Ainscow y Sandill IJIE - 10 Developing Inclusive Ed Systems - Role of Cultures and Leadership

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International Journal of Inclusive Education

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Developing inclusive education systems: the role of organisational cultures

and leadership
Mel Ainscow a;Abha Sandill a
a
Educational Support and Inclusion, School of Education, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
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To cite this Article Ainscow, Mel andSandill, Abha(2010) 'Developing inclusive education systems: the role of
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International Journal of Inclusive Education
2010, 1–16, iFirst Article
Developing inclusive education systems: the role of organisational

cultures and leadership
Mel Ainscowa and Abha Sandilla*
Educational Support and Inclusion, School of Education, University of Manchester,

Manchester, UK
(Received 29 June 2008; final revision received 15 September 2008)
Taylor and Francis Ltd
TIED_A_350658.sgm
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10.1080/13603110802504903
1360-3116
Original
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02009
00
Miss
[email protected]
000002009
AbhaSandill
&Article
Francis
(print)/1464-5173
Journal of Inclusive
(online)
Education
Including all children in education is the major challenge facing educational

systems around the world, in both developing and developed countries. Drawing
Downloaded By: [Universidad de Sevilla] At: 09:01 21 May 2010
on research evidence and ideas from a range of international literature, this paper
argues that leadership practice is a crucial element in gearing education systems
towards inclusive values and bringing about sustainable change. In so doing, the
paper considers the organisational conditions that are needed in order to bring
about such developments, focusing in particular on the role of leadership in
fostering inclusive cultures.
Keywords: inclusive education; inclusive practice; organisational cultures;
leadership, networking
Introduction
The issue of how to develop more inclusive forms of education is arguably the biggest
challenge facing school systems throughout the world. In economically poorer coun-
tries the priority has to be with the millions of children who never see the inside of a
classroom (Bellamy 1999). Meanwhile, in wealthier countries – despite their resources
– some young people leave school with no worthwhile qualifications, whilst others are
placed in various forms of special provision away from mainstream educational expe-
riences, and some simply choose to drop out since the lessons seem irrelevant to their
lives (Ainscow, Booth, and Dyson 2006).
Faced with this challenge, there is evidence of an increased interest in the idea of
inclusive education. However, the field remains confused as to what actions need to
be taken in order to move policy and practice in a more inclusive direction. In this
paper we explore possible ways forward, drawing on international research evidence
in order to determine the organisational conditions needed to foster inclusive policies
and practices, and what this means for the role of leadership.
Inclusive education
In some countries, inclusive education is thought of as an approach to serving children
with disabilities within general education settings. Internationally, however, it is
increasingly seen more broadly as a reform that supports and welcomes diversity
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
ISSN 1360-3116 print/ISSN 1464-5173 online

© 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13603110802504903
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2 M. Ainscow and A. Sandill
amongst all learners (UNESCO 2001). The argument developed in this paper adopts
this broader formulation. It presumes that the aim of inclusive education is to eliminate
social exclusion that is a consequence of attitudes and responses to diversity in race,
social class, ethnicity, religion, gender and ability (Vitello and Mithaug 1998). As
such, it starts from the belief that education is a basic human right and the foundation
for a more just society. From this perspective, extending the social justice dialogue,
inclusion refers to diversity as a concept, rather than reducing it to categories of
differences (Fisher 2007).
More than a decade ago, the Salamanca World Conference on Special Needs
Education endorsed the idea of inclusive education (UNESCO 1994). Arguably, the
most significant international document that has ever appeared in the special needs
field, the Salamanca Statement argues that regular schools with an inclusive
orientation are:
the most effective means of combating discriminatory attitudes, building an inclusive

