Inside the ‘Inclusive’ Childhood Classroom: The Power of the
‘Normal’ offers a critique of current practices and alternative
view of inclusion. The rich data created inside three classrooms will
challenge those who work in the field, as the children and their
performances, previously overlooked, are foreground. Although at times
confronting, it is ultimately invaluable reading for classroom
teachers, students, academics, and researchers as well as anyone who
desires to deepen their understanding of inclusive processes. The
inclusion of children with diagnosed special needs in mainstream early
childhood classrooms is a policy and practice that has gained
universal support in recent decades. Exploring ways to include the
diagnosed child has been of interest to inclusive research. Adopting a
poststructural perspective, this book interrupts taken for granted
assumptions about inclusive processes in the classroom. Attention is
drawn to the role played by the undiagnosed children, those positioned
as already included. Researching among children, this ethnography
interrogates the production of the classroom ‘normal’. As the
children negotiate difference, the operations of the ‘normal’ are
made visible in their words and actions. In their encounters with the
diagnosed Other, they take up practices of tolerance and silence,
effecting fear, separation, and a desire to cure. These performances
echo practices, presumed abandoned, from centuries past. As a way
forward this book urges a rethink of practice-as-usual, as these
effects are problematic for inclusion and not sustainable. A greater
scrutiny of the ‘normal’ is needed, as the power it exercises,
impacts on all children and how they become subjects in the classroom.
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The Power of the 'Normal'
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781433140372
Publisert
2022
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter