WORKING PAPER SERIES
PERSPECTIVES
ON SOCIAL
INCLUSION
The Dynamics of
Social Inclusion:
Public Education and
Aboriginal People in Canada
Terry Wotherspoon
DECEMBER
2002
PERSPECTIVES
ON SOCIAL
INCLUSION
The Dynamics of
Social Inclusion:
Public Education and
Aboriginal People in Canada
Terry Wotherspoon
Terry Wotherspoon is a Professor of Sociology and Head of the
Department at the University of Saskatchewan
Copyright © 2002 The Laidlaw Foundation
The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the
Laidlaw Foundation.
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Wotherspoon, Terry, 1954 The dynamics of social inclusion : public education and Aboriginal people in Canada /
by Terry Wotherspoon.
(Perspectives on social inclusion working paper series)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-9730740-4-3
1. Native peoples--Education--Canada. 2. Social integration--Canada. 3. Inclusive education-Canada. I. Laidlaw Foundation II. Title. III. Series.
E96.2.W68 2002
306.43'2
C2002-902316-5
The Laidlaw Foundation
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Tel.: (416) 964-3614 Fax: (416) 975-1428
President
Paul Zarnke
Executive Director
Nathan Gilbert
Editing and Layout
Is five Communications
This paper is part of the Laidlaw Foundation’s Working Paper Series, Perspectives on Social
Inclusion. The full papers (in English only) and the summaries in French and English can be downloaded from the Laidlaw Foundation’s web site at www.laidlawfdn.org under Children’s Agenda/
Working Paper Series on Social Inclusion or ordered from [email protected]
Price: $11.00 full paper; $6.00 Summaries (Taxes do not apply and shipment included).
PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL INCLUSION
iii
Table of Contents
About the Laidlaw Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .v
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
The Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
Concepts of Inclusion and Exclusion in Educational Analysis . . . . . . . . . . .3
Public Schools as Socially Inclusive Agencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4
The Shifting Boundaries of Inclusion in Public Schooling . . . . . . . . . . . . .6
The Creation of Inclusive “Spaces” within Educational Environments . . . . . .9
Inclusive Schooling: Canada’s Aboriginal People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12
The Socially Inclusive School: Implications for Educational Practice . . . . . .16
Educational Practices and Policy Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
iv
PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL INCLUSION
v
About the Laidlaw Foundation
The Laidlaw Foundation is a private, public-interest foundation that uses its human and financial
resources in innovative ways to strengthen civic engagement and social cohesion. The Foundation
uses its capital to better the environments and fulfill the capacities of children and youth, to enhance
the opportunities for human development and creativity and to sustain healthy communities and
ecosystems.
The Foundation supports a diverse portfolio of innovative and often unconventional projects in three
program areas: in the arts, in the environment and improving the life prospects for children, youth
and families.
Working for social inclusion is a theme that underlies much of the Foundation’s activities. The key
words in the Foundation’s mission — human development, sustainable communities and ecosystems
— imply that achievement will rely on the enhancement of capacity and capability. Not only is social
inclusion being developed as an emerging funding stream, it is an embedded Laidlaw Foundation
value, both structurally and programmatically.
Nathan Gilbert
Executive Director
For more information about the Laidlaw Foundation please contact us at:
The Laidlaw Foundation
Tel: 416 964-3614
Fax: 416 975-1428
Email: [email protected]
www.laidlawfdn.org
vi
PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL INCLUSION
vii
Foreword:
The Laidlaw Foundation’s
Perspective on Social Inclusion
The context for social inclusion
C
hildren have risen to the top of government agendas at various times over
the past decade, only to fall again
whenever there is an economic downturn, a
budget deficit, a federal-provincial relations
crisis or, most recently, a concern over terrorism and national security. While there have
been important achievements in public policy
in the past 5 to 10 years, there has not been a
sustained government commitment to children
nor a significant improvement in the wellbeing of children and families. In fact, in
many areas, children and families have lost
ground and social exclusion is emerging as a
major issue in Canada. Examples abound and
include these facts.
• the over-representation of racial minority
families and children among those living
in poverty in large cities, and the denial
of access to many services by immigrant
and refugee families;
• the 43% increase in the number of children in poverty in Canada since 1989,
the 130% increase in the number of children in homeless shelters in Toronto, as
well as the persistence of one of the highest youth incarceration rates among
Commonwealth countries;
• the exclusion of children with disabilities
from public policy frameworks (e.g. the
National Children’s Agenda), from definitions of ‘healthy’ child development
and, all too often, from community life.
These situations provide the context for
the Laidlaw Foundation’s interest in social
inclusion. The Foundation’s Children’s Agenda
program first began exploring social inclusion
in 2000 as a way to re-focus child and family
policy by:
• re-framing the debate about poverty, vulnerability and the well-being of children
in order to highlight the social dimensions of poverty (i.e. the inability to participate fully in the community)
• linking poverty and economic vulnerability with other sources of exclusion such
as racism, disability, rejection of difference and historic oppression
• finding common ground among those
concerned about the well-being of families with children to help generate greater
public and political will to act.
The Foundation commissioned a series of
working papers to examine social inclusion
from a number of perspectives. Although the
authors approach the topic from different
starting points and emphasize different aspects
of exclusion and inclusion, there are important
common threads and conclusions. The working papers draw attention to the new realities
and new understandings that must be brought
to bear on the development of social policy
and the creation of a just and healthy society.
Foreword: The Laidlaw Foundation's Perspective
viii
These are:
• Whether the source of exclusion is poverty, racism, fear of differences or lack of
political clout, the consequences are the
same: a lack of recognition and acceptance; powerlessness and ‘voicelessness’;
economic vulnerability; and, diminished
life experiences and limited life prospects.
For society as a whole, the social exclusion
of individuals and groups can become a
major threat to social cohesion and economic prosperity.
• A rights-based approach is inadequate to
address the personal and systemic exclusions experienced by children and adults.
People with disabilities are leading the way
in calling for approaches based on social
inclusion and valued recognition to deliver
what human rights claims alone cannot.
• Diversity and difference, whether on the
basis of race, disability, religion, culture or
gender, must be recognized and valued.
The ‘one size fits all approach’ is no longer
acceptable and has never been effective in
advancing the well-being of children and
families.
• Public policy must be more closely linked
to the lived experiences of children and
families, both in terms of the actual programs and in terms of the process for
arriving at those policies and programs.
This is one of the reasons for the growing
focus on cities and communities, as places
where inclusion and exclusion happen.
• Universal programs and policies that serve
all children and families generally provide
a stronger foundation for improving wellbeing than residual, targeted or segregated
approaches. The research and anecdotal
evidence for this claim is mounting from
the education, child development and
population health sectors.
Understanding social inclusion
S
ocial exclusion emerged as an important
policy concept in Europe in the 1980s in
response to the growing social divides
that resulted from new labour market conditions and the inadequacy of existing social welfare provisions to meet the changing needs of
more diverse populations. Social inclusion is
not, however, just a response to exclusion.
Although many of the working papers use
social exclusion as the starting point for their
discussions, they share with us the view that
social inclusion has value on its own as both a
process and a goal. Social inclusion is about
making sure that all children and adults are
able to participate as valued, respected and
contributing members of society. It is, therefore, a normative (value based) concept - a way
of raising the bar and understanding where we
want to be and how to get there.
Social inclusion reflects a proactive,
human development approach to social wellbeing that calls for more than the removal of
barriers or risks. It requires investments and
action to bring about the conditions for inclusion, as the population health and international human development movements have taught
us.
Recognizing the importance of difference
and diversity has become central to new under-
PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL INCLUSION
ix
standings of identity at both a national and
community level. Social inclusion goes one
step further: it calls for a validation and recognition of diversity as well as a recognition of
the commonality of lived experiences and the
shared aspirations among people, particularly
evident among families with children.
This strongly suggests that social inclusion extends beyond bringing the ‘outsiders’
in, or notions of the periphery versus the centre. It is about closing physical, social and
economic distances separating people, rather
than only about eliminating boundaries or
barriers between us and them.
The cornerstones of social inclusion
T
he working papers process revealed that
social inclusion is a complex and challenging concept that cannot be reduced
to only one dimension or meaning. The working papers, together with several other initiatives the Foundation sponsored as part of its
exploration of social inclusion , have helped us
to identify five critical dimensions, or cornerstones, of social inclusion:
Valued recognition– Conferring recognition
and respect on individuals and groups. This
includes recognizing the differences in children’s development and, therefore, not equating disability with pathology; supporting community schools that are sensitive to cultural
and gender differences; and extending the
notion to recognizing common worth through
universal programs such as health care.
Human development – Nurturing the talents,
skills, capacities and choices of children and
adults to live a life they value and to make a
contribution both they and others find worthwhile. Examples include: learning and developmental opportunities for all children and
adults; community child care and recreation
programs for children that are growth-promoting and challenging rather than merely
custodial.
