The question of inclusive education is one which many societies are attempting to address. It is a fundamentally serious and complex issue raising challenges that cover conceptual, organizational, pedagogical, curricular and socio-economic concerns and questions. In this edited collection of papers the reader is confronted with these challenges through, on the one hand, a critical informative analysis of some of the key existing ideas and, on the other, a series of alternative insights and questions requiring further exploration and debate. Adding to the overall qu- ity of the book is the much needed cross-cultural dimension in terms of insights, knowledge, understanding and difficult questions. This is an important book in which new research and interpretations are reported on and discussed. Overall, the papers provide a serious critique of such factors as: the limitations of existing definitions of inclusive education; the narrowness of the focus within which inclusive issues are too often presented; the negative impacts of marketisation, performativity and the standards agenda on the realisation of inclusive values and practice and the constraints of significant socio-economic inequalities and disadvantages within and between communities and schools. These raise serious questions concerning the extent to which schools can make a positive difference in the lives of many pupils.

Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Inhalt
Beyond Schooling.- Including Ourselves: Teaching, Trust, Identity and Community.- 'They Believe that They Participate ... but': Democracy and Inclusion in Norwegian Schools.- Participation and Democracy: What's Inclusion Got to do with it?.- Why does Education for all Have to be Inclusive Education?.- Challenging Understanding.- The Social Construction of Adulthood with a Difference in Iceland.- Inclusion and Problem Groups: The Story of Adhd.- Working Past Pity: What We Make of Disability in Schools.- An Outsider's Perspective on the Reality of Educational Inclusion Within Former Yugoslavia.- Pressing for Change.- Understanding the Changing Role of English Local Education Authorities in Promoting Inclusion.- Daring to Think Otherwise? Educational Policymaking in the New Scottish Parliament.- 'Race' and the Discourse on 'Inclusion'.- Teacher Education, Government and Inclusive Schooling: The Politics of the Faustian Waltz.- Concluding Remarks.