Understanding inclusion in learning communities

This unit considers key issues relevant to inclusive education and its relationship with learning across different educational contexts. A central emphasis of the unit is on the ways in which education can be transformed to include all learners regardless of their age, sexuality, gender, class, ethnicity, disability and/or social disadvantage. The unit addresses three major areas related to inclusive education. First, the unit demonstrates how various social, political, and economic forces underpin and influence inclusive education practices at global, national and local levels. Second, the unit explores how barriers to participation are created overtly and covertly at community, school and class levels for selected members of the society (particularly for those with a disability). Third, the unit offers various ways in which barriers to participation and learning could be addressed and inclusive practices developed in different educational contexts.