Involvement and engagement – Having the
right and the necessary support to make/be
involved in decisions affecting oneself, family
and community, and to be engaged in community life. Examples include: youth engagement
and control of services for youth; parental
input into school curriculum or placement
decisions affecting their child; citizen engagement in municipal policy decisions; and political participation.
Proximity – Sharing physical and social
spaces to provide opportunities for interactions, if desired, and to reduce social distances
between people. This includes shared public
spaces such as parks and libraries; mixed
income neighbourhoods and housing; and
integrated schools and classrooms.
Material well being – Having the material
resources to allow children and their parents to
participate fully in community life. This
includes being safely and securely housed and
having an adequate income.
Foreword: The Laidlaw Foundation's Perspective
x
Next steps: Building inclusive cities and communities
ver the next three years, the Children’s
Agenda program of the Laidlaw
Foundation will focus on Building
inclusive cities and communities. The importance of cities and communities is becoming
increasingly recognized because the well-being
of children and families is closely tied to where
they live, the quality of their neighbourhoods
and cities, and the ‘social commons’ where people interact and share experiences.
The Laidlaw Foundation’s vision of a
socially inclusive society is grounded in an
international movement that aims to advance
the well-being of people by improving the
health of cities and communities. Realizing
this vision is a long-term project to ensure that
all members of society participate as equally
valued and respected citizens. It is an agenda
based on the premise that for our society to be
just, healthy and secure, it requires the inclusion of all.
Christa Freiler
Children’s Agenda Program Coordinator
Laidlaw Foundation
Paul Zarnke
President and Former Chair,
Children’s Agenda Advisory Committee
Laidlaw Foundation
O
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank the following for their contribution and commitment to the working papers series
on social inclusion: the authors, without whom there would be no working papers; Karen Swift,
Frank Stark, Nancy Matthews, Jennifer Keck, Daniel Drache and the forty external reviewers of
papers, all of whom provided critical feedback and expert advice at various stages during the editorial
process; the members of the Advisory Committee, Children’s Agenda Program, Nathan Gilbert,
Executive Director, and the Board of Directors, Laidlaw Foundation for their support, interest and
critical comments; and Larisa Farafontova, Eva-Marie Dolhai, and Richard Wazana, for their
perseverance and skillful assistance at critical stages in the process.
This series is dedicated to the memory of
Dr. Jennifer Keck who died on June 12, 2002
after a long battle with cancer.
Jennifer was a key member of the editorial committee,
an insightful and passionate reviewer of the working papers,
and an unwavering advocate for
social justice and the social inclusion of all people.
The Dynamics of
Social Inclusion:
Public Education and
Aboriginal People in Canada
xii
PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL INCLUSION
1
The Dynamics of Social Inclusion:
Public Education and Aboriginal People in Canada
Introduction
T
he resurgence of interest in concepts of
social inclusion and exclusion, along
with related concerns like social cohesion and integration, is occurring in a context
in which many people, their families, and the
communities and societies they live in are
experiencing considerable change and uncertainty. Widespread tensions, as well as unequal
opportunities and resource reallocation, are
produced through the advancement of economic globalization, the restructuring of work
and social institutions, rapid technological
innovations, realignment of political and policy landscapes, demographic shifts, and numerous parallel forces.
The combined impact of these transformations is far-reaching, though likely to be
experienced most acutely by those who have
been displaced in the process of accommodating such change from businesses or jobs, family connections, community networks or
locales, and other sources of stability. A sense
of vulnerability is intensified when shifts in the
economic and social spheres are accompanied
by market-based policy orientations that contribute to what some commentators have variously called the “privatization of risk” or the
“adaptive autonomy of the individual”
(Donzelot, 1991a; 1991b: 268ff.; Pulkingham
and Ternowetsky, 1996).
Social inclusion and exclusion, in this climate, need to be understood as processes
rather than specific outcomes. They describe
how people’s opportunities for meaningful participation in diverse but inter-related spheres of
social life (including social, economic, political, and cultural processes) can be differentially
facilitated or blocked, contributing, in turn, to
unequal prospects among people to achieve
socially and economically valued resources,
capacities and credentials. Supportive policies
and structures, in turn, are required to ensure
that these objectives can be realized on an
equitable basis, beyond simple affirmation of
them in principle.
This paper explores the relevance of the
renewed focus on social inclusion and exclusion for Canada’s public education systems,
with reference both to general factors and
more specific issues that arise in relation to
schooling for Aboriginal people. Public schooling serves as a useful case study since, historically, its mandate has been broadly inclusive in
nature. Schools are inclusive insofar as they are
public spaces in which children and youth
from diverse backgrounds are expected to have
access to common services, curricula and experiences that, in turn, are linked to prospects for
their eventual participation and inclusion in
other social and economic venues.
The discussion focuses on three key questions:
• What is the relationship between discourses of social inclusion/social exclusion and changes within public education
systems?
The Dynamics of Social Inclusion: Public Education and Aboriginal People in Canada
2
• What are the major dynamics to promote
social inclusion relative to exclusion within recent educational policies and practices?
• What impact do these processes have on
children and youth, in general, as well as
on specific groups of children and youth,
particularly within Aboriginal communities?
Educational structures and processes are
understood here as having a contradictory relationship with the dynamics of inclusion and
exclusion. The discussion highlights these
dynamics by outlining several key dimensions
of educational practices, and explores the
implications of recent educational trends for
prospects to achieve more inclusive educational
environments and promote well-being for children and youth. It is argued that, despite a
general tendency for formal education to
become more inclusive in its mandate and outcomes, schooling is also infused (both internally and in its relations with wider social structures and policy frameworks) with tensions and
conflicts that have potential to generate new or
continuing forms of exclusion. The paper concludes with a brief outline of key recommendations for policy and practice that emerge from
this analysis.
The Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion
T
he varied experiences of social change
and uncertainty are related to the emergence of new questions about what it
means “to belong” to (and, therefore, to be
included in or excluded from) particular social
or institutional settings. It is important, in all
of this, to keep in mind that there is a political
and ideological, as well as an analytical, dimension, to themes like social integration, cohesion
and inclusion. Diverse social actors or agencies
seek not only to make sense of and respond to
their own circumstances, but also to advance
their own particular interests. Discourses related to social inclusion have been embraced by
an increasing number of writers and organizations representing specific aims and positions.
The unquestioned adoption of Sen’s
(1992; 1999) capabilities or rights-based
approach by disparate sources highlights how
the language of inclusion becomes seductive
even among conflicting orientations.
Community and social agencies are attracted to
the prospects the approach has to foster a social
justice orientation based on strategies to ensure
that attention is paid to the rights and conditions of the socially most vulnerable and politically least powerful groups. Meanwhile, many
governments – notably the G-7 nations and
various internal state administrative organizations – recognize the value these notions contain to reorient approaches to policy, service
delivery and political intervention to package
specific program initiatives and manage destabilizing social and economic changes.
Corporate enterprises, at the same time, look
to socially inclusive environments to provide
access to the kinds of labour and commodity
markets and investment climates that their own
profitable operations depend on (see, e.g., the
wide range of sources related to inclusion in
O’Brien and de Haan, 1998). There is a danger, in all of these discussions, that fundamental and pervasive social divisions, like class,
gender, and race, are obscured in the search for
a language and policy motivated by solutions
to problems that are created, ultimately, by
much more deeply-rooted social and economic
PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL INCLUSION
3
structural forces.
The dynamic nature of these social and
definitional phenomena suggests that inclusion
and exclusion are not end states, but rather are
processes that are inter-related, multidimensional, and processual in nature, taking various
forms over different times and places (de
Haan, 1999; Klasen, 1999). Since the nature
and boundaries of families, communities,
nations, and other social sites are being
reshaped and redefined, it is difficult to speak
of inclusion into them in any definitive terms.
In these regards, inclusion and exclusion are
not simply opposites to one another or counterparts to social cohesion and disintegration,
respectively. Instead, they have meaning in
relation to specific contexts and practices at
various intersecting levels.
People are called on to participate in
diverse institutional settings at the same time
that they are incorporated into broader collectivities like identity group, local, regional,
national, and global communities. De Haan
(1999: 5) observes that the concept of social
exclusion gains significance when our analysis
extends “beyond mere descriptions of deprivation, and focuses attention on social relations,
the processes and institutions that underlie and
are a part of deprivation” with respect to various types of social groupings and domains.
One way to understand this relational
and dynamic understanding of inclusion and
exclusion is to link it with social differentiation. Social difference, and diversity, does not
in themselves produce inequality, just as inclusion entails more than the right to belong to
an agency or society. We need, here, to focus
on the particular ways in which social conditions and processes of exclusion may contribute to more enduring kinds of marginalization. Juteau (2000: S96), elaborating upon
Silver (1994), emphasizes that social differentiation is a process that leads to exclusion insofar
as “differences are socially constructed through
the unequal access to economic, political, and
cultural resources.” Diversity in itself should
not be regarded as the critical problem or focus
of analysis, since any complex social organization or society may contain within it a broad
range of communities and participatory levels.
