Discourses of Inclusion and Exclusion: Drawing Wider Margins

Drawing upon the work of Richard Sennett and Zygmunt Bauman, this article examines the ubiquity of exclusion as a prelude to interrogating paradoxes in the deployment of discourses and practices of inclusive education, arguing that the ethic of competitive individualism that drives the formation of education policies and practices subverts aspirations for inclusive education. Moreover, it is argued that inclusive education provides a means for managing populations that threaten institutional equilibrium and attainment benchmarks. A series of recent reports, critical of education programmes and experiences for students with disabilities, is offered as evidence of the need for rethinking approaches to education reform in general, and inclusive education practices in particular.