Petra Engelbrecht

The implementation of inclusive education in South Africa after ten years of democracy

Inclusive education in South Africa has not been promoted as simply one more option for education but as an educational strategy that can contribute to a democratic society. After the end of the Apartheid era the new democratic government committed itself to the transformation of education and key policy documents and legislation stress the principle of education as a basic human right as enshrined in the Constitution. White Paper 6: Special Needs Education, building an inclusive education and training system (2001) provides a framework for systemic change for the development of inclusive education. As a philosophy, the concept of inclusive education in the South African context embraces the democratic values of equality and human rights and the recognition of diversity. Research however indicates that multifaceted societal changes, encompassing educational reforms and contextual changes, including the management of diversity in schools, have had a negative impact on the implementation of inclusive education. After ten year of democracy, the enduring tension between changing the structure of education and changing the process of education is still influencing progress. Enhancing the recognition and acceptance of the basic rights of all South African children to be accommodated in inclusive school communities therefore remains a challenge.Résumél’éducation incluse* en Afrique du Sud n’a pas été promue comme une autre option pour l’éducation, mais plutôt comme une stratégie scolaire qui peut contribuer ⦏ une société démocratique. Après l’Apartheid, le gouvernement démocratique s’est engagé à la transformation de l’éducation. Les documents politiques clés et la législation soulignent le principe de l’éducation comme un droit de l’homme fondamental, préservé dans la Constitution. Le White Paper 6: Special Needs Education, building an inclusive éducation and training system (2001) structure le changement systémique pour le développement de l’éducation incluse. Comme philosophie, l’éducation incluse, dans le contexte sud-africain, embrasse les valeurs démocratiques de l’égalité et des droits de l’homme, et la reconnaissance de la diversité. Cependant, la recherche indique que les changements de la société, comprenant les réformes et les changements contextuels, aussi bien que la gestion de la diversité dans les écoles, ont eu un impact négatif sur la réalisation de l’éducation incluse. Dix ans après la démocratie, la tension entre changer la structure de l’éducation et changer ses procédures continue à influencer le progrès. Mettre en valuer la reconnaissance et l’acceptation des droits fondamentaux de tous les enfants sud-africains d’être reçus dans les commun autés scolaires incluses, reste donc un défi.

Parents’ Experiences of Their Rights in the Implementation of Inclusive Education in South Africa:

Parental involvement was a driving and decisive factor in the development of inclusive education worldwide. In South Africa parents also became the advocates of the inclusive education movement in the 1990s, paving the way for parents to be involved in the decision-making process regarding the school placement of their children with disabilities. The purpose of this article is to focus on the way in which equity, individual rights and freedom of choice manifest itself in the implementation of inclusive education with specific reference to the way in which parents experience it. Results indicate that the inclusion of a child into mainstream education is a challenging and dynamic process that starts with the parents’ decision to place their child in a mainstream setting. In spite of legislation and the desires of parents, the development of inclusive educational practises in South Africa does not always reflect the values of equity and individual rights. Failure to establish collaborative and trusting relationships between teachers, parents and professionals poses a major challenge and can have a serious impact on the outcomes of inclusive education.

Where Differences Matter A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Family Voice in Special Education

U.S. education policy acknowledges the troubling differential rates of special education identification and placement for students who are culturally and linguistically diverse by requiring states to review annually student identification data from all local education agencies to identify and address disproportionate representation. Yet, little is known about the interaction between families that are culturally and linguistically diverse and the service providers they encounter at their local schools. The authors examine those relationships in South Africa and the United States, two countries where the legacy of racism lingers in the ways in which school personnel and families negotiate differences in how children are viewed, assessed, and offered support for learning needs. In both countries, sustained efforts from families and school personnel were needed to develop supports and services that worked well for students with disabilities and their families.

Educational Reform and the Delivery of Transition Services in South Africa: Vision, Reform, and Change

This paper presents a description of the problems that individuals with disabilities in South Africa have experienced in accessing educational and support services in the transition from school to work. A majority of individuals with disabilities have been excluded from educational provision, and support services have been inadequate, inappropriately focused, and isolated from other mainstream transition initiatives. In redressing the inequalities of the past through a framework for equalizing opportunities, attention needs to be paid to overcoming previous imbalances and in redefining the discourse that has shaped the nature of service delivery for individuals with disabilities. This paper outlines the key changes that need to occur to create equal opportunities for individuals with disabilities to effectively transition from school to the world of work.