society and achieving education for all.
Furthermore, it suggests that such schools can:
provide an effective education for the majority of children and improve the efficiency
and ultimately the cost-effectiveness of the entire education system. (ix)
During the subsequent years, there has been substantial activity in many countries to
move educational policy and practice in a more inclusive direction (Daniels and
Garner 1999; Hegarty and Alur 2002) but there is still considerable uncertainty as to
how best to proceed (Mittler 2000).
In countries of the South, inclusion is often perceived of as a Western concept.
However, it is increasingly being embraced on the grounds of social justice and
human rights, and within the discourse of ‘Education for all’, with pockets of excel-
lence emerging in different countries (Miles and Ahuja 2007). As a starting point, it
is often seen as an agenda to include those groups who have been socially margina-
lised, for example, children who are HIV positive in parts of Africa, Dalits in the
Indian Sub-continent, and the girl child in many South East Asian countries.
The confusion that exists within the field internationally arises, at least in part,
from the fact that inclusion can be defined in a variety of ways (Clough and Corbett
2000; Thomas and Vaughan 2004; Ainscow, Booth, and Dyson 2006). It is also
important to remember that there is no one perspective on inclusion within a country,
state or even a school (Booth and Ainscow 1998).
Given the confusion and uncertainties that exist as policy-makers and practitioners
seek to make sense of different perspectives, advancing towards the implementation
of inclusive education is far from easy. Moreover, it must not be assumed that there is
full acceptance of the inclusive philosophy (Fuchs and Fuchs 1994; Brantlinger 1997).
Consequently, as we consider ways of developing schools that are effective in reaching
all children, it is necessary to recognise that the field itself is riddled with uncertainties,
disputes and contradictions. However, what can be said is that throughout the world
attempts are being made to provide more effective educational responses for all chil-
dren, whatever their characteristics, and that, encouraged by the Salamanca Statement,
the overall trend is towards making these responses within the context of general
International Journal of Inclusive Education 3
educational provision (see the special edition of the European Journal of Psychology
of Education, December 2006).
Inclusive practice
A recent study in the UK attempted to throw light on what needs to happen in order
to develop inclusive practices in schools (Ainscow, Booth, and Dyson 2006). Its authors
concluded that the development of inclusive practice is not, in the main, about adopting
new technologies of the sort described in much of the existing literature (e.g. Stainback
and Stainback 1990; Thousand and Villa 1991; Wang 1991; Sebba and Sachdeva 1997;
Florian, Rose, and Tilstone 1998). Rather, it involves social learning processes within
a given workplace that influence people’s actions and, indeed, the thinking that informs
these actions. This led the authors of the study to seek a deeper understanding of what
these processes involve, using the ideas of Etienne Wenger (Wenger 1998). Wenger
provides a framework that can be used to analyse the development of practices in social
contexts. At the centre of this framework is the concept of a ‘community of practice’,

a social group engaged in the sustained pursuit of a shared enterprise. Practices are ways
of negotiating meaning through social action. Wenger argues, for example, that a partic-
ular strategy may be developed as part of an organisation’s planned activities and
summarised in a set of guidance for action, providing a codified reification of intended
practice. However, the meaning and practical implications of the strategy only becomes
clear as it is used and discussed between colleagues. Such an analysis provides one
way of describing the means by which practices develop within a school.
The implication is that a methodology for developing inclusive practices must take
account of such social processes of learning that go on within particular contexts. It
requires a group of stakeholders within a particular context to look for a common
agenda to guide their discussions of practice and, at much the same time, a series of
struggles to establish ways of working that enable them to collect and find meaning in
different types of information.
Similarly important, therefore, is the development of a common language with
which colleagues can talk to one another and indeed to themselves about detailed
aspects of their practice (Huberman 1993; Little and McLaughlin 1993). It seems,
moreover, that without such a language, teachers find it very difficult to experiment
with new possibilities. It has been noted, for example, that when researchers report to
teachers what has been observed during their lessons they will often express surprise
(Ainscow 1999). Much of what teachers do during the intensive encounters that occur
in a typical lesson is carried out at an automatic, intuitive level, involving the use of
their tacit knowledge. Furthermore, there is little time to stop and think. This is
perhaps why having the opportunity to see colleagues at work is so crucial to the
success of attempts to develop practice. It is through such shared experiences that
colleagues can help one another to articulate what they currently do and define what
they might like to do (Hiebert, Gallimore, and Stigler 2002). It is also the means
whereby taken-for-granted assumptions about particular groups of students can be
subjected to mutual critique.
It is important to realise, however, that the introduction of such processes is not
unproblematic, particularly in the context of rigid bureaucratic structures that allow
less space for authentic collaboration to develop. In addition, in many developing
countries, there can be issues around shortage of staff, huge class sizes, lack of support
staff and additional administrative responsibilities, as well as the desire by some to
maintain a sense of superior professional expertise over others, that may act as barriers
to the development of such collaborative processes (Miles and Ahuja 2007; Sandill
and Ainscow 2007).
Research has drawn attention to certain ways of engaging with evidence that seem
to be helpful in encouraging such social processes of learning in schools (Ainscow,
Booth, and Dyson 2006). Such an approach can, it is argued, help to create space for
reappraisal and rethinking by interrupting existing discourses, and by focusing attention
on overlooked possibilities for moving practice forward. Here, as Riehl (2000)
suggests, the role of the school principal in providing leadership for such processes is
crucial. Indeed, as a result of their extensive literature review, Leithwood and Riehl
(2005) contend that developing people by providing intellectual stimulation is one of
the core practices of effective leaders (also Harris 2002, 2006; Mulford and Silins
2003). Lambert et al. (2002) seem to be talking about a similar approach when they
stress the importance of leaders gathering, generating and interpreting information
within a school in order to create an ‘inquiring stance’. They argue that such informa-
tion causes ‘disequilibrium’ in thinking and, as a result, provides a challenge to existing

