Abstract
Contemporary educational policies both at international and national levels acknowledge the educational rights of all children and their inclusion in mainstream educational practices. Like other children at risk, children with disabilities have opportunities to access mainstream education but their participation is not always realised in practice. To address opportunities and challenges of inclusion of children with disabilities, this paper examines the participation of one focus child (four years), with Soto’s Syndrome, who attends a mainstream Australian preschool setting. Guided by the cultural-historical theory, digital video data of the focus child’s activities in everyday preschool practices (13 h) was gathered over a period of eight months. The findings suggest that although the focus child faces difficulties in expressive language, she created her own developmental trajectory of participation. The focus child used educators as her living auxiliary tools and educators used auxiliary questions to support the child to express and communicate through a process of building shared meaning. Though the findings are limited in regard to generalisation, the understanding about the dialectical effort of adults and the focus child to create a roundabout way to overcome incongruences could be a strong basis for conceptualising inclusion.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | International Journal of Inclusive Education |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Accepted/In press - Apr 2019 |
Keywords
- cultural-historical theory
- disability
- inclusion
- participation
Cite this
}
Inclusion of a child with expressive language difficulties in a mainstream Australian preschool – roundabout ways can create opportunities for participation. / Johora, Fatema Taj; Fleer, Marilyn; Veresov, Nikolai.
In: International Journal of Inclusive Education, 04.2019.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review
TY - JOUR
T1 - Inclusion of a child with expressive language difficulties in a mainstream Australian preschool – roundabout ways can create opportunities for participation
AU - Johora, Fatema Taj
AU - Fleer, Marilyn
AU - Veresov, Nikolai
PY - 2019/4
Y1 - 2019/4
N2 - Contemporary educational policies both at international and national levels acknowledge the educational rights of all children and their inclusion in mainstream educational practices. Like other children at risk, children with disabilities have opportunities to access mainstream education but their participation is not always realised in practice. To address opportunities and challenges of inclusion of children with disabilities, this paper examines the participation of one focus child (four years), with Soto’s Syndrome, who attends a mainstream Australian preschool setting. Guided by the cultural-historical theory, digital video data of the focus child’s activities in everyday preschool practices (13 h) was gathered over a period of eight months. The findings suggest that although the focus child faces difficulties in expressive language, she created her own developmental trajectory of participation. The focus child used educators as her living auxiliary tools and educators used auxiliary questions to support the child to express and communicate through a process of building shared meaning. Though the findings are limited in regard to generalisation, the understanding about the dialectical effort of adults and the focus child to create a roundabout way to overcome incongruences could be a strong basis for conceptualising inclusion.
AB - Contemporary educational policies both at international and national levels acknowledge the educational rights of all children and their inclusion in mainstream educational practices. Like other children at risk, children with disabilities have opportunities to access mainstream education but their participation is not always realised in practice. To address opportunities and challenges of inclusion of children with disabilities, this paper examines the participation of one focus child (four years), with Soto’s Syndrome, who attends a mainstream Australian preschool setting. Guided by the cultural-historical theory, digital video data of the focus child’s activities in everyday preschool practices (13 h) was gathered over a period of eight months. The findings suggest that although the focus child faces difficulties in expressive language, she created her own developmental trajectory of participation. The focus child used educators as her living auxiliary tools and educators used auxiliary questions to support the child to express and communicate through a process of building shared meaning. Though the findings are limited in regard to generalisation, the understanding about the dialectical effort of adults and the focus child to create a roundabout way to overcome incongruences could be a strong basis for conceptualising inclusion.
KW - cultural-historical theory
KW - disability
KW - inclusion
KW - participation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85065103795&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/13603116.2019.1609100
DO - 10.1080/13603116.2019.1609100
M3 - Article
JO - International Journal of Inclusive Education
JF - International Journal of Inclusive Education
SN - 1360-3116
ER -