Leadership in Disadvantaged Primary Schools Two Narratives of Contrasting Schools

Research has indicated that schools should be developed as inclusive learning communities that would support collaborative learning and problem solving in order to address learner diversity more effectively. This article explores school leadership as one determining factor which either affords or constrains collaborative teacher learning for inclusion in the work place. The theoretical framework of cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) provided the broad platform from which we engaged in the study. Engeström’s triangle model was employed to explore leadership in the two research schools. Leadership was framed within the democratic distributed approach to leadership: this resonates with inclusive education’s strong emphasis on equality, equity and voice. A critical activity-theoretical ethnographic research design was employed from which the findings were drawn regarding school leadership. A qualitative methodology – incorporating multiple methods of data generation – informed the study. The data was organized by employing three dimensions of the two schools as activity systems: rules, community and division of labour. The findings provided irrefutable evidence that school leadership in the two historically disadvantaged primary schools profoundly affected teacher learning for inclusion.

The idealism of education policies and the realities in schools: the implementation of inclusive education in South Africa

Inclusive education as a global movement emerged over the past 30 years to ensure quality mainstream education for all learners. Since 1994 the newly democratic South Africa also had expectations as well as the political will to change education by adjusting legislation and policies. However, the vision of a truly inclusive education system in South Africa has been difficult to achieve and results regarding the implementation of inclusive education remain questionable. There has been a growing realisation that the advent of democracy was not in itself a sufficient condition for the elimination of historical and structural inequalities in education with as recurring theme the dissonance between the governments socio-political imperative for change and economic realities. This article focuses on the development of policy and guidelines on inclusive education in dynamic interaction with the complexity of realities in South African schools with a special focus on the policy recommendations regarding the development of full-service schools. The constant comparative analysis of the two phased case study of a full-service school in a rural town revealed interesting results illustrating the complexities regarding the implementation of inclusive education and the challenges and opportunities in bridging the gap between the idealism of policies and the realities in schools.

High school educators' democratic values as manifested in their educational practice and attitudes towards inclusive education

This article aims to give a snapshot of the democratisation of an educational system in a country whose democracy is still young and fragile and of how prepared educators are to deal with the implications of learner diversity and the implementation of inclusive education. Inclusive education is not only proposed as an option for education, but also as the strategy most likely to achieve a democratic society. An exploratory, qualitative inquiry was conducted to gain a clear picture of the democratic values of a group of high school educators as manifested in their behaviour in school and classroom, and also in their attitudes towards inclusive education. Results of the study indicated that educators have as yet not internalised democratic values to the point of being prepared to act as agents of change in classrooms and schools and indicated resistance to the actual implementation of inclusive education.

Making meaning of inclusive education: classroom practices in Finnish and South African classrooms

Abstract This paper reports on the findings of an international comparative research project where the roles of teachers in the implementation of inclusive education in mainstream-classroom settings in South Africa and Finland were investigated. Inclusive education within this project is broadly defined as welcoming all students to general-education schools and classrooms and not segregating students on the basis of ability or other individual or sociocultural characteristics. In this paper a qualitative analysis of Finnish and South African teachers’ day-to-day teaching and learning support practices in their classroom is discussed. Individual and focus-group interviews encouraged teachers to articulate their views in this regard. Initial findings indicate that despite the dissimilar cultural and historical contexts of these two countries, both complex contextual issues and classroom practices based on a medical-deficit understanding of diverse educational needs play a role in Finnish and South African classrooms.

Education, Disability, and International Development

One of the biggest challenges facing education systems throughout the world is that of inclusion in education. In general, inclusion is about a philosophy of acceptance where all people in society are valued and treated with respect (Carrington and Robinson, 2004) and in education there is specific emphasis on the development of inclusive learning communities in which diversity is acknowledged and welcomed. In wealthier countries inclusion in education efforts tend to focus on the merger between well-resourced segregated forms of special schooling for learners with disabilities with equally well-resourced mainstream education facilities. In economically poorer countries, however, where a separate education system for people with disabilities has never been fully developed and where mainstream education lacks resources, efforts tend to focus on all learners who are unable to access education. Compounding the challenge to building inclusive education communities globally is the prevailing understanding of why some learners experience difficulties with learning. According to Howell (2006), this understanding is deeply rooted in a historical assumption that learners of all ages can be identified and classified through notions of what is normal and abnormal.

A mixed-methods approach to developing an understanding of teachers’ attitudes and their enactment of inclusive education

Abstract This research sought to develop an understanding of teachers’ attitudes, sense of self-efficacy and approach to enacting inclusive education in their classrooms in two diverse countries. A mixed-methods research design guided the data collection and analysis. This article focuses on how quantitative and qualitative research approaches were used sequentially and how the findings were finally merged to provide more comprehensive insight into different aspects of teachers’ sometimes contradictory attitudes and approaches to implementing inclusive education. The meta-inferences presented here indicate that merging measurements and meanings can shed light on how teachers’ attitudes and self-efficacy within the implementation of inclusive education are multi-faceted, non-linear and connected to their cultural–historical contexts.