Inclusive Schooling in Australia? Not yet!

Abstract

A cursory reading of Australian state and territory departments' policy statements together with the 1992 Federal Disability Anti Discrimination Act may lead observers to conclude that Australian schooling has enthusiastically embraced the spirit and the practice of inclusive education. This paper argues that schools, despite deflective language and procedural arrangements, predominantly are exclusive institutions. ‘Inclusion’, ‘integration’ and ‘main‐ streaming’ are tethered to a distributive logic which suggests that disablement in schools is a problem of resource allocation and the deployment of appropriate professional expertise. This paper draws on the work of Iris Marion Young and Anna Yeatman to argue that enabling people, in school and beyond, is more precisely understood in terms of the politics of identity. Such an argument means that we reconsider the culture of schooling mediated through pedagogy, curriculum and organisation to commence a reconstructive project which enters into dialogue with a range of identities to be expressed in its new educational structures and programmes.