Instead, we need to examine the processes
through which particular forms of difference
become more salient than others, give rise to
social boundaries, and contribute to continuing social inequalities (Juteau, 2000: S97).
Concepts of Inclusion and Exclusion in Educational Analysis
A
s in general policy and social analysis,
discourses associated with notions of
inclusion and exclusion in formal
schooling have evolved and gained varying
degrees of prominence over time as the institutional contexts have changed. These trends can
be illustrated in a general way with reference to
thematic summary reporting on journal articles
and reports catalogued in the United States by
the Educational Resources Information Centre
(ERIC) database. Between 1992 and June,
2000, inclusion was identified as a thematic
concern in 2,931 items, and exclusion in 493,
compared with 1,274 references to the former,
and 368 to the latter, in the previous nine year
period. Prior to 1981, references to inclusion
were highly diverse, emphasizing a loose notion
of the concept ranging from the incorporation
of specific topics or material into the curriculum and the construction of test items, to the
integration of particular types of students into
school programs and classrooms. After the
The Dynamics of Social Inclusion: Public Education and Aboriginal People in Canada
4
early 1980s, attention to inclusion in the educational literature came to be dominated by
concern for the integration of students with
physical, learning and developmental disabilities. The literature on exclusion, by contrast,
was more concerned initially with discrimination against specific groups of students or
social participants, directed especially at
racial/visible minorities, as well as gender, sexual orientation, and ability groupings.
Since the mid-1990s, notions of inclusion
also have come to embrace multiple reference
points, including social diversity more generally, as well as issues related to labour market
integration, workplace learning, adult education, and citizenship education. Even the terminology with reference to students with special needs has become more inclusive, moving
from an emphasis on students with disabilities
to a broader concern with special learning
needs that may be physical, developmental, or
even social in nature (OECD, 1997). There
has been a parallel shift in programming and
teaching arrangements for students with special
needs, from a focus on integration (concerned
with providing opportunities for those students
to participate in and be exposed to other students in regular school settings, although often
in special groupings) to one on inclusion (concerned in providing, as much as possible, common programs and experiences within the
same classrooms) (Baxter and Read, 1999: 67). Many recent definitions of disability-related
inclusion can be read to encompass all types of
students. Ainscow (1999), for instance, defines
inclusion as “a process of increasing the participation of pupils in, and reducing their exclusion from, school curricula, cultures and communities.” Similarly, Dei et al. (2000: 13), with
particular reference to pupils from minority
backgrounds, approaches inclusive schooling
from the perspective that “a school is inclusive
if every student is able to identify and connect
with the school’s social environment, cultural
and organizational life.”
The educational literature, in short,
encompasses diverse conceptions of inclusion.
Inclusion is understood narrowly with respect
to specific populations or groups of learners,
such as the disabled or visible minorities, as
well as more broadly with regard to its
prospects to incorporate children and youth
from all social backgrounds. Schooling and
education-related variables (such as readiness to
learn, school attendance, educational attainment, behavioural problems, and relations with
others in school) are also becoming more
prevalent in wider policy discussions and
strategies regarding inclusion and exclusion,
particularly with respect to children and youth
(Evans et al., 2001; Klasen, 1998). In subsequent sections, the paper explores linkages
among these varying levels of inclusion, and
points to key debates and mechanisms that
affect schooling’s ability to become a more
inclusive institution, before considering more
concrete examples of how these dynamics operate and affect specific groups.
Public Schools as Socially Inclusive Agencies
T
he realm of education illustrates how
inclusion can be meaningful as an outcome as well as a process. Public
schooling is of substantial interest in considerations of inclusion and exclusion because of its
central role in the transitions that individuals
undergo through their life cycles. Schooling is
both a site defined by its ability to include and
involve nearly all children and youth, and a
gateway for inclusion into broader social ven-
PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL INCLUSION
5
ues as people become engaged in diverse roles
such as citizens, workers, and consumers. In
these regards, schooling is widely understood as
an integrative force, providing people with a
common base of values, knowledge and skills
to enable them to participate effectively in key
social realms. Beyond these basic functions,
formal education has gained currency as public
emphasis on an emerging “knowledge-based
economy” and “learning society” stresses the
importance of formal learning and credentials
as tools for social survival and economic
advancement. At the same time, the school’s
traditional role as an intermediary agency in
the linear transition from home into the workforce has been replaced by awareness that people undergo multiple transitions throughout
their lives. The norm, for many people, now
involves periodic disjunctures, sometimes
accompanied by strains and conflicting expectations, among schooling, work, domestic and
family life, community participation, and other
personal and public commitments (see, e.g.,
Anisef and Axelrod, 1993; Frederick, 1995).
Social inclusion, in these regards, does
not simply signify that people are able to participate or be integrated in any given sphere. It
requires, additionally, assurances that they will
have the autonomy, resources and capacity to
respond to and manage potentially competing
demands across crucial sectors of social involvement. Factors such as poverty, language or literacy barriers, racial discrimination, illness, disability, and inadequate child care or housing,
for instance, pose difficulties that can undermine people’s ability to find and maintain
quality employment, attend to their children’s
school-related problems, or become fully
engaged in community activities. These factors,
in turn, tend to have multiplicative and intergenerational effects. Children who are born
into poor households, for instance, are frequently likely to experience health, educational
and social problems, as well as to live in condi-
tions of economic instability or poverty later in
life.
The parallel themes of life transitions and
multiple spheres of inclusion suggest the
importance of understanding that inclusion
and exclusion manifest themselves as both transitional and more enduring phenomena.
Children may experience temporary exclusion
from schools or school-related activities for various reasons, such as periodic school absences
due to illness, movement from one school or
district to another, migration across provinces
or nations, parental breakup and family reconstitution, or particular difficulties with teachers
or peers. Many of these disruptions, however
serious they may be at a given time, are not
likely to have any long-term significance and
may, in fact, have some benefits by fostering
resiliency and adaptation to change.
Conversely, apparently trivial school-based or
education-related practices may contribute to
alienation, dropping out, failure, or limited
educational attainment to an extent that individuals’ life chances are adversely affected by
exclusion from education or from social opportunities and pathways that rely upon educational credentials.
The analysis of students who leave school
before graduating, despite widespread information about the critical importance of education
to social and economic success, is instructive in
this regard. Considerable recent attention has
been paid to creating a profile of the typical
dropout, based on assessment of various categories of “at risk” characteristics among children or youth and their families. Those from
backgrounds that include at least one key factor such as poverty, home-related health or
emotional problems, lack of fluency in English
or French, Aboriginal status, or having a single
parent or learning disability, have the highest
risk of failing to graduate from school or experiencing later life problems; this probability is
The Dynamics of Social Inclusion: Public Education and Aboriginal People in Canada
6
increased by exposure to multiple “risk” factors
(OECD, 1998; Schwartz et al., 1998: 72-74).
The literature on “at risk” learners has demonstrated how critical it is for schools to pay
attention to social and family conditions, as
these can be demonstrated to have a significant
impact on school attendance, performance,
and outcomes. Moreover, by virtue both of
more all-encompassing definitions and demographic and social factors, the overall proportions of students who fall into these risk categories are increasing and likely to grow even
further in the near future (Wotherspoon and
Schissel, 2000b). Despite the impact of
“cumulative disadvantage,” though, the majority of students in these categories do complete
school successfully, and many early school
leavers eventually return to complete their
schooling or attain other educational credentials (Gilbert et al., 1993; Gilbert and Frank,
1998: 15-16). We need, in other words, to pay
attention to how and why indicators associated
with risk and disadvantage are differentially
translated into particular outcomes in students’
lives.
Recent studies that employ life course
theory have been useful, in these regards,
demonstrating that the pathways that lead
individuals through and out of school are long
and circuitous. Family and early childhood
experiences interlock with school processes,
social support networks, and personal actions
(or in many cases failure to act) based on an
assessment of labour market options, social
futures, and individual preferences (Anisef et
al., 2000). These insights enable us to shift
analytical and policy focus from a concern
with faulty or deficient background characteristics in the home and family to an understanding of the mutually interdependent relationships and processes that contribute to differential social outcomes. Lareau and Horvat
(1999: 37) suggest in these regards the value of
understanding educational inequality in terms
of “moments” of inclusion or exclusion. That
is, even though there are demonstrated patterns of inequality at the social or collective
level, there is no readily discernable equation
or set of factors to indicate which individuals
will or will not complete their schooling successfully. Rather, educational advantage and
disadvantage are realized through the complex
interactions that occur among social contexts;
institutional requirements and responses;
social, fiscal and cultural resources; and the relative ability of learners and their families to
draw effectively upon such resources. As the
kinds of social and economic transformations
that produce “disruptions” and polarization in
school and family life become increasingly
more prevalent, as the numbers and proportion
of children and youth in designated “at risk”
categories expand, and amidst growing uncertainty associated with life transition processes,
it becomes more critical then ever to explore
how schools can become agencies that foster
inclusion rather than exclusion, as well as to
consider schools’ contradictory role in these
processes.
