The illusion of inclusion

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and more often in our lives we are faced with such a concept as "inclusion". Moreover, the time is approaching when secondary schools will open the doors of classes that will be common to all children, including children with special needs. However, most of society still stays out of this process. Perhaps this is due to a rather weak understanding of the term "inclusion", perhaps due to insufficient ideological support, but rather due to all these factors together. Quite often this concept of "inclusion" is perceived by the average citizen as a specific process. Moreover, the phonetic consonance "inclusive" "exclusive" leads to a partial substitution of concepts.

Let’s deal with the definition first. What is inclusion? Inclusion (from Inclusion) is defined as the process of increasing the participation of all citizens in social life. That is, in other words, inclusion is essentially building a comfortable modern society with equal opportunities for all citizens, regardless of their physical or psychological characteristics.

Now the concept of inclusion is gaining relevance in Ukraine primarily through the introduction of inclusive education. However, as is often the case with us, we forget about the systemic approach in our efforts to implement topical reform. Society is the only unique organism. And any innovation requires careful preparation. Because, sorry, you can’t just sew an limb, forgetting to connect all, even small, vessels that will feed this limb.

It turns out that the need for inclusive education is beyond doubt, given the successful international experience and the needs of society itself. However, the realities of our lives are individual and special. Imagine that a child who has never been interested in people with special needs in his life, ie did not ask parents, acquaintances (and adults themselves did not touch on such an awkward topic), comes to school in September and sees a child in the classroom with features. How should this average student know how to react and how to behave? Of course, I can already hear the voices of those who are now emphasizing that children adapt very quickly to specific circumstances and quickly find common ground. This is mostly true. But this approach is more like survival in the jungle, than a balanced approach to much-needed reform. Why are we leaving children alone again and not preparing them for such an important social step?

Here we come to the other components of inclusion. We have already noted that inclusion is a general social process. And inclusive education is important, but only part of the process. Having visited various forums and meetings on this topic, I would like to note that our foreign partners, when sharing their experience, focus our attention on the need for an integrated approach to inclusion.

In this context, of course, great attention should be paid to building inclusive infrastructure. Agree, it is difficult to explain to a child with special needs who was given the opportunity to study in a secondary school, why he can not find in city parks adapted toilets, ride in a wheelchair in the city, use public transport. Here is the famous cognitive dissonance.

But that’s not all. Realizing the importance of ideological or, let’s call it, informational and cultural basis, the state should introduce cultural support here along with educational reform. And it is better, of course, to do it in advance. However, unfortunately, in our case it turns out not so or not so.

Here we came very close to understanding cultural inclusion. In our time of rapid technological progress, the child receives information primarily through the media. It is almost impossible to make a child understand something, both authoritative educators and psychologists prove. The child assimilates information in most cases through interest. Banal and simple! Children are primarily guided by the principle of interesting or not interesting. That’s what we have. Where can a modern child get information about people with special needs, if we have almost no layer of inclusive culture, and there are only a few civic initiatives? The answer is obvious.

Speaking of inclusive culture, I would like to focus on another very important term - "inclusive literature". It is difficult to argue that literature is the leader in the process of psycho-emotional and social development of the child. What do I mean by "inclusive literature"? At once I want to emphasize that we are not talking about specific - psychological or medical - literature. We are talking about literature for the general public. Let’s conditionally allocate some directions of such concept, as "inclusive literature":
- the literature in which it is a question of people with features of development;
- literature that is created for possible use by people with special needs.
I repeat, we do not include in these categories special publications created for specific types of developmental features for educational and rehabilitation purposes.

The main goal of inclusive literature is to attract people with special needs to the general cultural environment - through interesting book offers. Today, few domestic publications, the heroes of which are people with special needs, are difficult to perceive by broad sections of readers precisely because such literature is subconsciously associated with the desire to pity, to experience the tragedy of the protagonists - that is, with sadness and suffering. This is especially true in children’s literature. Parents try to keep their children away from unnecessary suffering and anxiety. There is a fairly simple way out of this situation - shifting the emphasis from tragedy to interesting history. Everyone loves interesting stories, and children especially. And it is because of an interesting story that it is much easier to convey the understanding that all people are different. And people,
I believe that today inclusive literature should, first of all, accustom children and parents to a tolerant attitude towards different people and, through the explanation of their peculiarities, to an understanding of effective ways of help.

The shift of emphasis from "pity" to "perceive", "understand" is one of the priorities of inclusive literature.

The concept of "inclusive", in my opinion, is a transitional path to creating a comfortable social society. "Inclusive literature" as a term should bring to the book market publications that focus on people with special needs, and then disappear, leaving behind a constant habit of literature about different people. It is through such processes that "special" people or "people with special needs" need to give way to understanding that each of us is special.

Author Osmolovska Olena
Source: Website 3222.ua