work.
Early on in development of the work a cross-city Student Voice Day was held
at one of the city’s Special Schools. Their hosting of the event, together with
their full participation in it reinforced and deepened understandings and
aspirations, not just of the Sussex University team, but of all students and staff
who attended. Those felt encounters and bonds that grew out of that early
event subsequently had an enormous effect on the way things developed over
the four years’ work that followed. Not only were all subsequent cross-city
Student Voice Days co-planned and eventually co-led by a group of students
that included young people from Special Schools, some of the most innovative
and adventurous work owed its dynamism, creative insight and tenacity to the
significant involvement of Special School students.
Two points of particular importance emerge from the inclusive commitment of
these developments. Firstly, the active involvement of special school students
and staff helped the work to develop a person-centred, social justice
orientation that is unlikely to have been so pronounced or so persistent had
they not been involved. Secondly, because of special school involvement the
Sussex University and Portsmouth Local Authority student voice team were
forced to confront difficult issues and through doing so develop responses that
were wiser, more effective, more inclusive and, on occasions, much more
creative that they would otherwise have been.
14
Perhaps one of the most compelling examples concerns the developing work
of what became known as COPS (Council of Portsmouth Students). This is a
city-wide group of students whose remit is to encourage a range of student
voice activity in all schools, link with student councils, and offer a young
person’s perspective on matters of importance to students themselves and to
officers, councillors and community groups. Inevitably one of the issues with
which COPS wrestled was how they developed effective forms of two-way
communication between themselves and students across the city. With regard
to how they let schools know what they were about and how they were getting
on their realisation of the inadequacy of sending schools written Minutes of
COPS meetings was immediately made clear by the deputy chair. This young
man was from a Special School and he quickly pointed out that many of his
peers would not be able to read the Minutes and discuss the key issues, even
if they were inclined to do so. This led to a wide-ranging discussion about
issues of student-friendly communication and the importance of developing an
inclusive approach that used modern technology and contemporary culture in
imaginative ways.
The upshot was remarkable. With the enthusiastic help of a member of the
Sussex University team, the COPS group developed an audio-visual form of
communication which incorporated the written minutes on one side of the
screen and video clips of dialogue illustrating the topics under discussion on
the other. The key point here is that none of this would have been tackled as
quickly or as imaginatively had the deputy-chair of the COPS group not been
from a Special School and the culture of the COPS group not been committed
intellectually and interpersonally to inclusion.
Case Study 4 – Democratic fellowship at Epping House School
Epping House School was a residential school for what were then known as
‘maladjusted’ emotionally disturbed children between the ages of five and
twelve. Set in rural Hertfordshire in England, under the leadership of Howard
Case between 1957 and 1974 it became the most radical publicly funded
special school of its generation (for a fuller account see Fielding 2010). With
thirty-five to forty students and ten adult residential staff, six of whom were
teachers, at the heart of the school’s life and work was the daily Meeting
which decided, on a one person one vote basis, virtually all matters of
significance in the daily life and future development of the school. Not only
was the Meeting chaired by a student, with very few refusing an offer to do so,
it was, in Case’s view, chaired better than by most adults. Trainee
chairpersons were given an opportunity to chair the meeting for a little while
before the experienced child chair took over.
15
The order of items on the Agenda was crucial. The constraining items, such
as the Veto and Privileges Lists and communal obligations were dealt with
first. The Veto List contained the names of children who had misused an
amenity of the school, e.g. selfish or anti-social uses of the swings or ropes,
and were thus forbidden to use them thereafter. In order to be taken off the
Veto List a child had to apply in writing to the Meeting and the Meeting
discussed and voted on his or her case. The Privilege List was made up of the
school amenities reserved for children who could be relied upon to use them
responsibly. For example, a privilege might entail the possession of a
penknife, access to the sitting room or reading room, the right to go up to the
bedrooms during the day without first seeking permission from staff. Then
came the allocation of voluntary communal work such as sweeping and
cleaning and looking after the dogs and cats that had an important role to play
in the emotional reparation and development of many of the children at the
school.
