This article was downloaded by: [University of Notre Dame Australia] On: 17 May 2013, At: 15:33 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK International Studies in Sociology of Education Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/riss20 Inclusive education policies and the feasibility of educational change: the case of Cyprus Anastasia Liasidou a a Roehampton University, London, UK Published online: 19 Nov 2007. To cite this article: Anastasia Liasidou (2007): Inclusive education policies and the feasibility of educational change: the case of Cyprus, International Studies in Sociology of Education, 17:4, 329-347 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09620210701666972 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and- conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
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This article was downloaded by: [University of Notre Dame Australia]On: 17 May 2013, At: 15:33Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
International Studies in Sociology ofEducationPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/riss20
Inclusive education policies and thefeasibility of educational change: thecase of CyprusAnastasia Liasidou aa Roehampton University, London, UKPublished online: 19 Nov 2007.
To cite this article: Anastasia Liasidou (2007): Inclusive education policies and the feasibility ofeducational change: the case of Cyprus, International Studies in Sociology of Education, 17:4,329-347
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09620210701666972
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representationthat the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of anyinstructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primarysources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings,demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly orindirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Inclusive education policies and the feasibility of educational change: the case of CyprusAnastasia Liasidou*Roehampton University, London, UKTaylor and FrancisRISS_A_266540.sgm10.1080/09620210701666972International Studies in Sociology of Education0962-1214 (print)/1747-5066 (online)Original Article2007Taylor & Francis174000000December [email protected]
Given the ecumenical pleas and legislative imperatives for more inclusive educational policy andpractice, Cyprus has been steadfastly heading towards the realignment of its educational legislationtowards a more inclusive discourse. This has been especially true after the implacable criticisms thatthe UNESCO report cast on the Cyprus educational system in 1997. After that there were, amongother things, co-ordinated efforts to accelerate the voting of the 1999 Special Educational Law thatproclaimed the rights of disabled children to be educated along with their peers in mainstreamclassrooms. It is evident, however, that by no means can the theorisation of educational change beconfined to the legislative attempts and their consequences. Rather, the attempts towardseducational change should encompass the structural as well as the ideological bases upon which theeducation system is predicated. The official legislation constitutes a single parameter of theentangled network of interconnections and interdependencies underpinning special educationpolicy and practice. Change is based on an array of factors permeating both agents and structuresin the constitution of historical periods.
Theorising educational change
The quest for the realisation of inclusive policy and practice is primarily an attemptto alter the education system so as to include and respect students’ diversity. Inclu-sion is fundamentally different from integration in the sense that it requires the educa-tion system to be radically restructured so as to provide quality education for allchildren, irrespective of their variegated developmental trajectories. Educationalchange is at the core of the struggles towards greater inclusion and therefore all theparameters, those either facilitating or blocking change, should be critically examinedand analysed. Understandably, the struggles towards inclusion are inexorablyinterlinked with the struggles towards educational change aiming to challenge the
special educational imperatives. Unless educational change is tactically directed tothe questioning of segregational thinking, inclusion will continue to constitute arhetorical apparition within mainstream settings, with dire consequences for theeducation and welfare of disabled children.
In this paper I will attempt to theorise educational change in terms of the interac-tion between agency and structure. Given the intricately complicated character ofeducational change, transformation attempts should be multidimensional and bedirected towards a polymorphous network incorporating a plethora of interrelatedelements permeating both agency and structure (Power, 1992), which are more orless amenable to change. Certain micro-political and structural factors that occasion-ally combine to consolidate and reinforce the status quo will be very difficult toremove, as they become naturalised and are thereby deeply institutionalised. Notsurprisingly, then, the quest of an inclusive education system becomes a prodigiousand painstaking endeavour.
Given the multidimensional character of educational change, it is occasionally thecase that during the incessant games of power, ‘many institutionalised routinescontinue to be reproduced even during the most radical episodes of change’ (Cohen,1989, p. 46), thus indicating the pervasive influence of structural infrastructure overany transformative attempts that social actors might undertake. Social actors alonecannot thus bring change unless the ideological and institutional infrastructure of asocio-political system is favourably positioned towards these changes. Change isinstigated by an array of elements that are congruent with the emergence of the domi-nant ‘particular forms of reasoning and “telling the truth”…and kinds of knowledgecentral to establishing a particular discourse…’ (Popkerwitz & Brennan, 1998, p. 15).
Despite, however, the delimiting effects that the structural dynamics pose,Foucault also advocates the productive effects of power and the strategic reversibilityof power relations, thereby implying the ability of social actors to counteract and over-come the delimiting discursive contours that pose impediments to the attempts tointroduce educational and social change. It is possible, within the stringent demandsimposed by certain institutional conditions, that the ‘hazardous play of domination’(Baert, 1998, p. 125) can be challenged and reversed by certain social actors, thuscontributing to the subversion of the status quo.