assumptions about teaching and learning.
All of this underlines the way norms of teaching are socially negotiated within the
everyday context of the communities of practice within schools (Talbert and
McLaughlin 1994). In this sense, it is evidence of how the culture of the workplace
affects how teachers see their work and indeed their students (Skidmore 2004). It
underlines the idea that the development of more inclusive approaches does not arise
from a mechanical process in which any one specific organisational restructuring, or
the introduction of a particular set of techniques, generates increased levels of partic-
ipation. Rather, as we have argued, the development of inclusive practices requires
processes of social learning within particular organisational contexts.
Organisational factors
What, then, are the organisational conditions that can help to foster such social learn-
ing? In other words, how can schools become more inclusive? Where writers have
addressed these questions, they tend to give particular emphasis to the characteristics
of schools which stimulate and support processes of interrogation and reflection. For
example, Skrtic (1991) argues that schools with what he calls ‘adhocratic’ configura-
tions are most likely to respond to student diversity in positive and creative ways. Such
schools emphasise the pooling of different professional expertise in collaborative
processes. They are also places where students who cannot easily be educated within
established routines are not seen as ‘having problems’, but as challenging teachers to
re-examine their practices in order to make them more responsive and flexible.
Here it should be noted that ‘problems’ may be defined in various ways in differ-
ent contexts. Therefore, for example, children seen as having behavioural difficulties,
as well as underachieving pupils, and those from minority ethnic groups or gypsy
backgrounds, may be the initial focus of attention. In the context of developing coun-
tries, this is likely to include a particular concern with females and children with
‘lower caste’ status.
Ainscow (1999) points to ‘organizational conditions’ – distributed leadership,
high levels of staff and student involvement, joint planning, a commitment to enquiry
and so on – that promote collaboration and problem-solving amongst staff, and
which, he argues, produce more inclusive responses to diversity. Literature regarding
multicultural contexts also highlights similar processes of meaning making, such as

openness to experiment and innovate while resolving constantly emerging issues,
focusing on the needs of the individual child and giving teachers freedom to take
initiatives (for example, Deering 1996; Gardiner and Enomoto 2006). However, it is
important to note that within more hierarchical management structures – something
that is particularly common in many countries of the South – the notion of distributed
leadership is not easy to establish, neither completely understood. It also may vary in
relation to the type of administrative structure that the school is working in; for exam-
ple, a state run system, or a privately managed system with comparatively lesser
accountability constraints, such as is found in urban contexts in India (Sandill,
Ainscow, and Miles 2008). In such contexts, distributed leadership may often be
equated to ‘delegated leadership’ and mostly operates through formally structured
roles.
Broadly speaking, these themes are supported by a recent international literature
review that examines the effectiveness of school actions in promoting inclusion
(Dyson, Howes, and Roberts 2002; Dyson et al. 2004). The review concludes that there
is a limited but by no means negligible body of empirical evidence about the relation-
ship between school action and the participation of all students in the cultures, curricula
and communities of their schools. In summary, it suggests the following:
● Some schools are characterised by an ‘inclusive culture’. Within such schools,