The Shifting Boundaries of Inclusion in Public Schooling
C
hanging conceptions of social inclusion
and the range of phenomena that it
embraces are strongly aligned with
shifting notions of the role and nature of public schooling. One way to illustrate this is with
respect to notions of equality of educational
opportunity. Coleman (1968) outlines how the
idea of equality of (as opposed to differentiated) educational opportunity has accompanied
transformations in the social positions occu-
PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL INCLUSION
7
pied by children in democratic societies. He
argues that the state’s role has become reoriented since the nineteenth century from relatively
passive expectations that it provide common,
tax-supported educational services for children
from all class backgrounds to more active
efforts to reduce out-of-school inequalities and
promote equality of results.
Viewed in this way, a longstanding objective of public schooling has been the incorporation or inclusion of students from diverse
backgrounds in order to provide at least some
common social and curricular experiences. As
public institutions, schools were promoted by
early reformers as agencies concerned simultaneously with ensuring that children had access
to basic knowledge and training, and with fostering values, habits, morals, and loyalties
deemed through the state to be socially necessary public virtues (Klasen, 1999; Corrigan,
Curtis and Lanning, 1987). From this baseline,
schools’ roles expanded as they devoted greater
attention to such concerns as vocational and
professional skills, legitimate credential-granting authority, and the enhancement of capacities related to emerging political, social, economic, or cultural concerns (Wotherspoon,
1998b).
Empirical evidence over a long period of
time points to significant achievements by
Canadian public education systems towards
fostering inclusivity as both an outcome and a
process. Guppy and Davies (1998: 4-19) highlight several indicators that reveal the extent to
which increasing proportions of the population
are attaining rising levels of formal education.
Whereas at the time of Confederation only 41
percent of registered school-age children
attended school on a daily basis, regular school
attendance was a near-universal experience
among Canadian children by the 1930s while,
by the late 1960s, youth aged 14 to 17 were
also attending schools on a daily basis.
Between 1951 and 1996, the proportion of
Canadians aged 15 and over with less than
grade nine declined from 51.9 percent to 12.1
percent, while corresponding figures for those
with a university degree increased from 1.9
percent to 13.3 percent (Guppy and Davies,
1998: 19; Statistics Canada, 2001). During
this time frame, inclusiveness has been further
enhanced by fiscal and administrative policies,
such as the massive expansion of educational
facilities and programs, and equalization
schemes to transfer school funding from
provincial governments to school districts.
These trends signify the powerful impact
that educational growth has had for nearly all
segments of the population. Some of the most
positive developments are observed among
groups that previously have had minimal access
to the full range of educational opportunities
and the social and economic benefits associated
with formal credentials. The expansion of education systems and the provision of new educational and labour market opportunities has
been accompanied by a gradual tendency for
educational inequalities based on social origins
such as class, racial background, region, and
most notably gender, to decline. By the end of
the twentieth century, for instance, women’s
enrollment and attainment in nearly every level
of formal education outpaced that of men,
while immigrants had higher levels of education, on average, than did persons born in
Canada (Guppy and Arai, 1993; Wotherspoon,
2000: 259-263).
These transformations reflect the combined impact of social policy and economic
and social forces. Compulsory school attendance legislation, amended over time to lower
the age of school entry and raise the mandatory minimum school leaving age, has extended
the period of dependency and exposure to
public services for nearly all children and
youth. Selective immigration policy tailored
increasingly to target the importation of highly
qualified and skilled labour has contributed to
The Dynamics of Social Inclusion: Public Education and Aboriginal People in Canada
8
rising educational attainment among immigrants, who in turn reveal high levels of investment in the education of their children.
Changing occupational structures, with job
growth concentrated in white collar, professional and clerical positions, in conjunction
with shifts in demographic and family patterns,
have created unprecedented opportunities for
women, immigrants, and other non-traditional
labour market entrants to secure work based to
a substantial extent on educational qualifications. Policies to promote the inclusion of students with physical and learning disabilities,
various “stay in school” initiatives, and other
programs targeted to meet the needs of “at
risk” children and youth have further positioned school systems to improve both educational attainments and the quality of educational experiences among groups of learners
that previously were not expected to have long
educational careers. Educational programming
and policy developments have also contributed
to the introduction of curricula, courses, activities, and supporting resources that promote
inclusion by acknowledging the needs, histories
and experiences of many of these groups. In
short, public schooling has made significant
strides in the direction of promoting inclusion
among constituencies that typically have been
excluded or marginalized from full participation in schooling and thereby from the social
and economic benefits arising from education.
Despite these gains, it is important to
recognize the presence of boundaries and
obstacles that limit the effectiveness of schools
to operate as agencies to foster inclusion. These
include questions about who is eligible for
inclusion (both into particular educational levels and practices, and through social benefits
derived from schooling) and the conditions
under which they can be included. Basil
Bernstein (1971: 198) expresses these concerns
in his succinct characterization of schooling
and other institutions that contribute to social-
ization as “a process for making people safe.”
Schools mediate citizenship, identity, values,
skills, and other crucial bases of social and economic participation. Notions of who is eligible
for citizenship rights, access to post-secondary
education, and other social opportunities,
along with expectations about the “good” citizen, student, immigrant, worker, educated person, and so on, vary from one time and place
to another. Moreover, these definitions and
boundaries are not neutral. As the product of
power struggles, they typically are managed
through the state or other central agencies
under the guise of cultivating and maintaining
stable, cohesive societies. Nonetheless, the task
also involves moral and political choices or
selectivity regarding the standards and norms
that signify inclusion. This understanding, in
the form of political accommodation to local
and sectoral interests, is one of the key reasons
why education in Canada was placed under the
constitutional jurisdiction of provincial governments (Stamp, 1977: 31-32), a factor that will
be discussed later in terms of its policy complications.
Claims made by several groups, supported
in many cases by substantial evidence, highlight the continuing presence within schooling
of dynamics and outcomes associated with
social exclusion rather than inclusion.
Important educational programs, and the occupational paths that they lead to, remain
marked by segregation and inequalities of gender and class. First Nations and other
Aboriginal people highlight the presence of a
significant “education gap” in their experiences,
linked, in turn, with both employment and
income gaps marked by restricted opportunities to gain access to important social and economic positions relative to the general population. Recent immigrant groups and visible
minority Canadians advocate aggressive antiracist education strategies in order to overcome
persistent, sometimes covert, forms of racism
PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL INCLUSION
9
and educational and occupational discrimination. Many educators and parents of special
needs students point to the failure of integration strategies to ensure that education will
offer these students a proper grounding for
equitable life chances. Frustrations over the lack
of educational options for vocational training
and post-secondary education expressed by
community members in remote areas and small
towns are intensified as elementary and secondary schools are shut down or consolidated.
Children and youth, in general, have few
opportunities to participate in educational
decision-making or to promote the introduction of curricula that are meaningful to their
immediate circumstances (Federation of
Saskatchewan Indian Nations, 1997: 87-90;
Guppy and Davies, 1998: 61ff.; Wotherspoon,
1998a: 137-138; Wotherspoon, 1998b: 162192; Wotherspoon, 2000).
Education systems, then, are marked by
dynamics that contribute variously to both
social inclusion and exclusion. Before these
processes are examined with reference to their
differential impact on specific groups of children and youth (and Aboriginal people in particular), it is useful to draw attention to some
of the main contextual factors that affect the
relative ability education systems have to
respond to particular groups, needs or interests.
The Creation of Inclusive “Spaces” within Educational Environments
E
lementary and secondary education has
been characterized by some commentators as one of the two remaining major
universal social programs in Canada (see, e.g.,
Rice and Prince, 2000: 169). However, public
education, like its counterpart, medicare, is in
jeopardy of having that status undermined as
funding decisions, lobbying by selected interests, and parental decisions place pressures on
provincial/territorial governments to provide
support for private schooling, charter schools,
and other alternatives to the public school system. The normative and substantive dimensions of debates over public versus private
schooling, and the impact of each type of
schooling, carry tremendous significance for
questions related to social inclusion.
The achievement of truly inclusive
schools, in recognition of these circumstances,
warrants attention to several interdependent
areas of concern, covering several policy and
administrative domains. Freiler (2001) develops a framework in which social inclusion is
understood in terms of the complex interplay
among four overlapping dimensions:
spatial/locational (involving social and physical
boundaries, social distance, and public spaces),
relational (involving social and personal relationships, notions of self in relation to others,
recognition, and solidarity), functional/developmental (involving processes of human development and capabilty enhancement); and
political (involving power, participation, and
agency). Virtually all of these dimensions and
elements interact with one another within education and the social arrangements within
which schooling operates.