In effect, power in Foucault’s terms does not always carry negative connotationsand therefore it is possible to challenge the deterministic and hence pessimisticaccounts, which downplay the role of agent and negate the productive effects ofpower. Thus, as Foucault (1980, p. 13) contends:
I’m not positing a substance of power. I’m simply saying: as soon as there’s a relation ofpower there’s a possibility of resistance. We’re never trapped by power. It’s always possibleto modify its hold, in determined conditions and following a precise strategy. (Cited inBall, 1994, p. 176)
In this respect the debate that has long bedevilled the theorists in the field, regardingthe supremacy of the infrastructural bases over social actors or vice versa, issubstituted by an interactive network consisting of both agents and structures that are
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in a constant and reciprocal relationship. The theory of structuration, articulated byAnthony Giddens (Thompson, 1984; Cohen, 1989; Ranson, 1995) and in the workof Archer (Ranson, 1995), eschews binarisms and presents an integrated account ofthe interplay between action, institutional and structural conditions. Giddens, forinstance, explicates the ways that social action is intricately interwoven with ‘socialcollectivities’ in the production of ‘praxis’. That is:
To speak of praxis as the constitution of social life entails a concern not only for themanner in which conduct, consequences and relations are generated but also for theconditions which shape and facilitate these processes and outcomes… (Cited in Cohen,1989, p. 12)
Having pursued some modifications of Giddens’ account, Thompson (1984)provides a framework whereby the three levels of the account are multifariously inter-linked and provide different outcomes depending on the emphasis given. What ispresented, in summary, are the ways that agents can act within the context of institu-tional structures with the possibility either to reproduce these structures or to pursuetransformative action. This is congruent with a Foucaultian analysis of ideology,whereby individuals can be either deceived by the ostensibly innocuous nature ofideologies or be enabled to vehemently break the ideological grip and achieveemancipation, that is congruent, however, with the contextual relations anddiscourses preceding them (Foucault, 1980, cited in Howarth, 2002).
Within this account, power can be identified within the agents per se, who are ableto pursue certain aims and interests or within the social institutions, which empowerthe agents to pursue these ends. If it were not for these institutions, agents would havebeen unable to pursue them, whilst in cases where other agents or groups are system-atically excluded from this ‘institutional empowerment’, the situation is characterisedas one of domination (Thompson, 1984).
Notwithstanding, however, the supremacy attributed to the productive effects ofpower, it is occasionally the case that social actors, far from acting as agents of change,sometimes strengthen and consolidate the structural bases of the status quo. Putdifferently, certain social actors during the presumably turbulent period of change areoccasionally contributing to the emergence and proliferation of previously non-exis-tent or less powerful institutionalised routines, thus contributing not only to themaintenance, but also to the reinforcement of the status quo. Thus, educationalchange is not only inhibited by institutional structures that are difficult to eradicate,but it is also inhibited by the institutional structures that are erected by the ideologicalpredilections and the actions of certain social actors during the period of educationalchange.
The above observations do not constitute an arbitrary and unsubstantiated conjec-ture, but reflect the current state of affairs within the Cyprus educational context,whereby the attempts to reshuffle the education system in order to facilitate the real-isation of an inclusive discourse are concomitantly marred and jeopardised by certainuncritical actions, starkly emanating from ignorance and vested interests. This issomething that will be explored and analysed in the following sections. Despite
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laudable rhetoric advocating the axioms underpinning inclusion, there is littleevidence of indigenous sensitisation to reinstate disabled children’s human rights andinterests (Angelides, 2004; Phtiaka, 2006). Arguably, these actions reflect the falseassumptions and understandings of inclusion, materialised through the institutionalarrangements of the educational system. Having said this, it is apparent that thelegislative changes achieved so far are largely spasmodic and sporadic. The govern-ment, whilst extolling its legislative ‘achievements’, remains resistant to the voices ofdisabled people and their advocates for a thorough reversal of asymmetrical powerrelations (Phtiaka, 2003).
It is very apposite here to reiterate Ballard (2003, p. 28, cited in Allan, 2006) whocontends that ‘inclusion…is about ourselves’ thereby implying the pervasiveness ofour ‘implicit systems’ (Foucault, 1989a, cited in Blades, 1997) on policy constitutionand dissemination within all arenas of educational policymaking. Notwithstandingthe fact that disablism is to a great degree institutionalised and difficult to dismantle,a genuine pursuit of the axioms of an inclusive discourse can potentially minimise thedeeply entrenched ‘regimes of truth’ (Foucault, 1980) that consolidate the status quoand subvert inclusion. However, before proceeding to a context-specific interrogationof the special educational status quo, it is important to explicate the ways thatlanguage and ideology are implicated in the interplay of agency and structure in theattempts for transformative change.