there is some degree of consensus amongst adults around values of respect for
difference and a commitment to offering all pupils access to learning opportu-
nities. This consensus may not be total and may not necessarily remove all
tensions or contradictions in practice. On the other hand, there is likely to be a
high level of staff collaboration and joint problem-solving, and similar values
and commitments may extend into the pupil body, and into parent and other
community stakeholders in the school.
● The extent to which such ‘inclusive cultures’ lead directly and unproblematically
to enhanced pupil participation is not clear. Some aspects of these cultures,
however, can be seen as participatory by definition. For instance, respect for diver-
sity from teachers may itself be understood as a form of participation by children
within a school community. Moreover, schools characterised by such cultures
are also likely to favour forms of organisation (such as specialist provision being
made in the ordinary classroom, rather than by withdrawal) and practice (such
as constructivist approaches to teaching and learning) which could be regarded
as participatory by definition.
● Schools with ‘inclusive cultures’ are also likely to be characterised by the pres-
ence of leaders who are committed to inclusive values and to a leadership style
which encourages a range of individuals to participate in leadership functions.
Such schools are also likely to have good links with parents and with their
communities.
● The local and national policy environment can act to support or to undermine
the realisation of schools’ inclusive values.
On the basis of this evidence, the Dyson review team suggest that attempts to develop
inclusive schools should pay attention to the development of ‘inclusive cultures’ and,
particularly, to the building of some degree of consensus around inclusive values
within school communities. This leads them to argue that school leaders should be
selected and trained in the light of their commitment to inclusive values and their
capacity to lead in a participatory manner.
In summarising the current knowledge base on educational leadership, Leithwood
and Riehl (2005) conclude that in diverse student environments, particular forms of
leadership can be effective in promoting school quality, equity and social justice
through more powerful forms of teaching and learning, creating strong communities
of students, teachers and parents, and nurturing educational cultures among families.
In her deliberations on educational leadership and diversity, Gunter (2006) presents
a theoretical framework for looking at conceptualisations of diversity, value orienta-
tions that guide them and the exercise of agency that influences practice. She suggests
that there is an increasing focus on ways of conceptualising human beings and their
potential around capabilities within educational leadership practice, so as to assess
how we connect the learning and life chances of individual students with wider social
purposes in catering for the needs of a diverse population (also Rayner and Gunter
2005; Blackmore 2006). This again points to the need for explicating the values
behind practices or actions taken in the day to day operation of schooling.

Such approaches are congruent with the view that inclusion is essentially about
attempts to embody particular values in particular contexts (Ainscow, Booth, and
Dyson 2006). Unlike mechanistic views of school improvement, they acknowledge
that decisions about how to improve schools always involve moral and political
reasoning as well as technical considerations. Moreover, they offer specific processes
through which inclusive developments might be promoted. Discussions of inclusion
and exclusion can help, therefore, to make explicit the values which underlie what,
how and why changes should be made in schools. Inclusive cultures, underpinned by
particular organisational conditions, may make those discussions more likely to occur
and more productive when they do occur. A helpful list of indicators in relation to this
analysis is provided by the Index for Inclusion (Booth and Ainscow 2002), a frame-
work for examining school factors that constitute barriers to learning and participa-
tion. Given the nature of open questions that the Index poses, it has found
applicability in different contexts across the globe, in both developing and developed
countries.
Culture and leadership

