The “inclusion” of students with vision impairments: generational perspectives in Australia

Abstract

In this paper I draw upon findings of a recent qualitative project con ducted in Queensland, Australia in which all actors – the resear cher and 5 participants aged 13-17 years — were linked together by our shared experiences of being students with impaired vision (VI) and who were educated in inclusive secondary schools in Australia duri ng the last two decades. The narrative demonstrates the alienating leg acy of two everyday routines of schooling, the placement and the daily commute. In the paper I show how referential knowledge acquisition of a trans-identity research alliance can reveal barriers to inclusion t hat might be ordinarily overlooked. Theoretically I map the research r elationship formed between myself and participants using both Foucault ’s analysis of how human beings are made subjects (1982) and Bou rdieu’s understanding of reflexive interviewing in qualitative r esearch (1998). The empirical contribution of this paper is to demonst rate how special education discourses render subjects more “spec ial” than the sum of their actual impairments, and methodologica lly to highlight the role of qualitative inquiry in the field of inclu sive schooling.

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ORCID for Ben Whitburn: orcid.org/0000-0003-3137-2803

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