Language, ideology and educational change
Inclusive education policymaking is evidently embedded within a plethora of comple-mentary and adversarial parameters that intersect and produce a ‘complex chaineffect’ (Welton & Evans, 1986, p. 213, cited in Fulcher, 1990, p. 3) or, in otherwords, a multidimensional and interactive network, which is comprised both bystructures and actors. This perspective is predicated upon an all-encompassingframework, focused on interdependences and interactions and which provides a moreholistic outlook of educational policymaking (Squipp, 1984), with the emphasisplaced upon the ‘dual interplay of agency and structure in the creation of historicalperiods’ (Ranson, 1995, p. 442). This holistic outlook is a sine qua non pre-requisiteof critical policy analysis whereby the aim is to disassemble the contextual backdropof educational policymaking through the:
examination of the politics and ideologies and interest groups of the policy making process;the making visible of internal contradictions within policy formulations, and the widerstructuring and constraining effects of the social and economic relations within whichpolicy making is taking place. (Grace, 1991, p. 26)
Given this interconnected framework, the role that ideology plays in the forma-tion of policy is crucial, as ideology is variously interlinked with power, politicsand socioeconomic structures. Central to analysing ideology in terms of powerrelations is language. Language is a pervasive means of power that is materialisedthrough discourse and permeates both actors and structures. Fulcher (1989)
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stresses the fact that language is used as a weapon to exclude, albeit that it hasrecently veered towards a more ‘inclusive’ lexicon. Thus, it is occasionally the casethat concerns for parity and human rights are obliterated by the ‘political elastic-ity of language’ reflected in the ‘clauses of conditionality’ (Slee, 1996) that surfacestrongly within inclusive educational policies. Thus, despite the fact that the prin-ciples of equity and human rights are enthusiastically promulgated, inclusiveeducation policy documents are occasionally fraught with antithetical discourseswhereby:
Different vocabularies which espouse rights and equity, are now used to describe thecosmetic adjustments to traditional practices, which when applied, maintain the power-lessness of disabled students…and privileges those professionals who work ‘in their bestinterests’. (Slee, 1996, p. 107)
The importance of language is materialised through ‘discourse’, which ‘refers notonly to the meaning of language but also to the real effects of language-use, to themateriality of language’ (Codd, 1988, p. 242). As Fairclough (2000, p. 1 ) contendswhilst analysing the opaque ways that language is used to veil relations of domination:‘Looked at from a language perspective, different representations/visions of the worldare different “discourses”’. In other words, the essence and, therefore, the power oflanguage occurs within a particular sociopolitical context and, in particular, withinthe discursive processes of this context, which produce and sustain relations of power.These relations of power are constantly constituted and regenerated within theinstitutional conditions, which produce, sustain and ultimately legitimate the asym-metrical relations of power.
Thus, ideology should be examined only in relation to the context of the socialworld where power and domination emanate, namely within the ‘context of anaccount between the relations between actions, institutions and social structure’(Thompson, 1984, p. 4). Understandably, the effects of ideology should extend toinclude the ‘material existence’ of ideology as reflected in relations, practices andinstitutions (Althusser, 1972, pp. 267–270, cited in Burbules, 1992, p. 11).
In particular, as far as inclusive education policy is concerned, the representationand maintenance of discourses antithetical to inclusion create a plethora of powerfulideological and conceptual confinements that ‘penetrate consciousness’ (Codd,1988, p. 242) and are gradually materialised. Eventually, wrong discourses assignflawed meanings to the ways that inclusion is perceived and realised, as they aresustained by the institutional conditions of a given sociopolitical system. As Codd(1988, p. 243) writes:
The power that is exercised through discourse is a form of power which permeates thedeepest recesses of civil society and provides the material conditions in which individualsare produced both as subjects and as objects. It is this form of power which is exercisedthrough the discourses of the law, of medicine, psychology and education.
Ultimately then, the failure of inclusive educational policies might be attributed to the‘deeply entrenched discourse of disability and of the institutionalised bases whichconstruct that discourse’ (Fulcher, 1990, p. 16). In the same vein, Slee (1997, p. 407)
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considers that the failure of educational policymakers can be primarily attributed tothe failure to analyse and ultimately deconstruct the ‘epistemological foundations’ ofspecial education, and the discursive power that emanates from them. Inevitably then,‘What has transpired is, as Bernstein (1996) demonstrates, better described as thesubmersion of special education interest within the discursive noises (Ball, 1988) ofintegration and latterly inclusion’ (cited in Slee, 1997, p. 407).
By implication, it is crucial that the philosophical tenets of inclusion should beclarified and differentiated by persistent orthodoxies of the past, which have so farmasked and disguised assumptions inimical to inclusion. In effect, what has come tobe termed as ‘discourse analysis’ should also encompass the analysis of the institu-tional and structural elements (Thompson, 1984) of the educational system as wellas the ways that subjectivities of disabled children are ‘interpellated’ (Althusser,1994) and, hence, constituted through the prevalent ideological constructs andinstitutional arrangements.
The emphasis of policy documents as text should, therefore, extend to include thecontext or the ‘broad discursive field within which policies are developed and imple-mented’ (Taylor, 1997, p. 25), with the aim not only to better conceptualise policy,but also to demonstrate or deconstruct the subtle interactions between the variousprocesses implicated therein and expose any invisible and unobtrusive, albeitcorrosive, forms of power that impede the attempts towards transformative change.The pervasiveness of discourse is evinced, therefore, within the processes ‘wherebyinterests of a certain kind become masked, rationalised, legitimated in the name ofcertain forms of political power…’ (Eagleton, 1991, p. 202). Change can only bepursued when we manage to deconstruct the promulgated ‘neutrality’ of the stateand its policies in order to ‘unmask’, as Foucault points out, ‘the political violencewhich has always exercised itself obscurely through them’ (cited in Atkinson, 2002,p. 83).
