This is an extremely important book containing a wealth of ideas and insights and raising important questions for discussion and further exploration. In a lucid and cogently argued analysis, the author both challenges dominant ideas and interp- tations and provides some alternative innovatory perspectives. These include, the making and meaning of policy; the varied and complex ways in which inclusion and exclusion can be understood; the nature and function of categorisation, labelling and discursive practices within official discourse and procedures and the position and relationship between...

One of the qualities of this book is the authors engagement with personal experience. This is part of the contextualising of issues within particular cultural, historical and social contexts. I shall begin the Foreword in the same spirit by recounting an experience that is still a foundation for analysing and developing my own understanding. This h- pened some twenty-five years ago. I was going with Vic Finkelstein, a disabled a- demic and activist, to a seminar, on a hot summer s day, making our way across the Open University campus in Milton Keynes. The seminar was entitled The Problems of...

One of the important responsibilities that advocates of inclusion need to continually practise is that of self-criticism. This includes examining and re-examining the assumptions informing our perspectives, the concepts that we use including inclusive education and our intentions, especially in relation to the question of change. We need to beware of the danger of unexamined orthodoxies, the possibilities of ado- ing inclusive language with little, if any, changes in our thinking and practice and a sterile and insensitive position with regard to the pursuit of new or alternative ideas. In...

Within the field of inclusive education, a growing body of literature has contributed to a developing knowledge and understanding of conceptual, empirical, philosophical issues and ideas. However, there is still an urgent need for more detailed accounts of how the struggle for change takes place or gets done in specific contexts involving particular people. This important book seeks to meet some of these needs by providing stories from the working life of an educational psychologist in England, and his interventions in schools in attempting to contribute to meeting the diverse needs of a...

One of the qualities of this book is the authors engagement with personal experience. This is part of the contextualising of issues within particular cultural, historical and social contexts. I shall begin the Foreword in the same spirit by recounting an experience that is still a foundation for analysing and developing my own understanding. This h- pened some twenty-five years ago. I was going with Vic Finkelstein, a disabled a- demic and activist, to a seminar, on a hot summer s day, making our way across the Open University campus in Milton Keynes. The seminar was entitled The Problems of...

Within the field of inclusive education, a growing body of literature has contributed to a developing knowledge and understanding of conceptual, empirical, philosophical issues and ideas. However, there is still an urgent need for more detailed accounts of how the struggle for change takes place or gets done in specific contexts involving particular people. This important book seeks to meet some of these needs by providing stories from the working life of an educational psychologist in England, and his interventions in schools in attempting to contribute to meeting the diverse needs of a...

One of the important responsibilities that advocates of inclusion need to continually practise is that of self-criticism. This includes examining and re-examining the assumptions informing our perspectives, the concepts that we use including inclusive education and our intentions, especially in relation to the question of change. We need to beware of the danger of unexamined orthodoxies, the possibilities of ado- ing inclusive language with little, if any, changes in our thinking and practice and a sterile and insensitive position with regard to the pursuit of new or alternative ideas. In...