All of this underlines the importance of cultural factors. This in turn brings us back to
the concerns about leadership in organisations. Schein (2004) suggests that cultures
are about the deeper levels of basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by
members of an organisation, operating unconsciously to define how they view them-
selves and their working contexts. The extent to which these values include the accep-
tance and celebration of difference, and a commitment to offering educational
opportunities to all students, coupled with the extent to which they are shared
across a school staff, relate to the extent to which students are enabled to participate
(Kugelmass 2001).
Hargreaves (1995) argues that cultures can be seen as having a reality-defining
function, enabling those within an institution to make sense of themselves, their
actions, and their environment. A current reality-defining function of culture, he
suggests, is often a problem-solving function inherited from the past. In this way,
today’s cultural form created to solve an emergent problem often becomes tomor-
row’s taken-for-granted recipe for dealing with matters shorn of their novelty.
Changing the norms that exist within a school is difficult to achieve, particularly
within a context that is faced with so many competing pressures and where practitioners
tend to work alone in addressing the problems they face (Fullan 1991). On the other
hand, the presence of children who are not suited to the existing menu of the school
can provide some encouragement to explore a more collaborative culture within which
teachers support one another in experimenting with new teaching responses. In this
way, problem-solving activities gradually become the reality-defining, taken-for-
granted functions that are the culture of a school that is more geared to fostering
inclusive ways of working.
The implication of all of this is that becoming more inclusive is a matter of think-
ing and talking, reviewing and refining practice, and making attempts to develop a
more inclusive culture. Such a conceptualisation means that inclusion cannot be
divorced from the contexts within which it is developing, nor the social relations that
might sustain or limit that development (Dyson 2006). This suggests that it is in the
complex interplay between individuals, and between groups and individuals, that
shared beliefs and values and change exist, and that it is impossible to separate those
beliefs from the relationships in which they are embodied. Nias (1989) describes a
culture of collaboration developing as both the product and the cause of shared social
and moral beliefs. Hopkins, Ainscow, and West (1994) contend that in organisations
striving towards change, school culture is constantly evolving. This evolution takes
place through interaction of members of a school with each other and through their
reflections on life and the world around them (Coleman and Earley 2005).
On similar lines, other researchers argue that in order to bring about the cultural
change that inclusion demands, it is essential to consider the values underlying the
intended changes (Ainscow 1999; Carrington 1999; Corbett 2001; Kugelmass 2001;
Ainscow, Booth, and Dyson 2006). Thus, cultural change is directed towards a ‘trans-
formative view of inclusion, in which diversity is seen as making a positive contribution
to the creation of responsive educational settings’ (Ainscow, Booth and Dyson 2006,
15). This involves developing the capacity of those within schools to reveal and chal-
lenge deeply entrenched deficit views of ‘difference’, which define certain types of
students as ‘lacking something’ (Trent, Artiles, and Englert 1998). Writers who are
involved in facilitating and evaluating such processes in schools repeatedly identify
the role of leadership as critical for sustaining such changes, both in developed and
developing contexts (Lipsky and Gartner 1998; Ainscow 1999; Zollers, Ramanathan,
and Yu 1999; Kugelmass and Ainscow 2003; Leo and Barton 2006).
Research in the area of inclusion indicates that teachers’ beliefs, attitudes, and
actions are what create the contexts in which children and young people are required
to learn. This being the case, the task must be to develop education systems within
which teachers feel supported as well as challenged in relation to their responsibility
to keep exploring more effective ways of facilitating the learning of all students.
This has major implications for school organisation and leadership and for overall
educational policy. It raises the question of what actions are needed to move think-
ing and practice forward; in other words, what are the ‘levers for change’? (Ainscow
2005).
Senge (1989) sees ‘levers’ as actions that can be taken in order to change the
behaviour of an organisation and those individuals within it. He goes on to argue that
those who wish to encourage change within an organisation must be smart in deter-
mining where the high leverage lies. Too often, he suggests, approaches used to bring
about large-scale changes in organisations are ‘low leverage’. That is to say, they
tend to change the way things look but not the way they work. Possible examples of
low leverage activity in the education field include: policy documents, conferences
and in-service courses. Whilst such initiatives may make a contribution, they tend not
to lead to significant changes in thinking and practice (Fullan 1991). Our aim, there-
fore, must be to identify what may turn out to be more subtle, less obvious and yet
higher leverage efforts to bring about change in schools.
It seems, then, that the principle of inclusion is likely to require challenges to the
thinking of those within a particular organisation and, inevitably, this again raises
questions regarding forms of leadership. A review of literature concluded that the issue
of inclusion is increasingly seen as a key challenge for educational leaders (West,
Ainscow, and Nottman 2003). For example, Leithwood, Jantzi and Steinbach (1999)
suggest that with continuing diversity, schools will need to thrive on uncertainty, have
a greater capacity for collective problem-solving, and be able to respond to a wider
range of learners. Sergiovanni (1992) also points to the challenge of student diversity
and argues that current approaches to school leadership may well be getting in the way
of improvement efforts. A particular concern highlighted in recent literature is also to