In this paper I will focus on certain discursive impediments to the realisation of aninclusive discourse that have emerged throughout the turbulent period of educationalchange promoted by the introduction of the new legislation (1999—113/1). Educa-tional change presupposes a critical awareness of the disabling ideological and insti-tutionalised discourses and the unequal power relations inherent in them, whichsustain and reproduce the status quo of special educational thinking. In particular, Iwill focus only on certain factors impeding educational change emanating from thegovernmental terrain that subvert the attempts towards greater inclusive policy andpractice within the Cyprus context. Whilst attempting to provide the wider picture ofinclusive education policymaking (Grace, 1991) I have elsewhere (Liasidou, 2005,2007) attempted to analyse the ways that the social, political, historical and ideolog-ical dynamics of the wider context of Cyprus act as an impediment to greater inclu-sion. In this paper I will concentrate on the governmental terrain and on the ways thatthe road towards inclusion is subverted by uncritical actions that are starkly antithet-ical to the tenets of inclusion. Notwithstanding laudable governmental rhetoricespousing inclusion, very little has been done to challenge the institutional and ideo-logical special education status quo.
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The impasse of educational change
In the following section the endeavour will be to briefly adumbrate the Cypruseducational context in relation to the attempts undertaken for the realisation of aninclusive education system. It needs noting, however, that the article is not intendedto offer a detailed description of the policy changes. Rather, the aim is to focus oncertain parameters of the current policy context whereby the politics of educationalchange towards an inclusive system are still going on and the consequences are to beseen and evaluated. In particular, I shall attempt to explain the ways that power andvested interests are implicated in the emergence and expansion of the discourse ofprofessionalism (Fulcher, 1989) during the period of transition towards inclusiveeducation and practice.
The paradox of educational change: the resurgence of segregating education in disguise
The first special education initiatives in Cyprus can be traced in 1929 with theestablishment of the school for the blind that was the result of a private humanitarianactivity. This was followed by the rapid establishment of special schools thatfunctioned independently without a unified legislative context. This was the case until1979 with the introduction of the 47/79 Special Education Law of 1979 thatconstituted a statutory milestone in the sense that responsibility for providingspecial education schools for children between the ages of 5 and 18 was taken by theGovernment.
Despite its importance, the 1979 law was rather ephemeral. Less than ten yearsafter its introduction, the stated, albeit unofficial, philosophy of the Ministry ofEducation was the integration of disabled children in mainstream schools. Duringthat time Cyprus was influenced by an avalanche of international documents andpolicy imperatives that proclaimed the rights of the individual and, by implication, therights of disabled children to be educated with their peers in mainstream settings. Thesubsequent integrative attempts in Cyprus epitomised the abusive, and hence cata-strophic dimension of educational borrowing (Watson, 2001) whereby the integrativeattempts merely resulted from the necessity to align Cyprus with the internationalspecial education policymaking trends. Not surprisingly, the placement of disabledchildren in mainstream schools was taking place uncritically and spasmodically,thereby leading to abortive integrative attempts of the period.
The unofficial integrative attempts were eventually statutorily backed up with theintroduction of the 113(1)/1999 Special Education Law of 1999 that stipulates therights of disabled children to be educated in mainstream settings, something thatbrought Cyprus, at least legally, in line with the other countries of the EuropeanUnion.
The legislative documents and the stated policy that is inscribed in them, aresupplemented by a mass of other educational documents, which are sent to schoolsand aim to offer further clarifications and guidance on the ways upon which the
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education of disabled children should be conceptualised and implemented. Inclusiveeducation policies in Cyprus, as elsewhere, are characterised by ‘textual hybridity’ orwhat Taylor (2004) calls ‘discursive multiplicity’. The ambivalence of the policydocuments gives ‘space to manoeuvre’ not only to the implementation process at thebottom-up level (Slee, 2001, p. 389) but also to the top-down educational restructur-ing process towards the realisation of an inclusive discourse.
However, in gaining an overall picture of the current state of affairs, it is alsonecessary to delineate the actual educational conditions within which these officialdocuments are inserted. Struggle for change cannot be achieved unless the institu-tional conditions within which these endeavours occur are critically and thoroughlyexamined and evaluated (Barton, 1997) with the aim to challenge and, ultimately,deconstruct the status quo of special education thinking.
The political will of the government to support inclusion could be best achievedthrough its educational system and the rearrangements that are supposed to be takingplace (or have been taking place) in order to support an inclusive discourse. Thus, hasthe Cyprus government attempted to reshuffle the education system and facilitateinclusion? Do the re-arrangements, which have taken place, reflect the precepts andideologies upon which inclusive education is predicated? To what extent is the specialeducation status quo supported or exacerbated? In what ways are the multifariousvested interests evinced within the Cyprus education system?
As it has been previously referred to, the legislation oscillates between contradic-tory discourses that give plenty of flexibility to those who want to act according totheir vested interests. Key policymakers within the Ministry of Education andCulture (MEC) convey, through the legislative and other official documents sent toschools, a contradictory philosophy regarding the realisation of an inclusivediscourse. Angelides (2004, p. 419) is explicit on the failure of inclusive educationpolicymaking, something that can be partially attributed to the fact that: ‘The peoplewho hold high positions in the administration of MEC are not qualified enough forimplementing inclusive education and they carry traditional ideas, stunting inclusiveeducation’.