Once clear about communal obligations, choices about afternoon and evening
activities were made. These activities were offered by staff and took place
after the 11.00 am – 12.30 pm class groups which the school expected the
children to attend and which they, by and large, they did. Children were free to
choose which afternoon / evening activities they wished to take part in, or to
offer activities of their own, or do nothing at all.
Following a brief review of the previous day’s jobs announcements and
reminders about future events preceded an interlude for songs. Then came
debate / question time in which day-to-day issues were raised by children and
staff. These, together with Notes of Application with regard to the Veto and
Privileges Lists were often the kernel of the Meeting.
Whilst the meetings were chaired by children, one of the senior adults in the
school accepted a special responsibility for supporting its democratic vitality, a
role which in Case’s view required an ‘artistry’ of engagement within which
they ‘neither dictate, dominate or withdraw’ (Case 1966:133). Responsibility
was significantly shared between adults and young people all with an equal
voice, and all equally subject to the will of the community. In Case’s view
The meeting brought increased awareness to each person as an individual
and a social being; it encouraged a serious attitude to life; it confirmed to
the children that they were taken seriously by adults; it established a
harmony between adult and child which formed the basis of all other
relationships throughout the day. Though the responsibilities of adults
towards children and the areas of adult control were clearly delineated, the
conventional concept of adult wisdom and morality gave way to collective
inspiration, gained in the concerted seeking and questioning …
16
questionings which had but one end in view: the greater happiness and
maturation of each individual (Case 1978:81)
5
From person centred inclusion to democratic fellowship
We are living in interesting times: the literal and metaphorical near-bankruptcy
of dominant economic and political systems under which many of us live might
well accelerate the range and depth of questioning, not only of its excesses,
but of its fundamental presumptions. For those working in schools now is as
good a time as any to take stock, not only of current realities but also of future
possibilities. An intake of professional breath is not, of course, just a
pragmatic matter: it is also and interdependently an intellectual and
philosophical matter reflected in the structure and underlying dynamic of this
paper.
Two models of student voice and Inclusion
In my earlier remarks I drew attention to the fact that the dominant approach
to student voice and, indeed, to inclusion owes its energy and legitimacy to a
neo-liberal, market-led model of society and formal schooling. In contrast to
this, I am arguing here for a model which presumes a very different set of
understandings and aspirations for human flourishing and for education.
These are summarised in Figure 4 below.
The neo-liberal market perspective presumes a predominantly individualistic
view of human beings and puts a lot of emphasis on individual choice.
Individuals are encouraged to see themselves as consumers or customers
who need to make informed choices about opportunities for learning within the
school, often connected with their future life chances within the jobs market.
At a collective level, a school committed to this way of working sees its main
task as one of maximising its position in competitive league tables by
producing better outcomes for students. Student voice is important because in
listening to students the school becomes a more accountable and more
effective learning organisation and thus better at meeting its core
responsibilities. Inclusion is understood largely as a prudential matter in
which, like student voice, attending to the demands of those with special
needs is seen as a means to improved, publicly accredited performance in the
education market place.
17
The person centred perspective also starts with individuals, but its
understanding of what it means to be an individual is quite different. It sees
individuals as persons, not as isolated, self-sufficient beings, but as
Figure 4
Neo-liberal and person-centred models of Inclusion & Student Voice
Neo-liberal market model
Person centred model
Inclusion
Inclusion
as
as
Prudential organisational provision
Person centred democratic fellowship
Student Voice
Student Voice
as
as
Instrumental
Instrumental
Communal
Communal
(solitary)
(plural)
(individual)
(mutual)
Personal perspective
Communal perspective
Person centred
education
Democratic
fellowship
Individual perspective
Personalised
learning
Collective perspective
High performance
schooling
Voice
Voice
Voice
Voice
Individual voice
Representative
voice
Relational
conversation
Restless dialogue
Main concern
Main concern
Main concern
Main concern
Instrumental
outcomes
Utilise all
perspectives to
improve results
Lead a good life
Co-create a good
society / better
world
Driver
Driver
Driver
Driver
Individual ambition
Fully informed
accountability
Personal
development
Shared
responsibility for a
better future
Dominant model
Dominant model
Dominant model
Dominant model
Consumer choice
Learning
organisation
Family / friendship
Learning
community
Key question
Key question
Key question
Key question
What job do I wish to
do / course do I wish
to take?
