The Language of Inclusive Education: Exploring speaking, listening, reading and writing

The Language of Inclusive Education is an insightful text which considers the writing, speaking, reading and hearing of inclusive education. Based on the premise that humans use language to construct their worlds and their realities, this book is concerned with how language works to determine what we know and understand about issues related to in/exclusion in education. Using a variety of analytical tools, the author exposes language-at-work in academic and popular literature and in policy documents. Areas of focus include:

• What inclusive education means and how it is defined
• How metaphor works to position inclusive education
• How textbooks construct inclusive education
• How we use language to build what we understand to be difference and disability, with particular reference to AD(H)D and Asperger’s Syndrome
• Listening to children and young people as a means to promote inclusion in schools

Woven through this volume is the argument for a more critical awareness of how we use language in the field that we call ‘inclusive education’. This book is a must-read for any individual studying, practicing or an interest in inclusion and exploring the associations with language.

Elizabeth Walton is a Senior Lecturer in Inclusive Education at the School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.