Cyprus is experiencing an ideological conflict regarding the precepts upon whicha regenerated inclusive educational system will be predicated. It is quite evident,however, that having to choose between different discourses, which have longbefore been tested by other countries, Cyprus opts for the medical model of disabil-ity. Thus, far from learning from the mistakes of the western European experience,the same policymaking pitfalls are uncritically repeated (Phtiaka, 2001c) withoutcontemplating the cost these might have for the realisation of an inclusivediscourse. Phtiaka (2001c, p. 7) speculates how wrong has been her expectationthat Cyprus could directly proceed to ‘an inclusive education system withoutneeding to first break down to the sophisticated special education categories’. Thecurrent trends that are inimical to inclusion cannot be attributed only to ignoranceand to the benign justification that ‘such a multitude of changes cannot easily bedigested’ (Phtiaka, 2001a, p. 141). Rather, the case of Cyprus constitutes strikingevidence that:
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…the social, political, economic and professional vested interests which have dictated thegrowth of special education have not disappeared, and the control of decisions and moneyby individuals and groups remain. (Tomlinson, 1982, p. 172)
Even though, until recently, Cyprus has been lacking professionals—namely speechtherapists, physiotherapists and psychologists—this situation now seems to have beenreversed (Phtiaka, 2001b). Many professionals have appeared in the educational foreand are increasingly seeking to justify their promotion. It is ironic that, whilstTomlinson referred to the professional vested interests regarding special education asearly as 1982, Cyprus revives this phenomenon more than 20 years later! As Phtiaka(2001b, pp. 4, 8) whilst referring to the current situation in Cyprus, puts it:
There is a widely held idea in the island that what Cyprus needs, like Britain before it(Barton & Landman, 1993), is more professionals. Professionals, it is hoped, will be in aposition to accurately diagnose and prescribe therapy to all kinds of malady…their [profes-sionals] number is rocketing as demand for their services increases.
How then, can this paradoxical reversion be explained, especially under the light ofthe international prevalence of an inclusive philosophy and practice? What vestedinterests made the newly appeared professionals in Cyprus claim their ascendancy?
The paradox of educational restructuring: the ascendancyof professionalism
The proclamations for the integration and later inclusion of disabled children inmainstream schools were ushered in by the appointment of certain professionals inprimary schools, with the aim to provide help to disabled children either in individu-alistic ‘pull out’ programmes or within the resource units attached to mainstreamschools (European Agency, 2005). Moreover, the integration movement hasprovided the possibility to provide individualistic help not only to disabled childrenwith statements but also to many other children who were thought to be ‘behind’their peers. The expansion of the provision has meant that more and more profes-sionals were needed. Thus, the restructuring of the education system undertaken inorder to be in alignment with the new policy imperatives, has been primarilyconcerned with the expansion of professionalism and the resurgence of the medicalmodel of disability.
The intrusion of professionals within mainstream settings has, thus, established anew kind of status quo that constitutes a barrier to the possibility of proceeding to aradical restructuring of the education system predicated on the precepts of aninclusive discourse. Despite the inclusive lexicon espoused in governmental rhetoric,reality sadly reflects what Slee (2007, p. 179) calls ‘the assimilation imperative of neo-special educational rhetoric and practice’. Understandably, this kind of assimilation-ist imperative ‘often has little to do with establishing an inclusive curriculum,pedagogic practices or classroom organization to reconstruct schools. More typicallyit is a systematic approach to acquiring human resources to mind the disabledstudent’ (Slee, 2007, p. 181). Thus, the attempts for educational reform in Cyprus
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have been reduced to the proliferation of ‘human resources to mind the disabled’ inmainstream settings. As Phtiaka (2006, p. 187) pertinently states regarding thecurrent situation in Cyprus: ‘A multitude of new professionals have been appointed,but children do not have good academic results, if any. Considerable funds have beenthrown to integration, but there are still no visible results’.
Currently, it is clearly evident that the exhilarating proclamations for inclusion arereduced to the disquieting articulation of special education resource units withinmainstream schools (Ministry of Education and Culture, 1998) and the unprece-dented expansion of the medical model of disability that requires the increasingemployment of professionals within mainstream schools. What is currently stillconveyed and encouraged through the official policy documents disseminated inschools is a ‘pathognomonic’ (Jordan et al., 1997, p. 85) approach to disability thatreduces inclusion to a special education ideological and procedural artefact.
Resource units are a prime example of the resurgence of special education impera-tives whereby disabled children are marginalised and excluded within an ostensiblyinclusive mainstream setting. Resource units are the technique by which the normal-ising gaze is exerted as the panoptical technologies of control immanent in this,‘increase to a maximum the visibility of those subjected’ (Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1982,p. 192). The placement of disabled children in resource units increases their ‘visibil-ity’ within mainstream settings as they constitute ‘a centre toward which all gazeswould be turned’ (Foucault, 1977, p. 173) with the aim to ‘measure, normalize andcorrect’ (Foucault, 1977, p. 198) the deviant Other.
For Foucault space is crucial in any exercise of power. Resource units constitute‘…the spatial “nesting” of hierarchised surveillance…the principle was one of embed-ding’ (Foucault, 1977, pp. 171–172) whereby the level of surveillance exerted ondisabled children is legitimised through the ‘discourse of professionalism’ (Fulcher,1989) that can potentially ‘normalize’ the ‘deviant’ students through expert interven-tion and remedy. The subjugating ‘regimes of truth’ (Foucault, 1980) conveyedthrough the ‘ideology of expertism’ (Vlachou, 2004) become naturalised and legiti-mised as they are ostensibly allied with ‘disabled children’s best interests’ (Fulcher,1989; Slee, 1996). It is now more pertinent to reiterate Phtiaka’s (2001b, p. 8)concerns regarding the transformative attempts for the realisation of an inclusivediscourse and the paradoxical ascendancy of ‘professionalism’ and ‘expertism’ withinthe Cyprus context:
…support for existing professionals and training for new ones establishes a status quowhich, we have argued, is unhealthy and requires change. When this status quo has beenestablished legitimised and secured, it will formulate and forward ideas and mechanisms,which will resist change.
