Description
Book SynopsisThis book contributes significantly to the conversation about inclusion as a critical component of school culture.
Educating All recounts Christopher McMaster's experience as a critical ethnographer in a school community, given the task of not only studying the institution's culture, but of creating change as well. The school used a whole-school framework known as the
Index for Inclusion, which addressed students identified as having special or learning needs. The outcome of this process was the realization that the faculty and the system were not adequately providing optimum services to special needs students. By incorporating the special needs unit into a larger department and by utilizing it as a teaching center rather than a classroom, the staff and school leadership were able to produce a better alignment of value and practice and to provide a re-interpretation of just what is meant by mainstream.
Trade Review«Christopher McMaster’s presentation of the experience of a school in New Zealand applying a fusion of the
Index for Inclusion and Freire’s notion of praxis provides sound guidance for other schools and their communities. This book has much to offer schools and their communities as they traverse the dilemmas and delights of building more inclusive schools for all students.»
(Roger Slee, Founding Editor,
The International Journal of Inclusive Education)
«Christopher McMaster weaves a compelling tale of one school’s willingness to grapple with what it means to truly face, and embrace, the practice of their own values of inclusiveness. This is not the tale of the heroic school. Rather it is the everyday practice of one school that could be the practice of every school.»
(Missy Morton, Associate Professor, Head of School of Educational Studies and Leadership, University of Canterbury, New Zealand)
«Christopher McMaster’s presentation of the experience of a school in New Zealand applying a fusion of the
Index for Inclusion and Freire’s notion of praxis provides sound guidance for other schools and their communities. This book has much to offer schools and their communities as they traverse the dilemmas and delights of building more inclusive schools for all students.»
(Roger Slee, Founding Editor,
The International Journal of Inclusive Education)
«Christopher McMaster weaves a compelling tale of one school’s willingness to grapple with what it means to truly face, and embrace, the practice of their own values of inclusiveness. This is not the tale of the heroic school. Rather it is the everyday practice of one school that could be the practice of every school.»
(Missy Morton, Associate Professor, Head of School of Educational Studies and Leadership, University of Canterbury, New Zealand)
Table of ContentsContents: Special and Inclusive? A Model of Special Education – What is in a Word? Exploring Inclusion – The Utopian Roots behind Inclusion – Neoliberalism in New Zealand Education – A Fish in Water and a Peasant at a Dance: The Importance of Culture – The
Index for Inclusion – Our School: A Place for Every Learner – «All It Needs is a Plan»: The
Index in Use – «Where Is [_______]?»: Re-examining Values and How They Are Applied in Practice – «That’s Easy – Just Do It»: Experiencing Inclusion – Thinking through Inclusion: A School Leader’s Perspective – Inclusion One School at a Time?
