The school community’s role in educating for responsibility for inclusion

Abstract

Malta was one of the first countries to introduce inclusive education and welcome pupils with disabilities in mainstream schools. However, the notion of inclusion does not only refer to persons with disabilities but rather aims to include everyone, people with different origins, gender, religions, sexual orientations, social and economic statuses, migrants and others, through active involvement in community life without any discrimination. The operations necessary for such an undertaking require a lot of effort and commitment. It is the responsibility of every school community to include every student. This research study, therefore, develops a deep understanding of responsibility for inclusion and how it is imparted to others, using mainly the literary works of great philosophers like Emmanuel Levinas, Hannah Arendt and Paolo Freire. Furthermore, this study examines the present situation in Maltese schools to verify whether the school communities educate towards responsibility for inclusion, ethical values and attitudes and how they engage in this process. A qualitative inquiry was chosen during this study. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with principals and headteachers of state, church and independent school communities. The findings of different school types were analysed separately using thematic analysis. Hence, an overview of the current situation in Maltese schools related to responsibility for inclusion was developed and presented in this paper. Moreover, the main recent policy documents are evaluated in this study in light of responsibility for inclusion.