6.2 Inclusive education at the school gate
6.2.5 Identifying targets of inclusion
The two NGOs focus on establishing processes that support the identification of disabled children in schools and classrooms. Inclusive Schools discusses this process as ‘breakdowns’ in
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learning, Hope Fellowship calls them “red flags.” The Inclusive Schools NGO devised a
“progression of training” – a two-year program that moves from a “whole class approach to small group practices to slowly identifying the children.” That is, the NGO aims to teach teachers classroom strategies that will help them identify where children experience
‘breakdowns’ in learning. The progression of practices described by the NGO can be likened to Response to Intervention such that “those who do not respond to instructional interventions
"scientifically" proven to be effective must accordingly have the disability” (Gallagher, 2010, p.
8). The presence of the breakdown is established by identifying children who are out of age and out of pace,
There are certain learning objectives at the start of the year…if you have 4-digit addition then you will first check which children in the class know single double-digit addition, who all got it right, how fast are they in calculating…if you write single digit on the board does the whole class respond quickly…two digits they calculate quickly… three- digit you might start seeing mistakes…so how does a teacher realize where the
breakdown is happening. The learning objectives have the milestones given step by step right so when these things are given teachers can see where the breakdowns are
happening. (Kartik, Inclusive Schools)
Embedded within the two-year program cycle or “progression of training” from whole-classroom teaching to the identification of disabled children is a temporal model of linear progress through the intervention (Davidov & Nelson, 2016). Further, the proposed identification of disability occurs by recognizing temporal Others (Edling, 2022) who deviate from age-grade associated
“milestones” of development. Learning outcomes and learning objectives are then crucial ways
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for teachers to focus on the “breakdown of the children” – to identify “symptoms” of the problem child who is not learning,
The question is what do we understand as inclusion, one thing, right, what does it mean for this context for now? Right, so for them what inclusion means over the year, what we’ve put in our curriculum and our lesson…unit plans that we’ve given them, that we’ve made after understanding from in-service teachers…they are the closest to the children in the systems and they see the breakdown of the children most closely. They are not able to articulate it in the language of inclusion, they might be able to articulate what learning disability is for the next five years…which is immaterial also. But yes if they can say that when I try to teach the child his dhyāna wanders right that’s a symptom the child is facing. I give him something to write he struggles to write in the lines. Now the
question is not just about learning disability but what are the expectations from children in the classroom. (Kartik, Inclusive Schools)
The NGO is not concerned with teachers understanding the meaning of the terms: inclusion and disability, “they are not able to articulate it…which is immaterial also.” Instead, they are
invested in ensuring that teachers have the tools and approaches to understand the learning challenges of individual children. This is understood as enabling academic inclusion: identifying symptoms or breakdowns in learning and remedying them through appropriate teaching
strategies such as differentiation and remediation. The failure to address these challenges in the classroom necessitates that children identified through this process are referred to specialists. It is unclear whether these processes were ever carried out. Neither the NGO nor the school had easy access to services to enable formal diagnostic processes. Inclusive School NGO's approach to academic inclusion and identifying learning challenges highlights the paradoxical relationship
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between child-centered pedagogy and curricular standards (Popkewitz, 2008; Vavrus & Bartlett, 2013). Curricular standards, like the National Council of Educational Research and Training Learning Outcomes (2017) the NGO aims to implement, create targets that allow assessment and comparison of learning as a means to ensure quality education such that all children learn. Yet, these predetermined annual outcomes produce children who deviate from the universal patterns of development who become targets of inclusion (Goodley, 2007). That is, “the child who has not succeeded is recognized and made different so that he or she may be worked on and rescued for inclusion. Yet these practices of rescue and remediation also differentiate and divide the child (Popkewitz, 2008, p. 126).
The Hope Fellowship curriculum highlights the dilemmas associated with service provision models of disability (Baker, 2002). Service-provision models of disability view disability as a condition that causes suffering to the individual and therefore requires certain forms of care and support. However, the “logic of provision presently seems to go hand in hand, though, with the logic of assimilation, homogenization, or both” (Baker, 2002, p. 687).
The fellowship curriculum introduced fellows to “red flags” or potential indications of various developmental disabilities. Sessions were carried out where fellows brought in cases of children, which were then discussed to identify underlying symptoms, possible remediation strategies, and diagnoses. During classroom observations, fellows observed children. One of the fellows referred to children identified through classroom observations as “under observation”, that is, suspected to be disabled. After identifying the child, the fellow invites their co-fellow into the classroom. Once confirmed by both fellows, the fellows initiate a process with the child’s teachers and caregivers to refer the child to a developmental pediatrician. In response to the principal asking why the fellow was not working directly with the “slow and weak learners”, the
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fellow described the centrality of classroom observations to her role to the principal to observe whole class teaching practices to identify children who are “diverse learners” – or those who are struggling in the classroom. Diversity is then the property of the Other.
