An Historical Review from Exclusion to Inclusion in Western Australia across the Past Five Decades: What Have We Learnt?

Abstract

Current practices regarding inclusive education vary enormously depending on a wide range of issues, specifically the context and culture of an education system. To maximise the validity of data, and to avoid contextual confusion, this review focuses on one state in Australia, that of Western Australia. By applying a review of five-decade archival data, changes to education for learners with disability in this state are critiqued. Analysis involved applying five a priori themes to review educational reform practices. These were related to legislation and policy, support, curriculum, teacher education and parental choice. Discussion teased out the impact of these changes on the competing paradigms of special and inclusive education, and models and challenges of implementing effective inclusive practice for all learners in one Australian state. Critical reflection provides valuable insight into futures planning for all educational systems to reform practice to become more inclusive.

‘Grey’ exclusions matter: mapping illegal exclusionary practices and the implications for children with disabilities in England and Australia

“…Technically, such placements do not constitute ‘off rolling’; however, there is anecdotal evidence of children spending long periods in these units with some never returning to mainstream classes. Chambers and Forlin (2021) report similarly extended periods within specialist units in Western Australia. In areas of high social deprivation in England, approximately 10% of the school population are educated in such units and, rather than challenge practices in ‘regular’ schools, the UK government is focussing on raising the quality of this alternative provision (IntegratED, 2020, p. 8).…”

“…Continuum thinking is not an entirely new concept in the field of inclusion. Describing historical developments in Australia, Chambers and Forlin (2021, p. 6), for example, state that, ‘Inclusion is a focus in policy but in reality it remains an option within a continuum of placements’ (regular/mainstream to ‘special’). The implicit organizing concept here is that of degrees of severity or level of need whereas the type of continuum thinking adopted below is premised on the identification of consistent patterns that signify structural inequities.…”

“…If adaptation is called for, it is not the adaptation of students with disabilities and additional needs but, rather, systemic adaptation required by schools and in classroom practices. As Chambers and Forlin (2021, p. 4) note, utilitarian thinking was evidenced in Western Australia’s Beazley report (1984) when the inclusion of students with disabilities in ‘regular’ classes was made conditional upon their presence not adversely affecting ‘regular’ student learning. However, dated such thinking may seem, it persists or, rather, following Deleuze (2004), ‘insists’ in the thinking evidenced in education systems today.…”

“…However, dated such thinking may seem, it persists or, rather, following Deleuze (2004), ‘insists’ in the thinking evidenced in education systems today. There are striking continuities between the language of ‘adaptive behaviour’ found in a Western Australian policy of 1993 (Chambers and Forlin, 2021, p. 7) and current practice in schools in England, where failure to conform to normative expectations of behaviour results in the disproportionate exclusion of students with social, emotional and mental health issues (Strand and Fletcher, 2014), disabilities and additional needs (EPI, 2020), and from black Caribbean, mixed white and black Caribbean, and gypsy or Roma traveller backgrounds (DfE, 2019). On this account, the ‘manage‐manage/discipline‐discipline’ model can be construed, following Foucault (1977) and Deleuze (1992), as a dispositif , that is, a spatial and temporal arrangement of elements with the power to organize social identities and structural relations.…”

Unrealised promises and hollow claims: Australia’s failure to enact its international obligations under the CRPD for the education of students with disability

“…This has often been leveraged by opponents of desegregation arguing to preserve the dual general/special education system status quo (Anastasiou et al, 2018), such as professional groups invested in the provision of 'special' education (Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, 2017, p.10-11). In more recent times the Australian Government has resorted to the same argument to mount its dogged defence of segregated settings (Australian Government, 2016Government, , 2019Government, , 2020b) and the dual system that has prevailed since the 1970s across Australia and continues to grow (Chambers & Forlin, 2021;de Bruin, 2019b). Kayess (2019), who was appointed by the Ad Hoc Committee as Facilitator for the drafting of Article 24 of the CRPD and is the current Chair of the CRPD Committee, has detailed the process of the negotiations, noting that the final text reflected explicit agreement to remove wording inserted early in the drafting process that had permitted, in specified circumstances, education for students with disability in segregated settings.…”