understand how leadership and student behaviour are linked. Ainscow and Fox (2005)
assert that forms of leadership that can facilitate improvement in student behaviour are
particularly important in promoting educational inclusion.
Lambert et al. (2002) argue for constructivist leadership as a strategy for respond-
ing to learner diversity. This involves reciprocal processes that enable participants in
an educational community to construct meanings that lead toward a common purpose
about schooling. They use this perspective to argue that leadership involves an inter-
active process entered into by both students and teachers. Consequently, there is a
need for shared leadership, with the principal seen as a leader of leaders. Hierarchical
structures have to be replaced by shared responsibility in a community that becomes
characterised by agreed values and hopes, such that many of the control functions
associated with school leadership become less important or even counter-productive.
As highlighted, this requires a cultural shift across levels and most importantly at the
level of school leadership. At the same time, it is important to note that factors that
influence such transitions may lie outside the school setting, for example at the district
or local authority levels (Sandill and Ainscow 2007).
Much of the literature on the role of leadership in relation to school improvement
places emphasis on the importance of social relationships (Hopkins 2001). Johnson
and Johnson (1989), two key figures in the field of social psychology, argue that lead-
ers may structure staff working relationships in one of three ways: competitively, indi-
vidualistically, or cooperatively. Within a competitive structure, teachers work against
each other to achieve a goal that only a few can attain; an individualistic structure
exists when teachers work alone to accomplish goals that are unrelated to the goals of
their colleagues; whereas, a cooperative structure exists when teachers coordinate their
efforts to achieve joint goals. They go on to argue that to maximise the productivity
of a school, principals have to: challenge the status quo of traditional competitive and
individualistic approaches to teaching; inspire a clear mutual vision of what the school
should and could be; empower staff through cooperative team work; lead by example,
using cooperative procedures and taking risks; and encourage staff members to persist
and keep striving to improve their expertise. Within this overall formulation, the
authors place a strong emphasis on the need to build cooperative teams.
Leithwood and Riehl (2003) refer to two approaches to school leadership, one with
an orientation to student achievement and the other with a focus on meeting the needs
of individuals. They further contend that leaders serving diverse schools need to use
both approaches in order to perform their role effectively (for example, West, Ainscow,
and Stanford 2005; Shah 2006). Gross, Shaw, and Shapiro (2003) echo this by arguing
that school leaders need to strike a continual balance between concern for people and
accountability (for a discussion on teachers’ response to educational change, see
Hargreaves 2004). Johnston and Hayes (2007), among others, contend that student
learning is linked to professional learning, and that students are likely to be more
successful at school if their teachers are actively engaged in learning how to teach within
the local context of the school. As a result of their research in schools in challenging
circumstances, these authors assert that professional learning requires a pedagogy that
disrupts the ‘default modes of schooling’. Consequently, as they indicate, practitioners
in schools need to ‘learn new things’ not only to ‘do new things’, conceptualising
professional learning as the pedagogical practice of educational leaders.
The most helpful theoretical and empirical leads, however, are provided by Riehl
(2000), who, following an extensive review of literature, develops ‘a comprehensive
approach to school administration and diversity’. Riehl concludes that school leaders
need to attend to three broad types of task: fostering new meanings about diversity;
promoting inclusive practices within schools; and building connections between
schools and communities. Riehl goes on to consider how these tasks can be accom-
plished, exploring how the concept of practice, especially discursive practice, can
contribute to a fuller understanding of the work of school principals. This analysis
leads the author to offer a positive view of the potential for school principals to engage
in inclusive, transformative developments. Riehl concludes:
When wedded to a relentless commitment to equity, voice, and social justice, adminis-
trators’ efforts in the tasks of sensemaking, promoting inclusive cultures and practices in
schools, and building positive relationships outside of the school may indeed foster a new
form of practice. (71)
The role of networking

What emerges from the evidence we have summarised is the importance of forms of
leadership that encourage social learning processes within particular contexts. Such
processes can, we have argued, be stimulated by inquiry which fosters a greater capac-
ity for responding to learner diversity. Achieving a deeper and more sustainable
impact on the culture of schools is, however, much more difficult. This necessitates
longer-term, persistent strategies for capacity building at the school level (Harris and
Chrispeels 2006). It also requires new thinking and, indeed, new relationships at the
systems level. In other words, efforts to foster inclusive school development are more
likely to be effective when they are part of a wider strategy (Ainscow 2005).
This has led to an increasing emphasis on the idea of sharing expertise and
resources between schools, and linking educational development with wider commu-
nity development. Such an approach is consistent with what Stoker (2003) calls
‘public value management’, with its emphasis on network governance. Stoker argues
that the origins of this approach can be traced to criticisms of the current emphasis in
many countries on strategies drawn from private sector experience. He goes on to
suggest that the formulation of what constitutes public value can only be achieved
through deliberation involving the key stakeholders and actions that depend on mixing
in a reflexive manner a range of intervention options. Consequently, ‘networks of
deliberation and delivery’ are seen as key strategies. In education services, this implies
the negotiation of new, interdependent relationships between schools, administrations

and communities (Hargreaves 2003).
Within the context of educational change, Fullan (2006) proposes a new kind of
leadership which goes beyond the successes of increasing student achievement and
move towards leading organisations to sustainability. With this in mind, he argues for
‘system thinkers in action’, in which leaders widen their sphere of engagement by
interacting with other schools in order to develop what he calls lateral capacity build-
ing towards sustainable development. Amidst many efforts going on in this direction,
Ainscow and Fox (2005) provide an insight into lateral capacity building at the level
of head teachers and schools, by developing a reflective understanding of the nature
of leadership practice and moving practice forward using principles of action learning.
There is some evidence from England that school-to-school collaboration can
strengthen the capacity of individual organisations to respond to learner diversity
(Howes and Ainscow 2006; Ainscow and Howes 2007). Recent studies, for the most
part, have focused on situations where schools have been given short-term financial
incentives linked to the demonstration of collaborative planning and activity