Ideologies and practices that emphasize
individuality and competition pose dangers to
schooling’s ability to ensure that all children
have access to sufficient resources and opportunities for meaningful participation in critical
spheres of contemporary social life. This
understanding builds upon a rights- or capability-based notion of inclusion based on full
integration into social participation, to encom-
The Dynamics of Social Inclusion: Public Education and Aboriginal People in Canada
10
pass substantive concerns that people will have
real prospects to achieve meaningful work,
experience an adequate quality of life, and have
individual and community autonomy to make
important life decisions.
Most school participants, once they overcome initial anxieties or doubts they may have
about going to school or entering new classroom environments, accept schooling as a central part of the unquestioned daily routine of
their early life experience. However, schools
can reinforce, or be in their own rights,
uncomfortable or unwelcome environments for
many children and youth. Schools that do not
function as inclusive “spaces” which actively
ensure that participants are engaged with a
sense of well-being can function as barriers to
social participation and contribute to social
exclusion.
Issues about the kinds of “spaces” that
schools are tend to be most prominent when
associated with explosive phenomena like bullying, victimization or violence. Although often
posed in graphic terms around rising public
concern about youth crime and diminishing
school discipline, these problems have also
drawn attention to the role that safe and supportive physical environments play as a precondition for cognitive and social learning (Craig,
Peters and Konarski, 1998; Schissel, 1997).
Just as family and community environments
are critical sites that, ideally, allow children to
develop their identities and gain competence to
make choices and function effectively in varied
social situations, schools are expected to complement and extend these by exposing children
to new experiences and capabilities. Children
require and look to schools as sites that provide
safe spaces that will facilitate social activity and
learning in the absence of threats to their physical and emotional well-being.
In its most blatant forms (such as the
residential schooling experience for earlier gen-
erations of Aboriginal people, that will be commented on later), schooling has sometimes represented a hostile presence in the lives and
communities of selected social groups.
However, there are several variants in the manner in which schools can fail to be safe or
inclusive spaces for other participants. These
processes can be visible and direct. For example, students may be subjected to verbal taunting or threats, or singled out based on their
appearance, dress or mannerisms; schools may
be located in neighbourhoods in which many
children have to walk through unsafe areas (or,
conversely, students may be forced to attend
schools in environments in which they are perceived as outsiders); while curricula, materials
or discussions may perpetuate gender or racial
stereotypes. Mechanisms that exclude, isolate,
or pose threats to children and youth, though,
tend to have a powerful impact when they are
indirect or less visible. Class, gender and racial
segmentation typically are reinforced through
practices and signals conveyed in administrative arrangements, classroom organization, student placement and assessment procedures,
and many other supposedly neutral aspects of
the shcooling process. Proponents of anti-racist
education, for instance, demonstrate that racial
discrimination is reinforced when schools do
not adopt a more active stance to combat
underlying structural mechanisms that lead to
systemic disadvantage (Dei et al., 2000).
Silencing is one of the most serious exclusionary processes within schooling. Through
silencing, selected issues are left out of classroom consideration relative to curricular matters regarded as more valid or legitimate, or else
positions or circumstances that are central to
participants’ lives are undermined or ignored
(Wotherspoon, 1998b: 95-97). School knowledge is typically presented to students as part
of a natural or universally-sanctioned order
rather than as something that has been selected
from a range of options. Contemporary educa-
PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL INCLUSION
11
tors have become increasingly sensitive to the
need for discussion, critical reflection and
diverse curricular materials that reflect currency
with relevant issues. Still, many topics, such as
poverty, sexuality, racism, cultural diversity, or
even social inclusion/exclusion themselves, are
dismissed as being too controversial, or else
incorporated into schooling in an incidental
manner. However, children and youth of nearly
all ages tend to be highly aware of and interested in these concerns, in many cases reflecting
life conditions that affect their identities,
school participation, and ability to connect
schooling with life beyond school.
Practices linked to silencing also affect the
relative ability of particular groups to represent
themselves within schooling and educational
decision-making. Children and youth are rarely
accorded a voice in making crucial decisions
about how schools are organized, what kinds of
programs are offered, and in the determination
of priorities to guide future educational planning. Children’s interests may be selectively
served when parents and community members
from minority backgrounds feel ill-equipped,
lack confidence, or encounter language, social
class, fiscal, or cultural barriers in approaching
teachers and school officials. Patterns of political representation on school boards, legislative
assemblies, and other key educational decisionmaking bodies also reveal significant under-representation, and therefore absence of effective
voice, among the poor, Aboriginal people, visible minorities, recent immigrants, and other
minority groups.
Schools’ failure to take these matters seriously can produce two interrelated kinds of
responses. First, students from backgrounds
that are not acknowledged or validated in the
delivery of curriculum and other educational
services may interpret their own identities, families or communities in terms of a deficit, leading either to uncertainty and confusion about
their home environment or to personalization
of failure or effort without any broader social
support. Second, disillusionment with or disengagement from educational processes may follow as students or their parents come to view
schooling as irrelevant or unsympathetic to
their lives and interests.
By contrast, there are advantages beyond
simply keeping children interested in and
attending school when educational practices are
based upon acceptance of students’ backgrounds and needs. There is growing awareness
of what Livingstone (1999) calls the “icebergs”
of hidden informal learning activities, skills and
capacities for which people are not given formal credit or recognition. There has been
recent impetus towards acknowledging more
formally some of these capabilities as employers
look more selectively at matching particular
skill sets with potential workers, and as individuals become more enterprising in their search
for social and economic opportunities. Such
initiatives include Prior Learning Assessment
and Recognition programs, movements to
acknowledge and advance indigenous knowledge systems, and more liberal assessments of
credentials held by foreign-trained individuals.
However, these processes remain selective and
incomplete, tending to privilege those groups
that have sufficient resources or organizational
capacity to assert their cases. Moreover, limited
attention so far has been paid by educators,
policy-makers and researchers to the hidden
reserves of knowledge and capabilities that children and youth possess, both in general, and
especially among minorities and other groups
that are considered to be “at risk” for various
reasons. Attentiveness to these issues offers
schools the opportunity to provide curricula,
assessment and programming reforms built
around a broader, rather than narrower, range
of competencies and expectations.
In summary, many of the difficulties
that students encounter or bring with them
into schools are situational and temporary.
The Dynamics of Social Inclusion: Public Education and Aboriginal People in Canada
12
However, both direct threats to student wellbeing and less visible but systemic processes of
marginalization and exclusion constitute for
many children and youth serious impediments
to their longer-term socioeconomic participation and entitlement. Obviously, the broad
range of potential problem factors, combined
with the diversity of students in most Canadian
school jurisdictions, make it difficult for school
authorities to monitor and respond to all possible instances of student exclusion. Nonetheless,
it is crucial that social inclusion in schooling be
approached proactively, reaching beyond the
most obvious factors like encouragement of
student involvement in particular activities and
programs.
What is required is an orientation to all
school-related activities that begins by validating, and responding to the social circumstances
of, the students and communities served by the
schools. This point is highlighted in literature
on “exemplary schools,” where it is demonstrated that there is no single formula or template
to determine school success. Nonetheless, the
most effective schools are those that do much
more than fulfill their basic academic, developmental, affective, and credential-related mandates. Significantly, they are repeatedly
described as places imbued with characteristics
like “spirit of caring,” “warmth and openness,”
an “ethos of belonging and support,” and
opportunities for student and community voice
(Gaskell, 1995: 85; Renihan et al., 1994: 100).
The importance of these dimensions is illustrated, below, in a discussion of the dynamics
of inclusion and exculsion with reference to
Aboriginal people.
Inclusive Schooling: Canada’s Aboriginal People
A
boriginal people’s relationships with
formal schooling provide an instructive
case study for the examination of some
of the central dynamics of inclusion and exclusion discussed so far. Education continues to
hold a paradoxical status for many Aboriginal
people. It has figured prominently in their historical subordination and marginalization relative to other Canadians, yet it is looked upon
as a central vehicle for successful integration
into mainstream and self-governed enterprises.
Aboriginal people experience incidences associated with “disadvantage,” such as rates of
poverty, child poverty, unemployment, low
income and education, disability, single parenthood, and homelessness, that are far in excess
of Canadian averages (Royal Commission on
Aboriginal Peoples, 1996; Ontario Federation
of Friendship Centres, 2000; Federation of
Saskatchewan Indian Nations, 1997). Caution
must be exercised in these kinds of observations; Aboriginal people, like other Canadians,
reflect considerable diversity in their legal status, social backgrounds, identities, interests,
experiences, and aspirations, and there are dangers that overemphasis on selective indicators
can perpetuate negative stereotypes and stigmatization. Nonetheless, distinctive features of the
collective historical and contemporary circumstances among the indigenous population offer
an opportunity to consider some of the more
complex (and not always clearly defined) issues
and lessons that arise through efforts to understand and foster social inclusion. Four major
themes will be highlighted in this section – the
potential for socially inclusive strategies to produce exclusion; the need to acknowledge divergent educational jurisdictions; the preconditions for inclusive schooling; and the linkages
between schools and other social settings.
PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL INCLUSION
13
The experience of residential schooling
among Canada’s Aboriginal population provides one of the most obvious examples of how
schools’ failure to provide a supportive environment has contributed to a legacy of social marginalization and economic exclusion. The
irony, of course, is that residential schooling
was implemented as part of the federal government’s policy to assimilate or integrate the
indigenous population – at least at a superficial
level – into Canadian social identities and
institutions. Within the wider policy framework, practices like “enfranchisement” were
accompanied by bans on cultural ceremonies
and strict regulation of everyday life with the
intent to create people who were effectively no
longer “Indian” (Satzewich and Wotherspoon,
2000). Children were separated, physically and
culturally, from their families and community
influences in order to expose them to norms,
behaviours, and patterns oriented to conventional social and economic success. Despite
some countervailing instances, the dominant
outcome of residential schooling has been the
damage the process has inflicted, accompanied
by frequent physical, sexual and emotional
abuse, to both individual lives and subsequent
family and community relationships (Miller,
1996). The schools were actively engaged in a
process to undermine or eradicate First Nations
languages and heritages, utilizing measures like
curricula and work requirements, continual
surveillance, rigid daily regimes, harsh discipline and punishment, and separation of children from their parents and siblings. Only
recently has sustained attention been paid to
the ensuing cultural dissociation or confusion,
with many school survivors and their children
plagued by disturbing personal life experiences
and unstable family dynamics induced by the
residential school process (Royal Commission
on Aboriginal Peoples, 1996). The residential
schooling experience offers a key lesson, for an
understanding of social inclusion, as to how
potentially damaging consequences can follow
extensive separation between schooling (and
the society it represents) and supportive social
contexts required to ground children’s identity,
development and future orientations. It is
against this backdrop that terms like healing
and self-determination reappear as prominent
features in the various initiatives Aboriginal
people have engaged in as they seek to reconstruct and build hope for their lives and communities.
Many observers, even if they do not
dispute the negative assessment of residential
schools’ legacy, may dismiss this experience as
an extreme and isolated case. These issues,
though, do carry implications for other current
educational policy debates. Multicultural, linguistic and race-relations practices tend to be
premised on assumptions that cultural preservation has only a limited place in schools and
other public agencies. Additional programs
(such as English or French language training,
or life skills courses) intended to foster inclusion receive far less attention and resources
than they require to be effective and equitable.
Consequently, many students – often immigrants, those from poor working class families,
core inner-city neigbourhoods, or residents of
remote rural areas – find that schooling simultaneously separates them from their familial
environments and fails to offer them the literacy or academic skills that are critical for full
social and economic participation (Corson,
2000: 173-178).
In addition to these kinds of difficulties,
Aboriginal people frequently encounter schooling as a threatening force because of its powers
as a colonizing force. This is not always evident
insofar as contemporary Aboriginal children
and youth are presented with a distinctly different, and broader, range of educational
options and circumstances than those that were
available to residential school survivors. Two
parallel developments offer Aboriginal people
prospects for improved educational participa-
The Dynamics of Social Inclusion: Public Education and Aboriginal People in Canada
14
tion and achievement, through the emergence
of First Nations self-government, including
band-controlled schooling, along with new initiatives in response to the growth of Aboriginal
student populations in provincial and territorial schools.
Preliminary evidence from band-controlled schooling offers reasons to be moderately optimistic. Overall trends reveal that
Aboriginal controlled schools have yielded
improved student attendance and outcomes, an
increased sense of participation and ownership
among community members, and innovative,
culturally-sensitive programming (Royal
Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1996).
These outcomes are enhancing students’
opportunities to participate in work and further education in both First Nations and nonAboriginal settings. However, First Nations
education is not problem-free, reflecting a
range of difficulties - fiscal, ideological, organizational, and political - arising from a combination of factors both within and outside of
Aboriginal communities. The “landscape” is
thus one characterized by Castellano, Davis
and Lahache (2000: 251) as one “in which
hope and possibility live side by side with constraint and frustration.”
Broader debates and developments concerning self-government are also important.
Failure to acknowledge or understand the distinct legal and historical status of First Nations
people and Aboriginal rights has led some
groups to challenge self-government initiatives,
and others to present competing claims for
parallel recognition of private schools or agencies based upon religion, ethnicity, and other
bases of social distinction. Some critics have
suggested that self-government will contribute
to the balkanization of Canada, or the creation
of racially-based cycles of segregation and
dependency (Flanagan, 2000).
It is clear that efforts to define and
achieve effective self-government are beset by
considerable uncertainty and many problems.
In its most extreme manifestations, band-controlled schooling, along with other forms of
self-determination, could contribute to fragmentation and barriers to the extent that
notions of Aboriginal “distinctiveness” override the capacity to be engaged within
Canadian society more generally. In practice,
however, Aboriginal people tend to approach
self-determination as a strategy by which they
can regain control over and stabilize their lives,
identities and communities. Its intent is directed not at separation and self-exclusion, but
constitutes instead a vital part of a process of
decolonization that is a precondition to ensure
their broader participation in central social
institutions (Battiste, 2000). Aboriginal rights,
self-government and control of education, in
these regards, may be understood more appropriately in terms of the case that Cairns (2000:
9) makes for a conception of “citizens plus,” a
notion that “recognizes the Aboriginal difference fashioned by history and the continuing
desire to resist submergence and also recognizes
our need to feel that we belong to each other.”
The distinct status of indigenous or
Aboriginal rights, in this respect, is of a different order than the case made by proponents of
school “choice” for public support for options
like private or charter schools. The latter case is
parallel to debates over the merits of a two-tier
health care system, where the focus is less on
the guarantee that basic services will be provided for persons who have been denied them,
than on the availability of specific types of
alternatives. Unlike self-government, these
alternatives carry with them the risk of promoting exclusion from the top. That is, public
systems potentially may be undermined
through self-selection out by those who can
afford to pay for higher quality services or who
opt to send their children to higher ranked
schools (Klasen, 1999: 14-15). Aboriginal
PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL INCLUSION
15
rights, by contrast, have a distinct legal basis
grounded in the realities of indigenous people
as “first peoples” with historic occupancy and
use of established lands, combined with distinctive social, cultural and economic formations. Culturally-appropriate schooling, in
these regards, becomes a vital way by which
indigenous people are able to regain a sense of
their own heritage and identities, as a critical
precondition for their ability to achieve and
employ citizenship and social rights that they
have been denied through longer term colonization processes.
It is essential to acknowledge, as well, that
while a majority of First Nations students now
attend band-controlled schools, most children
and youth of Aboriginal ancestry (including
non-status, Métis, and some First Nations people, especially those living off-reserve) remain
in provincial or territorial schools.
Acknowledgement of past failures, combined
with political pressure from Aboriginal communities, has led many school systems to
introduce programs and initiatives intended to
improve their ability to offer appropriate educational services for Aboriginal constituencies.
However, there is a continuing uneasiness as
indigenous people remain sensitive to the likelihood that their heritage is posed in many
ways as a barrier to mainstream success.
Aboriginal children and their parents point to
racism and discrimination, schools’ limited
ability to acknowledge and address their heritage, lack of educational attention to contemporary life conditions, and constrained postschool opportunities in many of their communities as recurrent obstacles to full social participation and inclusion (Royal Commission on
Aboriginal Peoples, 1996; Wotherspoon and
Schissel, 2000a). As a result, they often experience in their homes and communities a lingering distrust of schools and other public institutions.
These processes provide strong evidence
that inclusive education cannot simply be
achieved by dismantling or overcoming exclusionary practices. The achievement of an inclusive “space” requires conditions in which children and youth, and their parents, feel comfortable to become fully engaged as participants rather than received as outsiders or
clients. The extent to which they are socially
included depends upon the opportunities they
are afforded “to create or reclaim relations of
connection” with their heritage, communities,
and independence (Monture-Angus, 1999: 911). Schools need, in these regards, to
acknowledge and incorporate elements of the
students’ cultures and knowledge systems, and
to ensure that appropriate teachers and other
personnel, including those of Aboriginal ancestry, are present as role models, mentors, and
agents who can respond to student needs.
A broader understanding of culture is
necessary in these regards, so that the daily
lives and concerns of students (regardless of
their racial or social backgrounds) become a
central element in what is taught, how it is
taught, and how school is organized. Two
interrelated aspects of Aboriginal “culture” can
be drawn upon to illustrate these points.
