Social Inclusion and Education

For education, social inclusion, a term being used increasingly in Canada, means that all students have the opportunity to be a part of society by learning and exercising their citizenship and democratic rights while in school.

Thus, schools have a key role to play ensuring that all students receive the education that will enable them to become thoughtful, caring and productive citizens. Policymakers have a key concern to see that all children get the education to which they are entitled. Through the process of social inclusion, students are prepared to become active citizens in Canadian society.

Inclusive Schools were found to show the following:

• Mutual respect characterizes interactions.
• Responsibility is assumed by all.
• The curriculum addresses diverse needs and diversity is celebrated.
• Many activities take place beyond the classroom.
• All members of the school community have a voice.
• Schools are flexible, unstressed, and unstressing.
• Fresh starts are provided.
• Education is seen as important.
• Knowledge of political advocacy strategies is demonstrated.
• Questioning and thoughtfulness characterize interactions.
• A critical pedagogy approach to communication and to the curriculum is used.
• Cohesive communities are built.
• Healing, supportive, and welcoming approaches are used.
• Communication is straightforward and direct.

For School Boards to contribute to the creation of social inclusion means that school boards and schools have to see their role as something more than imparting a limited number of academic and other skills. A mindset is needed that sees schools as a major element that creates and holds together communities and people; that is, schools have to understood as a force of social cohesion.

Creating social inclusion is both a process and an outcome of schooling (Connell, 1993) The process of being a student who feels nurtured, respected, and a part of a school leads to the outcome of a community where people are included in society and feel that they are a part of it. Individuals then have a stake in that society.

When students do not experience social inclusion, the effects are devastating. The irony is that, although some schools have been singled out for scrutiny by the media, their problems could probably be said to be characteristic of many schools across the nation.

Essentially systems and individual schools that create social inclusion view their purposes as enabling their own communities to function well. This requires a vision of how communities function to create and enhance individual well-being.

Administrators and policymakers have to have a vision of how social inclusion looks and operates, and impart the expectation that schools will be contributors to social inclusion. Leadership styles may differ, but leaders who can create social inclusion all have an understanding of what they’re trying to do.

SECONDARY SCHOOLS in Canada (Gaskell, 1995) has written a report on exemplary high schools in Canada, there emerges a picture of the complex functioning of schools today. Schools are considered social institutions and human communities—”not just places where learning is transmitted efficiently.” Schools are portrayed as places where young people practice the skills of citizenship. Schools are seen as key social institutions that are complex, organic communities. Three major tensions influence school activities:

1. The tensions between social and academic goals and functions;
2. The tension between responding to individual and group differences and providing a sense of inclusion, community, and ensuring the equality of opportunity for all;
3. [and] The tension between professional autonomy and social accountability…

What is it that School Systems do that Creates Exclusion?

• Exclusion is caused when those in authority don’t understand students and parents.
• Assumptions and biases take precedence over knowledge and understanding.
• People don’t listen to one another.
• Students feel schools have nothing to offer them.
• Related to feeling that schools are irrelevant is the feeling of students that they aren’t wanted.
• Students are made to feel helpless and powerless.
• Students and parents feel the program isn’t geared to them.
• Students and parents feel not trusted.
• The reasons for arrangements seem irrelevant, even alien (ball caps, chewing gum, body piercing)

For more information please visit:
www.cdnsba.org

The following information is a summary of the Canadian School Boards Association publication: “Social Inclusion: The Role of School Boards”