How can we learn
from everyone to
achieve better
outcomes?
What kind of
person
do I wish to
become?
How do we
develop an
inclusive society
together?
essentially relational. As John Macmurray once said, ‘We need one another to
be ourselves’ (Macmurray 1961: 211). A person centred perspective does
include the responsibility to make choices, but they are choices taken within
the context of deeper aspirations than those of the market. They concern
fundamental questions to do with how we become good persons and the
means of answering those questions are essentially through dialogue with
18
others whom we care for and respect. At a communal level, a school
committed to this way of working sees its main task as one of developing an
inclusive, creative society through a participatory democracy which benefits
everyone. Student voice is important here, not so much through
representative structures (though it will have these and operate them well),
but rather through a whole range of daily opportunities in which young people
can listen and be listened to, make decisions and take a shared responsibility
for both the here-and-now of daily encounter and for the creation of a better
future. The understanding of inclusion with a person centred perspective is
one that entails the valuing of students as persons, not as units of
performance and in its most radical forms it seeks to go well beyond listening
to develop intergenerational learning based upon notions of shared
responsibility and participatory democracy.
Dialogic approaches to student voice and inclusion
Given the sorts of example I sketched out earlier in the four mini case studies
and the kind of values position for which I am arguing what might some of the
implications be for an approach to student voice that is humanly rather than
instrumentally inclusive?
I begin with the fundamental purposes of our work in school and look at some
of the key values, dispositions and relationships that form the bedrock of
inclusive listening. I then say a little about what this kind of inclusion might
mean for the roles of adults and young people for whom reciprocal, dialogic
listening is important. If we feel more confident about how people regard each
other and how their roles accommodate the flexibility and openness required,
we then need to consider what kinds of interpersonal structures and spaces
we need to provide for the acoustics of the school to be attentive to the
diversity and delight which our work intends. As well as providing an
appropriate range of opportunity we need also to attend to the means we
deploy to listen to each other with sensitivity and imagination. All this then
stands a good chance of enabling those of us whom circumstance and
temperament allow to move person centred education into its radical mode of
democratic fellowship.
Values, dispositions + relationships
1
Learning to listen with our full humanity
At a time when education and schooling are assumed to be synonymous it is
important to remind ourselves that schools are only one way of approaching
the task of education, that they have other legitimate purposes, and that,
19
sometimes, schools can be forgetful or even corrosive of their educational
responsibilities. We thus need in our approach to student voice to be mindful
of the larger human purposes that give education its legitimacy, its joy and the
hopes on which we depend for our survival as a species. When we listen to
young people, when they listen to us, when members of the school engage
with each other in their shared work they must always listen within a wider,
deeper framework of human being and becoming. Most of the many
failures of target setting have their origins in its propensity to cut the
umbilical cord between the immediate focus of activity and the wider
human purposes that give it its point and legitimacy (Fielding 1999).
2
The dialogic imperative
This kind of deep listening is not only relational, it is dialogic and for it to be
successfully so it needs to live a genuine openness towards each other, a
reciprocity that is interested in and attentive to the richness of each person’s
humanity, rather than a cursory and incurious consultation. In an inclusive
school the interest is thus in the other, not as an object or case, but in all their
complexity and possibility. When Macmurray insists that ‘any kind of teaching
involves establishing personal relations between teacher and pupil, and the
success or failure of the teaching depends very largely upon the character
and quality of this relation’ (Macmurray 1958) it is these kinds of relations he
has in mind. When Howard Case recalls that ‘Children had their own ways of
expressing their points of view, not always logical and immediately intelligible
to the adults but sometimes put with great potency, showing much greater
insight and these were the occasions when we adults felt enriched and
invigorated by thoughts and feelings which we ourselves had not initiated’
(Case 1978:72), it was his deep respect for a dialogic imperative that enabled
and ennobled the best of the work at Epping House School.