First, it is instructive to appreciate the
view within Aboriginal knowledge systems that
children are sacred or “on loan” to families and
communities. Children, therefore, become central to networks of mutual obligation and support, in common with other indigenous
knowledge systems as conveyed in expressions
such as the widely-employed African notion
that “it takes a village to grow a child.” The
child is not commodified as “property” subject
to the investment decisions of any individual
or couple but is regarded, instead, as a collective resource or gift. The ascendancy of more
individualistic or privatized conceptions of
childhood and child development is accompanied by the destruction of community social
relationships built around indigenous concep-
The Dynamics of Social Inclusion: Public Education and Aboriginal People in Canada
16
tions of childhood, family and society. These
processes create not only a conceptual break
that may be jarring to family members, but
may lead, more seriously, to deeper problems
that accompany the loss of social foundations.
In this regard, a second culture-related
issue gains significance, in the sense that
Aboriginal communities contend with personal, material and social circumstances that are
sometimes dismissed simply as individual or
cultural pathologies. Pressing concerns like substance abuse, teen pregnancy, racism, violence,
“street” issues, and the struggle to attain adequate housing and safe water supplies dominate
the lives of students, their family members and
associates in many Aboriginal communities.
However, schools frequently ignore or marginalize the immediacy of these matters, sometimes in order to avoid their highly controversial nature. They are subordinated to curricula
and class discussions that are posed in more
general, abstract and remote terms, and isolated
through special personnel and services that further stigmatize and marginalize selected students by requiring them periodically to leave
the school, classroom or even community.
Clearly, many of these problems require attention in the form of targeted resources, services,
and special program initiatives in the school
and other sites. However, they must also be
acknowledged and integrated more directly as
core issues in both classroom activities and
educational planning.
The distance between school and community, and therefore the possibility that students
will feel and become excluded, increases when
the school “world” is divorced from, and privileged over, the “worlds” that students bring
with them and return to outside of school.
These are not strictly curricular matters. Many
successful schools have responded to their students’ needs through innovations like the
implementation of flexible timetable or assignment schedules, improved school accessibility
to pupils who arrive at different times during
the school year, encouragement for students to
discuss everyday life matters in non-threatening
class environments, youth leadership programs,
and active programs to incorporate elders and
other cultural resource persons within daily
school life. Although structural changes are
often necessary, schools can also have a significant positive impact on students’ school experiences and longer-term trajectories by making
even small modifications. The key for success is
to ensure that the “worlds” of school and student life are complementary and integrated
rather than in opposition to one another.
The Socially Inclusive School: Implications for Educational Practice
T
his paper has been guided by questions
concerning the relationships among the
dynamics of social inclusion and exclusion (as both concepts and social processes),
public schooling, and selected groups of children and youth served by public schooling.
Key factors that variously contribute to, or
impede the development of, inclusive schooling
are summarized below. The paper concludes
with a brief discussion of policy factors that
follow from these issues.
It is argued that themes related to the
analysis of social inclusion and exclusion, both
in general and with respect to schooling, reflect
contradictory meanings and dimensions in
relation to the social contexts in which these
discourses have emerged as central concerns.
Consideration has been given, as well, to how
dynamics within public schooling have contributed to differential forms and degrees of
PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL INCLUSION
17
inclusion and exclusion for children and youth
from diverse social backgrounds, with explicit
reference to critical aspects of Aboriginal people’s experiences with schooling.
Implicit in this discussion is the recognition that notions of inclusion and exclusion,
understood broadly as processes linked to
active social participation and access to meaningful resources and opportunities, are useful
signposts for assessing the ability of public
education systems to achieve their major objectives. This general understanding, it is
acknowledged, must not stand as a substitute
for attentiveness to more specific dimensions
of social participation and forms of inequality.
In these regards, public schooling has retained
and increased its significance as a near-universal social program. It has potential to fulfill its
mandate as an inclusive agency through which
diverse social groups experience social acceptance and gain credentials and opportunities for
other forms of social and economic participation. Nonetheless, it also contributes selectively
to mechanisms of social exclusion through its
internal dynamics, its relations with other
institutions and its own structural limitations.
Acknowledgement of this background is an
important step towards an understanding of
the kinds of practices and arrangements that
may contribute to the achievement of more
socially inclusive forms of schooling.
Inclusive schools are those in which all
students (including non-traditional learners)
have not only the opportunity, but also active
encouragement, guidance and support, to gain
socially valued skills, knowledge, capabilities,
and credentials that are necessary for meaningful social and economic participation.
Internally, inclusive schools attend to a wide
range of needs and capacities carried within
the diverse populations of children and youth
they serve. They equip themselves, by devoting
priority and resources, to offer the physical,
social, cultural, material, and moral supports
essential to ground and complement the basic
learning and higher-order intellectual challenges they are expected to provide for all students. Schools are more inclusive when they
are arranged as “spaces” that provide safe, supportive environments which allow participants
to express and develop themselves in a manner
that, while socially validated and appropriate
to their social backgrounds, is also sensitive to
ambitious aspirations. They are also sites in
which children and youth, as well as their families, are assured a voice that can shape their
educational experiences.
One of the major advantages of public
schooling, relative to privatized and segmented
alternatives, is that it is, ideally, an open, nondiscriminatory agency, even if the reality has
not always matched this objective. The will to
improve upon this record is put to the test as
schooling has expanded to incorporate increasingly more diverse groups of children and
youth, as well as non-traditional learners in
early adulthood. Policy-makers and critics of
public education often fail to take into account
the growing role and responsibility of schools
in a complex society when they make decisions
about resource allocation, accountability, and
educational outcomes. In order to embrace
their growing constituencies, schools need to
be equipped to respond to the periodic transitions that children, youth and their families
experience, as well as to the unequal resources
that families and communities have available
to them to deal with the impact of these transition processes.
Such schools cannot function successfully
without sufficient integration with other policy
domains and agencies that provide services to
children, youth and their families. In a general
sense, there are limits to the extent to which
inclusive schooling can be achieved and maintained in the absence of supportive or inclusive
The Dynamics of Social Inclusion: Public Education and Aboriginal People in Canada
18
communities and societies. Innovations to
implement community schooling and to offer
within the school setting a wide range of onsite services and personnel related to areas such
as nutritional and food programs, health care,
family services, social services, and justice agencies, can contribute substantially to success in
responding directly to student needs. These
arrangements, when guided by service orientations rather than strictly fiscal or managerial
imperatives, can offer the additional advantage
of avoiding unnecessary duplication, gaps or
interventions and aiding in the sharing of useful information, expertise and resources across
agencies. In order to be effective, all of these
activities must complement the ability of
schools to conduct their education and developmental mandates. Their impact will be
undermined when they are regarded simply as
add-ons to an already crowded agenda.
It is important, as well, to remain sensitive
to the roles that teachers are expected to play to
foster inclusion. Teachers’ qualities, degrees of
commitment and actions are important variables in how education comes to be experienced by diverse groups of students. Teaching
and teacher effectiveness are undermined, however, when teachers are not backed by sufficient
system support to enable them to do their jobs,
especially when they are confronted with additional duties and expectations. Teachers are also
centrally situated to play a vital role as advocates for children and youth, and to promote
opportunities for children and youth to voice
their own concerns and interests.
As noted previously, the educational literature and discussions about school improvement are instructive for an understanding of
the conditions that are essential for the creation
of inclusive education. These sources point
repeatedly to the observation that the most successful schools are those that demonstrate the
ability to provide simultaneously a caring, supportive environment, a commitment to high
standards, and a mutually open relationship
with the communities that they serve.
Educational Practices and Policy Context
T
his paper has outlined several structures
and practices that contribute to dynamics of inclusion and exclusion within
formal education. Many of these are specific to
school settings, but they are also conditioned
by and affect the social and political environments in which children and youth live and are
educated. Policy interventions can have an
impact on these general environments, on specific dimensions of education and child, family
and youth services, and on associated agencies
and practices.
Research agenda/data coordination Discussions of the contradictory and complex
nature of education are frustrating from the
perspective of those trying to frame effective
policies. The plural governance and structure of
education systems under provincial jurisdiction
and local or regional administration in Canada
further complicates matters. Nonetheless, as
signified by the emergence of efforts by panCanadian agencies like the Council of
Ministers of Education Canada, there is a
growing commitment to seek common, effective educational policies and strategies.
In this context, action is required to
address one simple but nonetheless fundamental paradox. There is a need to develop more
effective large-scale, systematic databases concerning education and life transitions in
PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL INCLUSION
19
Canada, but there are also hidden riches of
knowledge about educational innovation and
practice across the nation. On the one hand,
major government, policy and funding agencies need to commit support to expand and
supplement cohort analysis and surveys like the
National Longitudinal Survey of Children and
Youth in Canada (NLSCY) in order to
enhance our understanding of education and
its relationships with life course transition
processes. At the same time, there is a wealth
of case studies and localized information about
inclusive schooling and effective educational
practices (defined in terms of how appropriate
they are to the communities they serve) that is
not widely known, shared or utilized beyond
specific participants or districts. In many
instances, this reflects a characteristic feature of
the educational policy cycle, in which significant gaps separate one or more phases in
intended linkages among policy planning,
implementation, and evaluation (Ungerleider,
1999). As Corson (2000: 180) emphasizes,
there is a strong need for policy evaluation
research that can “reveal that policies are
addressing the needs of all the people they aim
to address. It needs to show what has to be
done to improve implementation processes; it
needs to reveal when policies are missing the
mark.”