However, this process was fraught with concerns and dilemmas within the organization.
In a few instances, the developmental pediatrician referred the child to a special school, leading to questions about the compatibility of the inclusive education foundations of the program with segregated special schools and providing access to suitable services to individual children (Baker, 2002). Identification of children with disabilities through the fellowship program also became an outcome metric for funder reports. Although the NGO is uneasy about this process, the priorities are driven by the requirements of the funders (Mount, 2021), “while I don't agree that that's more important, I just feel that that's easier to understand when it's out there for people, which is why there is a push for it from.” (Sara, Hope Fellowship). The processes of identification exist in uneasy tension with access to services and support (Baker, 2002),
so I feel I was holding on to the intention of the identification also and how can that be done in a way which makes the classroom more inclusive. Because on a systemic level if we do not identify I mean I'm using the word identify, but if we do not identify them.
And it's a dichotomy in my head like you know but it's always this question I asked myself that if we do not identify, of course, in a way that is the intention is to make the classrooms more inclusive then. Then what I don't know if I'm able to articulate, but these were my thoughts. (...) (Sana, Hope Fellowship)
As the program coordinator explains, the “intention” of identification is to make the classroom more “inclusive” by ensuring that children’s needs are identified and supported. Identification processes help “to get benefits, where benefits, I do say, for the simple reason, for example,
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schools, get an allowance which can support the child in a certain way” without using the identification processes to,
exclude that child, and that is where the whole thing about constantly reinforcing a whole class approach. Constantly reinforcing that you do not actually need a diagnosis, to access support but, yes, it makes support much more easier, but at the same time it doesn't mean that the lack of that. Information in terms of what kind of disability, what kind of support is required shouldn't mean that you don't access that support, which is why, and the whole idea is to make sure that the environment itself is inclusive, in a way, where it's not reactive it's not like you know you have a child, with a particular disability and that's why now you're going to modify your systems like 123. (Diya, Hope
Fellowship)
That is, the NGO describes the “fine line” between services that “minimize pain and suffering”
(Baker, 2002, p. 688) and services that require disabled people to conform and assimilate. While there is little consensus on whether “educational labeling and service-provision models in any form are unilaterally “good” or “bad”” (p. 688), the NGO practice of involving fellows in the process of identifying disabled children leads teachers to believe that the one goal of the
intervention is identification, “I think so to observe the kids…to observe the kids. Like the kids who are diverse…who understand a bit less.” (Zahra, Mumbai) and assign the responsibility of caring for the needs of children identified through these processes to the fellows. The role of the fellows becomes one of sitting with disabled children in the classroom, monitoring them, “the fellow said ok, give me the father’s number, I will talk to him. Then she spoke. Now the fellows are taking care of it. I don’t know much about it.” (Sadiya, Mumbai).
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Thus, despite key differences in the intervention and interpretation of inclusive education, both organizations engage and negotiate with the “hunt for disability” (Baker, 2002, p. 663) to identify sites for inclusion. (Graham & Slee, 2008; Popkewitz, 2008) In addition to pressures from funders (Mount, 2021) and policy priorities (Sarkar & Cravens, 2022), this negotiation comes alive because of the tensions within child-centered pedagogy, an approach to inclusive pedagogy that both NGOs adhere to. In many ways, the two NGOs appear to be responding to the failures to implement child-centered pedagogy in the Indian context. Much of this failure is attributed to teachers. Miglani and colleagues (2017) find that teachers using child-centered pedagogy rarely included disabled children in their activity-based learning strategies, had a surface-level understanding of child-centered pedagogy, and believed that child-centered pedagogy was not a rigorous methodology and that it interfered with their autonomy. Scholars highlight gaps in teacher professional development (Brinkmann, 2019; Smail, 2014), cultural beliefs held by teachers (Brinkmann, 2015; Clarke, 2003), lack of teacher autonomy (Batra, 2005; Smail, 2014; Sriprakash, 2011b), and failures to coherently translate child-centered pedagogy into the policy (Mili, 2019; Sriprakash, 2011a). On the whole, the role of teachers and teacher beliefs is considered a key impediment in implementing child-centered pedagogy in India (Brinkmann, 2015, 2016, 2019; Smail, 2014). Child-centered pedagogy requires teachers to enact particular kinds of selves – there is an inherent focus on teacher ability (Guthrie, 1980), teacher capacity, and the requirement for teachers to be change agents (Fullan, 1993; Priestley et al., 2012). In the section below, I examine the ways in which the two NGOs emphasize the teachers as the sites of intervention in enacting inclusive education through the school-NGO partnerships.
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