(Chapman 2005; Ainscow and West 2006; Ainscow, Muijs, and West 2006; Chapman
and Allen 2006). They suggest that collaboration between schools can help to reduce
the polarisation of schools, to the particular benefit of those students who are margin-
alised at the edges of the system and whose performance and attitudes cause concern.
There is evidence, too, that when schools seek to develop more collaborative ways of
working, this can have an impact on how teachers perceive themselves and their work.
Specifically, comparisons of practices can lead teachers to view underachieving
students in a new light. Rather than simply presenting problems that are assumed to
be insurmountable, such students may be perceived as providing feedback on existing
classroom arrangements. In this way they may be seen as sources of understanding as
to how these arrangements might be developed in ways that could be of benefit to all
members of the class. As highlighted earlier, development of a commitment to the
process is really a key issue for development and sustenance of such practices.
The idea of networking can be extended much more widely, however, in order to
encourage the sharing of experiences and ideas across national borders (Miles and
Ahuja 2007). It was with this possibility in mind that the Enabling Education Network
(EENET) was established in 1997 with technical and financial support from a group
of concerned international non-governmental organisations and UNESCO. EENET’s
mission is to support and promote the inclusion of marginalised groups in education
worldwide (Miles 2002) by sharing information between similar contexts in Southern
countries, primarily through an annual publication, ‘Enabling Education’ and through
its website. The EENET website (http://www.eenet.org.uk) has over 20 000 users and
almost 300 000 hits per month.
EENET shares information about inclusive education written and generated by,
and for, a wide range of stakeholders, including children, parents and consumer
groups, as well as policy makers, academics, teacher trainers and teachers themselves.
Although the network is located at the University of Manchester, it adopts a non-
academic style to ensure wide accessibility to readers who use English as an additional
language. Documents posted on the website are not necessarily representative of
inclusive education practice, nor are they peer-reviewed. Practitioners are simply
encouraged to share their experience, their ideas and their training materials. Never-
theless, the EENET website is regarded by many as an important emerging database
and a unique international resource on inclusive and enabling education.
Conclusion
As we look to the future, it is important not to underestimate the challenges facing all
education systems around the world – rich and poor – as they try to respond to demands
for arrangements that will provide an effective education for all children, whatever
their circumstances or characteristics. In this context, it is worth reminding ourselves
that although 652 million children worldwide are enrolled in primary education, the
out-of-school population still stands at over 100 million children, 80% of whom live
in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa (Department for International Development
(DFID) 2005). In India alone, it is estimated that at least 35 million children are not
in school (DFID 2001). A report by the Chronic Poverty Research Institute (CPRI)
(2005) highlights how families trapped in multidimensional poverty are excluded from
educational opportunities and health facilities. Urgent economic solutions are clearly
needed to eradicate poverty and ensure that all children have equal access to appropri-
ate and affordable education.
The key challenge identified at the World Forum in Dakar, Senegal, in 2000,
where progress towards Education for All was reviewed, was ‘to ensure that the broad
vision of Education for All as an inclusive concept is reflected in national government
and funding agency policies’ (UNESCO 2000, para. 19). Following Dakar, a set of
international development targets was developed to help governments and interna-
tional development agencies to focus their efforts on eliminating poverty. These
targets, collectively known as the Millennium Development Goals, provide countries
with an opportunity to work together on a set of measurable objectives, the second of
which is to achieve universal primary education, by ensuring that all boys and girls
complete a full course of primary schooling by 2015. This is unlikely to be achieved,
however, unless the necessary financial support is put in place, as asserted in the
report on Global Campaign for Education (UNESCO 2005).
Providing education for the most disenfranchised and marginalised groups in the
poorest countries in the world remains, therefore, an enormous challenge. Indeed, it is
easy to be overwhelmed by the apparent enormity of the challenges in countries of the
South and to adopt a negative deficit approach to an analysis of educational activities
in such environments. Most of the literature paints a negative picture of education
systems struggling to cope with poorly trained teachers, inadequate budgets, large
class sizes, and more recently, the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Whilst we do not wish to romanticise resource-poor environments, we believe that
education practitioners in resource-rich countries can learn some very useful lessons
for their own practice if they engage with experience of efforts to promote inclusion
in the South. This is why EENET tries to highlight some of these possibilities, while
drawing attention to the complexities of such cross-cultural information sharing. In so
doing, it sets out to show how innovative programmes in the South have a great deal
to teach the economically wealthy countries of the North, where public services are
increasingly faced with diminishing resources, and where access to resources is some-
times a cause of conflict. We believe that there are lessons to be learned from the
experience of overcoming seemingly insurmountable resource barriers.
With this in mind, in this paper we have argued that that it is essential to be clear
as to what this involves in order to bring all stakeholders together around a common
sense of purpose. The approach we have outlined is not about the introduction of
particular techniques or organisational arrangements. Rather it places emphasis on
processes of social learning within particular contexts. The use of evidence as a
means of stimulating experimentation, and collaboration within and between schools,