Understandably, the appearance of various professionals who acclaim their presencein mainstream education hinders change and reinforces the status quo. Professionalshave been traditionally a powerful means for excluding disabled people, exerting inthat way what Kenworthy and Wittaker (2000, p. 220) call ‘professional abuse’. Theprofessionalisation (Fulcher, 1989) of disability assigns power to professionals within
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all arenas of educational apparatus, whose judgements and ‘knowledge’ perform apowerful and pervasive ideological function, which is further supplemented by theexisting institutionalised structures and processes. The focus on the medical model ofdisability accentuates the circle of domination-subordination and concomitantlyfacilitates the evasive imposition of power. Foucault is especially concerned with thediscreet imposition of power. Despite the progress that the various institutions underscrutiny have allegedly made during the 20th century, Foucault emphasises the waysthat surveillance is inconspicuously and incessantly underpinning the functioning ofthese institutions (Foucault, 1977).
The appointment of a substantial number of professionals within ordinary schoolsopened up new employment possibilities for more and more professionals, who havehitherto exerted pressure on the government in order to secure a permanent workposition in ordinary schools. The increasing unemployment of university graduates inCyprus (Menon, 1998) and, given the fact that ‘the best outlet for the educated hasbeen employment in the public service’ (Persianis, 2003, p. 52 ), led many studentsto pursue studies related to these newly appeared professions that gave them goodemployment possibilities.
It is worth noting that, unlike many other European countries, employment inpublic primary and secondary schools is characterised by great competition, since avery attractive remuneration, very good working conditions (7:45 am–1:05pm) andother benefits are provided. Papanastasiou and Papanastasiou (1998, p. 36) forinstance, whilst analysing the factors that influence so many students to choose tobecome teachers in public schools, write the following: ‘…such benefits are the statusof the profession, the relatively short working hours, vacations, immediate or definiteemployment and salary, which are experienced by all public school teachers inCyprus’. Thus, the intrusion of special education professionals like speech therapistsand work therapists in mainstream schools, who have been traditionally employed inhospitals and special schools, is now a reality.
Whilst in many other countries psychologists and speech therapists are assignedperipatetic and part-time positions in mainstream schools and their role is merelysupportive, professionals in Cyprus claim permanency and favourable conditions fortheir career advancement within mainstream settings. Professionals’ vested interests,thus, have shifted from special education to mainstream education under the light ofthe putative educational restructuring towards an inclusive discourse (Phtiaka,2001c). It is interesting to note that one of the current demands of the Cyprus Teach-ers’ Union (POED) is to achieve the permanent secondment of educational psychol-ogists in mainstream primary schools and include them in the service plans for specialteachers, something that can potentially enhance and safeguard their career prospectsin mainstream schools. The Union also demands the creation of a separate specialeducation structure within the Ministry in order to ensure that the current posts ofprincipals and vice-principals in primary education are proportionately allocated tospecial education professionals (POED, 2007).
The expanding appointment of professionals within ordinary schools endorsesdisabled children’s ‘difference’ and their inability to participate in a common
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curriculum whilst, concomitantly, safeguarding the normal functioning of main-stream classrooms (Tomlinson, 1982). The presence of special teachers conveys the‘otherness’ image imputed to disabled children and establishes the binary perspective(Peters, 1999) of normality and abnormality. The system draws a discernible linebetween the mainstream and the special teachers, the latter dealing exclusively withdisabled children. It is also usually the case that some of the professionals appointedlack the pedagogical awareness and the knowledge required to modify the curriculumand adapt the appropriate teaching methods to facilitate disabled children’s access tothe mainstream curriculum. Going even further, Phtiaka (2006, p. 183) talks aboutthe complete ignorance of the curriculum by these professionals. As she puts it:
Contrary to the blind devotion of mainstream teachers and mainstream classrooms to thecurriculum, special units and special teachers in them appear to blatantly ignore it! Notonly do they often not co-operate with the classroom teachers in a co-ordinated effort tofollow the teaching which is carried out in class, and which the child often attends withother children for half of his/her timetable, but they might be teaching in complete igno-rance of this curriculum as they sometimes are not qualified teachers but psychologists orother specialists…
The notion of pedagogical awareness is a constituent element in the attempts topromote inclusion as the focus shifts from the individual pathology imperatives andnecessitates the interrogation of the teaching and learning environment in relation tochildren’s needs and abilities. It is no coincidence that the Department for Educationand Skills (DfES) (2006) requires that the Special Education Needs Coordinatorsappointed in UK schools must be teachers, thereby acknowledging the necessity ofpedagogical awareness as a means to promoting inclusive education and practice.
Understandably, the dominant institutional ‘regimes of truth’ prevalent within theCyprus context have dire consequences on the attempts to establish an inclusive ethoswithin the schools and, by extension, within the society. The rigidity of the educationsystem and the negative impact of ‘identity politics’ (Giroux, 1993, p. 68) are notconducive to the introduction of novel ideas about teaching methods and the creationof better learning environments. Co-teaching is largely an unknown phenomenon inCyprus, not only, however, due to the rigid education system, but also due tomainstream teachers’ vested interests in relation to their evaluation and promotionprospects. Given the rigidity of the system we cannot, reiterating Phtiaka (2006,p. 182), ‘expect teachers to teach to methods which are guaranteed to place theircareer advancement at risk when evaluated’.