3
Insistent affirmation of possibility
A companion constituent of a genuinely dialogic approach to education within
an inclusive school will be an insistent, persistent affirmation of possibility.
Energised both by rage against what the Brazilian social theorist and politician
Roberto Unger calls ‘the abandonment of ordinary humanity to perpetual
belittlement’ (Unger 2005:46) and by profound belief in the powers of ordinary
men and women to create new and better ways of being in the world, this
generosity of presumption requires us to resist closure. It requires of us that
we assume the best rather than the worst of young people, that we keep
options open. It will also insist not only that we counter the confinement of
customary or casual expectation, but that – like radical pioneers such as Alex
Bloom in my own country (Bloom 1949, Fielding 2005) and Francisco Ferrer in
Spain (Ferrer 1913) - we deny the legitimacy of ability grouping, that we
20
promote emulation rather than competition, that we prefer intrinsic motivation
and communal recognition to the paraphernalia of marks and prizes.
Roles
Radical reciprocity – ‘role jumbling’, ‘re-seeing’, ‘restless encounter’
and intergenerational learning
An inclusive approach to education, to schooling, indeed to anything of
significance, must, it seems to me, not only keep options open, it must also
push further and harder against the rigid proclivities of role and regulation.
Whilst both are necessary to human flourishing they must always remain
provisional, always accessible to the radical accountability of the human
spirit. This can be partly achieved through what Robert Unger calls ‘role
defiance and role jumbling’ (Unger 1987: 563). Thus, some of the most
innovative student voice work in the last fifteen years has involved students
taking the lead in research and enquiry work in their schools and communities
e.g. Holdsworth et al 2001, Fielding & Bragg 2003) or undertaking tasks
previously reserved for high status adults e.g. in the appointment of new
teaching staff.
4
One of the intended consequences of ‘role jumbling’ is that adults and young
people come to see each other differently and often more roundedly and
more appreciatively. For these reasons, in an inclusive school the
relationships between students, and between adults and young people are
likely to be less bounded and more exploratory. In re-seeing each other as
persons as well as role occupants we nurture a new understanding, sense of
possibility, and felt respect between adults and young people, a joy in each
other’s being and a greater sense of shared delight and responsibility. We
invite a willingness to be surprised, to welcome the unanticipated as a mark
of the partnership’s potential to honour and deal with difference in ways that
resist the silencing, homogenising tendencies of position and power.
In its fullest expression the creative synergy of role jumbling, re-seeing and
restless encounter expresses itself in intergenerational learning, a key notion
which, for me, provides the next important step in the development of student
voice.
Spaces for listening – the acoustics of the school
5
Curriculum and pedagogy
What comes through again and again from thriving examples of inclusive
approaches to student voice is the need to go beyond a compartmentalised to
21
a pervasive approach in which all young people in the school have many
opportunities during the day for the kinds of encounters I have mentioned
above. In contexts like these, student voice is neither exotic nor elitist; rather it
is the lived expression of a shared delight and shared responsibility between
adults and young people for a particular way of learning and living.
An especially important site for this development, is of course, the formal and
informal curriculum and pedagogy at the heart of which must lie three
imperatives. The first has to do with the necessity of equipping young people
and adults with the desire and capacity to seriously interrogate what is given
and co-construct a knowledge that assists them in leading good and joyful
lives together. The second imperative argues that whilst knowledge must
transcend the local, it must, nonetheless, start with the cultures, concerns and
hopes of the young people themselves and the communities the school
serves. Lastly, whilst perhaps not a curricular requirement, a consequence of
taking these first two desiderata seriously more often than not leads to
integrated forms of enquiry with students and staff working in small learning
communities. Given these three desiderata, the student will have many
opportunities within her daily pattern of learning and her interactions with
peers and members of staff to hear and be heard, to initiate and respond to
dialogue in an adventurous and unfettered way that does not require special
occasions or unusually developed confidence or capability.