and between schools and the communities they serve, are seen as key strategies. As
Copland (2003) suggests, inquiry can be the ‘engine’ to enable the distribution of
leadership that is needed in order to foster participation, and the ‘glue’ that can bind
a community together around a common purpose.
As we have argued, all of this has major implications for leadership practice at
different levels within schools and education systems. In particular, it calls for efforts
to encourage coordinated and sustained efforts around the idea that changing
outcomes for all students is unlikely to be achieved unless there are changes in the
behaviours of adults. Consequently, the starting point must be with staff members: in
effect, enlarging their capacity to imagine what might be achieved, and increasing
their sense of accountability for bringing this about. This may also involve tackling
taken for granted assumptions, most often relating to expectations about certain
groups of students, their capabilities and behaviours.
Our argument is, then, based on the assumption that schools and their communities
know more than they use and that the logical starting point for inclusive development
is with a detailed analysis of existing arrangements. This allows good practices to be
identified and shared, whilst, at the same time, drawing attention to ways of working
that may be creating barriers to the participation and learning of some students.
However, as we have stressed, the focus must not only be on practice. It must also
address and sometimes challenge the thinking behind existing ways of working.
Notes on contributors
Mel Ainscow is Professor of Education and Co-director of the Centre for Equity in Education
at the University of Manchester. Previously a head teacher, local education authority inspector,
and lecturer at the University of Cambridge, his work attempts to explore connections between
inclusion, teacher development, and school improvement. A particular feature of this research
involves the development and use of participatory methods of inquiry that set out to make a
direct impact on thinking and practice in systems, schools and classrooms. He was Director of
a UNESCO Teacher Education project on inclusive education which involved research and
development in over 80 countries, and is Co-director of the school improvement network
‘Improving the Quality of Education for All (IQEA)’. He is consultant to UNESCO, UNICEF,
and Save the Children; and is Marden Visiting Fellow at the Hong Kong Institute of Education.
He had two books published in 2006: Improving urban schools: leadership and collaboration
(with Mel West; Open University Press) and Improving schools, developing inclusion (with
Tony Booth, Alan Dyson and colleagues; Routledge).
Abha Sandill is a doctoral student at the School of Education, University of Manchester. She
has completed a Bachelor’s in Education and a Master’s with specialisation in Child Develop-
ment (Delhi University, India), and a Master’s in Educational Research at the University of
Manchester. She is trained in Community Initiatives in Inclusive Education from the National
Resource Centre for Inclusion, Mumbai. In a short span of working before taking up PhD, she
has worked as a Junior Project Fellow on a National project ‘Exploring teaching learning strat-
egies in facilitating inclusion’ in five states in India, with the National Council for Educational
Research and Training (NCERT), Delhi, as a Junior Research Consultant, on a project ‘Assessing
the impact of ECD on children living in vulnerable circumstances’ with an NGO called Mobile
Crèches in Delhi, and served as a lecturer in Child Development at Lady Irwin College, Delhi
University. There are two publications to her credit (with Dr Asha Singh), based on her work
during the Master’s dissertation in India: ‘Practices in inclusive education, childhood disability
update’ (special issue 2004) and ‘Inclusive education: perceptions and practices’, Indian Journal
of Education (2006). Currently, through her doctoral work she is exploring the role of school
leadership in catering to student diversity in the Indian context.
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International Journal of Inclusive Education

Developing inclusive education systems: the role of organisational cultures

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Developing inclusive education systems: the role of organisational

Educational Support and Inclusion, School of Education, University of Manchester,

Including all children in education is the major challenge facing educational

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

ISSN 1360-3116 print/ISSN 1464-5173 online

the most effective means of combating discriminatory attitudes, building an inclusive

society and achieving education for all.

Furthermore, it suggests that such schools can:

contexts. At the centre of this framework is the concept of a ‘community of practice’,

tion causes ‘disequilibrium’ in thinking and, as a result, provides a challenge to existing

multicultural contexts also highlights similar processes of meaning making, such as

● Some schools are characterised by an ‘inclusive culture’. Within such schools,

behind practices or actions taken in the day to day operation of schooling.

Culture and leadership

of improvement efforts. A particular concern highlighted in recent literature is also to

The role of networking

the negotiation of new, interdependent relationships between schools, administrations

incentives linked to the demonstration of collaborative planning and activity

means of stimulating experimentation, and collaboration within and between schools,

Effectiveness and School Improvement 6, no. 1: 23–46.

outcomes – what do we know? Cambridge Journal of Education 33, no. 2: 175–95.

in Education 12, no. 2: 157–74.

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