The prevalent phenomenon of ‘professional monologue’ in schools is extensivelydiscussed by Ware (1994, p. 344) who contends that once ‘professionals remainstructurally isolated in their classrooms and culturally isolated by long-establishedprofessional behaviours and beliefs…attempts to promote collaboration can only leadto frustration and failure’. Indeed, despite the widespread resistance to collaboration,co-teaching has the potential to bring better academic outcomes whilst simulta-neously replacing the offensive, yet well entrenched, special/ordinary binariesattributed both to teachers and children. Angelides et al. (2006, p. 11) write about thefutile and destructive ‘special’/‘ordinary’ binarisms endemic within the Cyprus
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education system and their subversive impact on the attempts to introduce changeand promote inclusion. As they put it: ‘The directions that “special” teachers receivefrom the Ministry are to teach their pupils on an individual basis in their “special”class’. Thus, disabled children become the ‘invisible students’ as they constantlymove around special and ordinary classes in fragmented and unco-ordinated ways.This being the case, disabled children are considered, according to Phtiaka (2006,p. 181), as ‘somebody else’s responsibility, somebody else’s child’, something that‘often means nobody’s responsibility, nobody’s child’ (Phtiaka, 2006, p. 181).
Even though it would be naïve and insular to eschew the fact that disabled peoplemight require medical care and support (Barton, 1993), the overemphasis on theirindividual pathology jeopardises the attempts for inclusive education (Phtiaka,2001c; MacArthur, 2004). The focus on individual pathology imperatives ‘depoliti-cises’ disability and difference and deflects attention from crucial considerations thatshould permeate the struggles over greater inclusion. ‘The discursive dexterity ofvested interest’ (Slee, 2006, p. 111) is masqueraded under the scientific ‘regimes oftruth’ and their perceived potency to ‘normalize’ the abnormal individuals. In thisrespect, issues of educational restructuring are constricted to the appointment ofprofessionals within mainstream primary schools and little consideration is given toother parameters of schooling. The sole focus of the inquiry is placed upon theidentification and ‘calibration’ of children’s deficits according to professionals’culturally constructed notion of normality. Reiterating Slee’s words:
Disability is seen to be a condition of the defective individual, rather than a signifier ofmore complex sets of relationships between institutions and individuals. [In this respect]policy has become the instrument through which knowledgeable experts manage the livesof disabled people. (Slee, 2001, p. 389)
Suffice it to say that the overemphasis on the pathologising aspects of disability areexacerbated by the fact that no substantial support and in-service training areprovided to teachers and other professionals appointed in mainstream schools inorder to understand and, thereby, to implement inclusion. Pashiardis (2004,p. 662) is explicit regarding the patchy ways that policy issues are dealt with in theCyprus context, not only in terms of special education, but also in general. As hepoints out:
Unfortunately, there are numerous examples of policy changes and policy implementationat the national level, where those who need to implement them do not know or have notbeen informed about the content of the change.
Crucially, little has been done to increase the knowledge of the teachers and otherprofessionals regarding the essence of inclusion so as to enable them to re-define andre-appraise their role in promoting greater inclusion. As Nikolaidou et al. (2006,p. 264) write regarding inclusive education within the Cyprus context:
We believe that the educational system has failed its special educational needs pupilscurrently in mainstream education in regard to available resources and planning.Currently, with reference to educating teaching and non-teaching staff, there is noobligatory training scheme available from the Ministry of Education and Culture.
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The above evidence makes transparent the superficial attempts of the Ministry ofEducation to introduce change and render the tenets of inclusion at the core of theeducational system. It is highly questionable whether the great numbers ofprofessionals appointed at schools are appropriately utilised and whether there isthe necessary organisation and knowledge to implement inclusive policy. AsPhtiaka (2006, p. 187) considers: ‘We need to ensure that the funds allocated tointegration reach their target, the children integrated, and have a positive effect onthem and their families rather than simply offering career opportunities to profes-sionals…’. These are important issues that should be urgently addressed within theMinistry of Education if we are to move beyond rhetoric and make inclusionhappen.
The realisation of a better and more inclusive future is interlinked with the waysthat key policy actors conceptualise and envision this future. Change cannot beachieved unless there is vision and means to realise it. Shapiro (1989, p. 36), whilstwriting about educational change, gives considerable prominence to: ‘the criticalnecessity of a clearly enunciated moral vision to an effective politics of educationalchange’. It is necessary, however, that this vision should jointly permeate the ‘contextof influence’, the ‘context of policy text production’ and the ‘context of practice’ (Ball& Bowe, 1992). Arguably key policymakers’ moral vision is a crucial constituentelement of ‘resistance’ (Kendall & Wickham, 1999, p. 51) and the ‘strategy ofstruggle’ (Foucault, cited in Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1982, p. 225) against the status quoof special education thinking. ‘Resistance’ can indeed be a ‘source of celebration’(Kendall & Wickham, 1999, p. 51) only when there is a clear and consistent moralvision on behalf of the government to put the ‘strategy of struggle’ for the realisationof an inclusive discourse at the top of the state’s political agenda.