6
Structures and spaces
Structurally the inclusive school will be mindful of interpersonal and
architectural spaces that encourage a multiplicity of different forms of formal
and informal engagement with a multiplicity of persons. These will include
‘subaltern spaces’ or spaces in which minority, marginalised or emergent
groups can build the confidence, capacity and dispositions that enable them
to explore and name what is important to them and also gain the confidence
and desire to engage with larger, different groups of people within and beyond
the school community. Key questions arising from such work include ‘How can
schools co-create with disadvantaged young people a range of ‘spaces where
they can deal with themselves’? How can we ensure those spaces do not
become ghettoised? How can we find out more about whether some safe
spaces unwittingly foster dependency and others are more able to bridge to
other groups and wider ‘public’ spaces, cultures and practices in schools?
How do we help dominant assumptions, cultures, and practices within schools
to be more open to alternative perspectives and understandings?
7
Personal and communal narrative
The notion of narrative is central to the inclusive school for at least two
reasons. Firstly, it is important because it connects in a fundamental way with
one of core purposes of education, namely with the making of meaning. There
22
will be multiple spaces and opportunities for individuals, both young people
and adults, to making meaning of their work, both personally and as a
community. Indeed the two are connected. The anthropology of the self
presumed by most inclusive traditions of education is communal rather than
atomistic. The anthropology of an inclusive notion of community is one which
honours difference and presumes the sanctity of the individual person.
The second reason narrative is important has to do with the necessary
connection with history, with the pioneering traditions of inclusive education
exemplified earlier by the work of Howard Case. Not only does history have
much to teach its contemporary inheritors in a cautionary sense, it also
provides many examples of counter-hegemonic significance and power that
remind us not only of what has been but also that, in Terry Wrigley’s resonant
phrase, ‘Another school is possible’ (Wrigley 2006) within the public sector of
schooling.
Means
8
The manner and means of listening
The kind of existential openness and attentiveness required of inclusive
listening in an inclusive school must also explore a wide range of ways in
which that listening can be accomplished. If we are to both honour and
encourage diverse, often emergent identities we must develop
commensurate, imaginative ways in which our listening can be developed.
Some of the most creative research and development work in the field of
student voice and inclusion is using and developing a remarkable range of
approaches (see Bragg 2007 for a useful introduction). Thus there are the
familiar surveys and questionnaires, different kinds of interviews, observation,
traditional forms of consultation such as councils and forums and newer
approaches such as suggestion boxes, ideas booths, listening posts and
graffiti walls. There is also increasing use of photography, drawing, collage,
multi-media approaches, and audio-recording. Particularly exciting is not only
the use of experiential, multi-facetted approaches such as logs and
scrapbooks, guided tours, bedroom culture, toys, drama and role play,
vignettes and scenarios, but also their co-development with young people
themselves (see especially Busher 2009, Riley & Rustique-Forrester 2002)
Democratic fellowship
My final suggestions for developing an approach to student voice that is
humanly rather than instrumentally inclusive take us into the territory and
23
traditions of radical education and, as us such, they will appeal more to some
readers than others. Ultimately I would want to make a connection between
an inclusive school and a radical democratic school because for me both are
concerned with the development of practices and aspirations that give the
fullest expression to the basic philosophical principles of a democratic way of
life – namely those based on freedom, equality, and community. Democracy
on this account is about much more than how we arrive at decisions that bind
us as individuals and as a community to certain courses of action. It is also
about democratic fellowship, about our care for and delight in each other’s
uniqueness and shared humanity, which provides the basic grounding on
which democracy rests and the just and joyful aspirations towards which it
strives (see Macmurray 1950). Democratic fellowship reminds us what
democracy is for: it also provides us with a commensurate means of achieving
it.
In addition to the eight suggestions outlined above, there are at least two
further ways in which schools who share these aspirations might take their
work forward. These have to do with approaches to accountability and with
the development of a democratic communal forum such as that described by
Howard Case at Epping House School.
9
Accountability as shared responsibility
Within current arrangements for external inspection the solicited voices of
young people have an important role to play in matters of institutional
accountability. Within an inclusive democratic school accountability is better
understood and enacted as a form of ‘shared responsibility’ which is morally
and politically situated, not merely technically and procedurally ‘delivered’. We
cannot know what we are responsible for in anything other than a thin, boxticking sense unless we return to shared educational purposes and from there
co-author an account of core beliefs and the kinds of practices we believe will
exemplify their realisation in an appropriately demanding and life-affirming
way. Young people can and should be involved in such process, a good
example being at Bishops Park College, Clacton, an 11-16 school in England
where, towards the end of its radical phase of development, it developed a
Research Forum out of which emerged a framework of aspirations and
practices that formed the basis of the College’s accountability framework (see
Fielding et al 2006).
The Research Forum comprised a core group of students, parents, governors,
school staff and a small university research and development team. What is
particularly pertinent to this context is the way in which relationships between
adults and young people changed over time. Both began to see each other
with new eyes. The shared desire to explore matters of some significance and
work in new ways led, in many instances and on a number of occasions, not
24
only to respectful and appreciative encounters and new understandings, but
also to mutual advocacy of and delight in intergenerational working. It also
produced a remarkable document which exemplified the kind of rich
accountability, or in my terms, shared responsibility for which I am arguing.
10
School Meeting
The fullest exemplification of shared responsibility - a term which itself has a
distinguished history, particularly within the context of 20th century radical
education movements (see Fielding 2010) - lies in the development of
the school Meeting within which the whole community reflects on its shared
life, achievements and aspirations and makes meaning of its work together. In
the words of the great pioneer, David Wills, ‘It is an arrangement in which all –
adults and children – share the responsibility, all with an equal voice, and all
equally subject to the will of the community’ (Wills 1966:27). The school
Meeting is the most potent and most iconic of contexts within which inclusive
listening moves from the cautious attentiveness of consultation to the more
exploratory possibilities of participation. Here student voice is not only fulfilled,
but transcended and transformed into a creative form of intergenerational
learning. As the example of Epping House School suggests, and as other
radical examples involving young people from Spain corroborate (Vulliamy
1948), more than any other equivalent form of school experience, the Meeting
potentially offers a demanding and fulfilling expression of care for and delight,
not only in each other’s uniqueness, but in the vibrancy and creative power of
an inclusive, diverse democratic community.
Developments such as these will, of course, presume the kind of educative
intentions and relationships for which I have argued earlier; likewise, the
multiplicity of spaces and opportunities for the exploration and development of
identities such as those exemplified in the work of Leora Cruddas (Case study
2 above). It will also presume the breaking up of larger schools into the semiautonomous units typified by the development of the schools-within-schools
movement of the past 40 years (see Davies 2009). Whilst size is not the
guarantor of the kinds of relationships and practices I have been advocating
and describing, it nonetheless remains a necessary precondition of their
realisation.
6
‘Some changes have to start now, else there is no beginning for
us’
I end with two quotations. The first is a from the fine sociologist, Roger Dale,
who in a talk on comprehensive education given in Madrid 1988 urged us to
remember the prefigurative power of education; its power, not just to imagine
a better future, but to create one now. Such a view suggests that
25
education through its processes, the experiences it offers, and the
expectations it makes, should prefigure, in microcosm, the more
equal, just and fulfilling society ... Schools should not merely
reflect the world of which they are a part, but be critical of it, and
show in their own processes that its shortcomings are not
inevitable, but can be changed. They aim to show that society can
be characterized by communal as well as individual values, that
all people merit equal treatment and equal dignity, that academic
ability is not the only measure of a person, that racism and sexism
are neither inevitable not acceptable. (Dale 1988: 17)
My second quotation is from the feminist writer, Sheila Rowbotham, who in
Beyond the Fragments argues with eloquence and urgency that ‘Some
changes have to start now else there is no beginning for us’
(Rowbotham1979: 140). She is right. What she says was true in the 1960s
and 70s and is still true, not just for feminism, but for inclusive education
today.
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26
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