Central educational organizations (especially education ministries and their national
council) in conjunction with their sectoral
partners (teachers’ unions, trustees’ organizations, and local educational bodies) and relevant federal partners can benefit from targeting
resources to initiate, acknowledge and coordinate research and data bases about education
needs and innovations or initiatives (both those
that work and those that don’t) under their
jurisdiction, and link it with other jurisdictions. In addition, teachers, students, and other
participants tend to be the most ardent advocates for their own activities, and are eager to
share their successes and frustrations with others, with the aid of even modest resources,
opportunities, and platforms. Consequently,
both regional and nation-wide opportunities
for discussion and dissemination of key initiatives, supported by funding to bring together
key participants, would help to promote lesserknown but viable initiatives. As evidence-based
decision-making begins to proliferate in fields
like health care, educational research, policy
and planning tend to remain unsystematic,
underdeveloped, and fragmented in the
absence of active commitment to develop
broader data bases, information sharing, and
research dissemination practices.
Schools as bases for integrated services –
Continuing attention is required by governments and other agencies to alternatives to promote greater coordination among schools and
other agencies, and to link programs and services for children and youth at both federal and
provincial levels. While the experience of
school-related integration has been mixed, considerable potential remains for schools to operate as home bases for, or centrally located within, clusters of services that reach students and
their families. Several program areas, such as
social services, physical and mental health care,
justice, family services, early child care, and
employment-related services, are integrally
related to both school programs and child and
family needs. Integrated services can be effective insofar as they reduce duplication of or
gaps in services when they are situated in or
adjacent to school facilities. However, continuous contact, flexible divisions of labour, and
resource-related decisions must be negotiated
among all participating agencies and their personnel. One of the key lessons derived from
recent integration-related initiatives is that success tends to flow from the activities that
emerge among teachers, educational administrators, front-line service workers, and community members at the school or local level,
The Dynamics of Social Inclusion: Public Education and Aboriginal People in Canada
20
rather than dictates from central authorities
(two Saskatchewan initiatives – the
Community Schools and Integrated SchoolLinked Services programs – offer instructive
examples; see
http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/k/pecs/community/index.html).
Commitment to universal public education with targeted services – Public schooling
remains a cornerstone of universal social programming in Canada. In this capacity, it provides unique opportunities as well as special
challenges. Governments and external agencies
have not always resisted the temptation to look
to schools as the point of entry for new programs and services targeted to children, youth
and their families, sometimes to the point of
overloading expectations and workloads. At the
same time, governments have faced mounting
pressure to support and finance private schools
and other alternatives in response to criticisms
about standards, accountability, values, learning outcomes, and school climate in public
education systems. Clearly, public school systems must become more flexible in the ways
that education is conceptualized, arranged and
delivered, in order to meet the needs of diverse
communities of learners.
As this paper has emphasized, schools
have had considerable success in becoming
agents of inclusion and diversity despite their
limitations. Government commitment to public education remains one of the most powerful
tools by which social exclusion of various
forms can be combatted. Within this broad
framework, which is essential to bring together
children and youth from diverse social backgrounds and provide some common bases of
experience and understanding, there remains
scope to meet more specific community and
individual needs. Two levels of policy intervention are critical. At the foundational level, public funding for schooling must be maintained
and priority given to ensure that quality educational services are made accessible and responsive to all children, youth, and adult learners.
At a more targeted or strategic level, special
attention, investment and programs must be
available for learners who experence particular
difficulties during key life course transitions.
The research and data collation tasks outlined
above can be useful in documenting the relative success of existing programs and identifying further needs.
Flexibility and targeting within universality - Several specific policy initiatives can be
employed in education and other areas to promote social inclusion among children and their
families. It has already been observed that
schools can often ensure greater flexibility and
responsiveness to the communities they serve
through even minor modifications to curricula,
programming, and organizational arrangements, without sacrificing quality. Education
ministries need to balance their rush to gauge
educational quality through elusive and incomplete indicators and standardized testing with
innovations that allow schools to reflect a
“sense of place.” Schools that are concerned to
prepare citizens and workers for a global world
must be given latitude and incentives, as well,
to contribute to the viability and development
of the local populations and the communities
in which they are located (Wotherspoon,
1998a: 133). The most successful band-controlled schools in First Nations communities
constitute notable examples of how these tasks
can be accomplished with the cooperation of
local and external agencies.
Schools that are sensitive to these needs
have been able to foster inclusion and participation in a variety of ways. They have, for
instance, instituted alternative arrangements
for the use of school time, classroom organization, and facilities; offered programs and services to accommodate special needs students
PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL INCLUSION
21
like teen parents or youth without homes or
familial support; offered students direct opportunities for peer mentorship and voice in
school planning; introduced programs to counteract discrimination and violence; and
engaged students in the community, and community members in the classroom on a regular
basis. Provisions to increase effective community input into and involvement in schooling
(not simply during school hours or in school
facilities) has the dual advantage of enabling
schools to benefit from often-overlooked community resources and counteracting the criticism that public schools do not allow for the
kinds of parental choice that market-based
solutions offer.
Linkages between education and the
wider policy environment – It is necessary to
acknowledge in educational policy the context
within which public schooling operates and the
limitations of what schooling can accomplish
on its own. There are limited benefits to
increased levels of educational credentials, for
instance, in the absence of macroeconomic policy strategies that promote a target of full
employment either nationally or regionally.
Public funding for, and universal access to, a
full range of health care, education and training, income support, and social programs and
services is necessary to ensure equitable entitlements for all members of these populations,
with guarantees that comparable services will
exist across provinces, territories and regions.
These measures require both a political commitment to core principles and cooperation
among federal, provincial, municipal, and
Aboriginal governments.
It should be emphasized, finally, that a
strong base of support for these kinds of recommendations already exists in many academic, policy, educational, and community bodies.
Participants at a National Conference on
Investing in Children, sponsored by Human
Resources Development Canada (1999: 43) to
examine findings from the National
Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth,
for instance, point to the need for “an interdisciplinary, holistic approach to social and educational policy,” integrating services both within
the education system and in areas like familyfriendly workplaces, supportive neighbourhoods, and support for low-income families.
Policy-makers and educational planners who
are inclined to heed periodic cries of crises of
confidence in public education and the need to
“fix a broken system” need also to recognize
that parents and others with close experiences
tend to hold relatively high levels of satisfaction
with their children’s schools (Livingstone and
Hart, 2001: 8-9; Wotherspoon, 1998: 136137). Clearly, educational changes are necessary, though not as drastic as the most ardent
critics maintain. In this, it is important to
ensure that open public discussion is initiated
and sustained in order to consider broadly how
processes of social inclusion and exclusion
operate within education and related social systems. Commitment to the achievement of
socially inclusive societies and institutions is a
political, as well as a moral and technical, issue.
The Dynamics of Social Inclusion: Public Education and Aboriginal People in Canada
22
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The Dynamics of Social Inclusion: Public Education and Aboriginal People in Canada
26
PERSPECTIVES ON
SOCIAL INCLUSION
WORKING
P A P E R
S E R I E S
PUBLISHED IN 2002
Clyde Hertzman —
Leave No Child Behind! Social Exclusion and Child
Development
Dow Marmur —
Ethical Reflections on Social Inclusion
Andrew Jackson and
Katherine Scott —
Does Work Include Children? The Effects of the Labour
Market on Family Income, Time, and Stress
Michael Bach —
Social Inclusion as Solidarity: Re-thinking the Child
Rights Agenda
Martha Friendly and
Donna Lero —
Social inclusion for Canadian Children through
Meg Luxton —
Feminist Perspectives on Social Inclusion and
Children’s Well-Being
Early Childhood Education and Care
Terry Wotherspoon — The Dynamics of Social Inclusion: Public Education
and Aboriginal People in Canada
Peter Donnelly and
Jay Coakley —
The Role of Recreation in Promoting Social Inclusion
Andrew Mitchell and
Richard Shillington — Poverty, Inequality, and Social Inclusion
Catherine Frazee — Thumbs Up! Inclusion, Rights and Equality as
Experienced by Youth with Disabilities
Anver Saloojee —
Ratna Omidvar and
Ted Richmond —
Social Inclusion, Anti-Racism and Democratic
Citizenship
Immigrant Settlement and Social Inclusion in Canada
The full papers (in English only) and the summaries in French and
English can be downloaded from the Laidlaw Foundation’s
web site at www.laidlawfdn.org under Children’s Agenda/
Working Paper Series on Social Inclusion
or
ordered from [email protected]
Price: $11.00 full paper; $6.00 Summaries
(Taxes do not apply and shipment included).