Simultaneously, however, due attention should be also given to the wider pictureof educational policymaking (Grace, 1991) within which the ‘discursive greaterinclusion’ is taking place. This line of thought brings to the surface the necessity torecognise the reciprocal relationship between the educational system and society. Itis, therefore, equally important to interrogate the social edifice and the multiplicity ofthe ideological and structural dynamic impinging upon it (Liasidou, 2005, 2007). Inso doing, it will be possible to disentangle the multidimensional and intricatelycomplicated contextual framework within which inclusion is conceptualised,contested and implemented.
Bearing in mind the intricately interwoven nature of the issues at hand, it is notexpected that reversibility prospects are an easy task to achieve. Foucault (1978) andhis engagement with progressive politics, offers an insight into ‘the possibilities oftransformation and the play of dependencies between these transformations…’. Inthis sense educational change is not perceived as a ‘uniform abstraction’ (Foucault,1978, p. 24) that can be easily achieved through facile political rhetoric and mono-dimensional considerations. At the same time, however, this proposition makestransparent that change is not necessarily to be a revolution or a one-off attempt inorder to be significant and substantial. Every little attempt matters and contributes tothe gradual construction of alternative regimes of truth that will contribute to the
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creation of more inclusive educational policies and practices within the Cypruscontext and elsewhere.
Conclusions
In this article I attempted to make transparent the complicated nature of educationalchange as it is constituted within an interactive network of reciprocal and adversarialrelations. It is no coincidence, then, that the attempts for the realisation of an inclu-sive discourse are characterised as a struggle (Vlachou, 1997) and, in particular, as adiscursive struggle whereby a profusion of interrelated social, historical, ideologicaldynamics combine to promote the ascendancy of certain discourses against which theeducation of disabled children is conceived and defined. Educational change presup-poses that key policymakers within all arenas of the educational apparatus (Fulcher,1989) become aware of the disabling ideological and institutionalised structures andthe unequal power relations inherent in them, which sustain and reproduce the statusquo. In this respect, disability should be understood as a discursively construed socialprocess, within a particular social context, and special education should be concep-tualised as a socially constructed category that emanates from ‘asymmetrical powerrelations’, which are reified through the institutional structures of a particular socio-political system. The sociological perspective has the potential, as Tomlinson (1982,p. 24) propounds, to analyse and ultimately deconstruct the ‘structures of power andthe way power is legitimated…’ through the institutional and ideological infrastruc-ture of a particular educational system. It is crucial that the critical examination andanalysis of these dynamics should be brought to the centre rather than the peripheryof educational policy analysis.
Inevitably, such an analysis requires a critical, albeit not a totally negative, stance.Therefore, by providing a critique of the Cypriot educational system it is not aimedto underestimate the progress and the ameliorative attempts undertaken so far, inspite of the inimical conditions and unfavourable historical circumstances. Criticismshould be considered as an indispensable component in attempting to achieve ‘a postspecial needs era’ (Slee, 2003, p. 213).
Given the current situation, Cyprus is at a transitional stage and, despite the factthat the road towards an inclusive education system is still fraught with difficulties,it is hoped that it will not be long before it would be possible to see the rhetoric ofinclusion become a reality. Notwithstanding the institutionalised and the historicallyrooted nature of the discourses that exclude and disparage disabled children, theirgradual reversibility constitutes a feasible prospect. As Foucault (1981, p. 51) putsit: ‘…discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also ahindrance, a stumbling-block, a point of resistance and a starting point for anopposing strategy’. Thus, the relations of power are not confined to the subjugatingeffects of power but they imply the productive effects of power, as conceptualisedand envisioned by Foucault, something that spawns possibilities of resistance andreversibility. These possibilities produce an air of optimism and make transparentthat the nexus of knowledge and power that constitutes special education
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policymaking is not impermeable to change. Consequently, the realisation of aninclusive discourse is a feasible prospect, when, however, it is genuinely andfervently envisioned and pursued by those who are institutionally empowered tocontribute to the constitution of ‘today’s discourse’ undergirding Cyprus specialeducation policymaking.
Evidently, inclusion becomes a thorny, and in some respects elusive, endeavourwhen educational policy and provision does not reflect a paradigm shift from specialeducation imperatives. By no means is inclusive education a new name for specialeducation relocated in mainstream schools. Inclusive education constitutes anentirely new conceptualisation aiming to provide effective education not only fordisabled children but also for all children who are entitled to be valued and respectedas individuals. Failure to understand this is a failure to overcome the status quo thathas hitherto subjugated and disparaged disabled children and their advocates. Unless,however, there is a clear philosophy leading the way, inclusion will continue to remainstagnant to its rhetorical status taking us back to normalising and assimilatingintegrative practices.
The multiple and competing discourses underpinning special educationalpolicymaking need to be critically examined and challenged within the interplay ofagency and structure in the attempts for transformative change. By no means can theinstitutionalised ‘regimes of truth’ that subvert and jeopardise the attempts towardsinclusion be expunged, unless there is the political will needed towards this direction.Otherwise, these ‘regimes of truth’ will be further consolidated and naturalisedthereby corroborating and perpetuating the historical imperatives of special educationthinking. Understandably, the role of key policymakers, as agents of change, is crucialin attempting to challenge the status quo and dismantle the variegated discursiveimpediments towards effective change.
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