Inclusive Education and Training: Role of State, Teachers, and Students

This paper explores the concept of inclusive education and the role of state, teachers, and students in promoting it. It discusses the significance of collaborative art-making in reducing marginalization and exclusion. It also examines the challenges faced by special needs children and the need for community-oriented approaches. The paper highlights the importance of intercultural education in promoting inclusion and eliminating discrimination.

Running head: INCLUSIVE EDUCATION AND TRAINING
INCLUSIVE EDUCATION AND TRAINING
Name of student:
Name of university:
Author note:

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Introduction
Panyotis Angelides is an important scholar known for his contributions in the field of
inclusive education. He is currently the professor and rector of University of Nicosia and has
authored numerous books on the themes of inclusive and intercultural education. Angelides
has discussed on the political history and political climate of Greece to make the
understanding on education and inclusive policies in schools a more insightful and engaging
discussion. Greece has maintained a balance between being Euro-centric and ethno-centric.
He argues that the issues of citizenship and geo-politics influence the subjects to be taught at
school, school curriculum and the pedagogical canon. The project of modern education is
largely white, westernized, promotes the values of nationalism and Euro-centrism rather than
adhering to multi-cultural values (Angelides, 2005). Therefore, the knowledge that is
imparted to the students caters to the interests of the mainstream population and excludes the
ethnic minorities. Drawing on the arguments of Ainscow et al., (2006), the paper commences
with the connotations of inclusive education and follows it up with the documentation of
Angelide’s work on collaborative artmaking. It is found that this technique has significance in
reducing the effects of marginalization faced by children. The next section of the paper
discusses on the different literature of Angelides on interculturalism, exclusion and inclusion,
education system in Cyprus and the efforts of the state, teachers, peer-groups and the
concerned students in response to marginalization and exclusion.
What is inclusive education?
The term inclusion has two different connotations. The descriptive connotation of
inclusion indicates that the ways in which inclusion is used in our everyday life. On the other
hand, the prescriptive connotation of inclusion indicates the ways concepts are used. The
term inclusiveness has different implications for different countries. This philosophy is not

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limited to the placement or positioning of children with special needs in the special schools. It
is also concerned with the effective and sustainable education of children under the special
education programs. Special education is understood as the ways in which schools respond to
the students as autonomous individuals who possess the right to education. According to
Ainscow et al., (2006), inclusion embodies a set of values that emboldens all the learners to
overcome the barriers experienced in the attainment of education. These barriers and hurdles
include underachievement, marginalization and exclusion. They are of the view that
traditionally literature on inclusion has a myopic understanding of the concept and are solely
concerned with the special needs of children. However, in the present understanding of
inclusion it has taken on a broader dimension as it addresses the aspects of nationality,
language, ethnicity, gender, class composition and race to elucidate on inclusion. Experiences
of marginalization can also emerge when children of one school do not wish to socialize with
children of another school.
Angelides in his paper with Michaelidou, (2009), conducted an interesting study on
school children to understand the role of art in neutralizing the effects of marginalization. The
universe of study was a multicultural school in Cyprus that comprised of 20 per cent of non-
Greek speaking students. The authors found that art has a cathartic value when it comes to
alleviating the effects of children’s exclusion in school. The study found that drawings
created by children can reveal many unspoken aspects of their lives and help them to release
them their experiences of pain. The use of collaborative art-making in the pre-primary school
teaching techniques can reduce the impact of marginalization. It also has the capacity to
promote participation of children from different cultures. The outcome of this is the access of
children to full curriculum, a feeling of being accepted and included within the classroom and
the empowerment that comes from decision-making. Collaborative artmaking makes children
equal partners alongside their peers. Therefore, collaborative art-making combined with

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different kinds of innovative teaching techniques can reduce the experience of
marginalization for the students from the marginal group. This method brings the students
closer to one another, disintegrates the power structures and helps them see the problems of
the others. In other words, collaborative artmaking is a step in the direction of empathetic
education. The authors believe that this technique has cross-cultural value and can be
replicated in other schools across the globe. This technique has the potential to make the
outsiders feel as part of the group without ruining the core values of the classroom.
Intercultural and inclusive education: Role of state, teachers and students
Despite the popular view that the school are egalitarian spaces, studies have shown
that the school space, pedagogy and the curriculum design can be replete with discrimination
and exclusion. Cyprus has a special law. According to the provisions of this law, children
with special needs should be provided with special education. The authors have explored the
different ways in which the multiple stakeholders treat the children in special unit. Many
governments all over the world have been involved in intensifying the efforts for integrating
children who have special needs in the context of the neighbourhood schools. In Cyprus, the
government has shown a proactive approach in integrating special children with the
mainstream society. This can be manifested in the Education Act for children who have
special needs that outline the statutory framework for the educational needs of children with
special needs. Children with special needs have special unit which is a class that exists in a
mainstream school. These special needs cater to the special requirements of the children with
special needs. The children for whom the program has been devised and implemented are
children with serious problems (Angelides, 2012). Numbers of students who are part of these
special units are five per class. The special units in the classroom address the following
issues. The ways in which special unit function their programmes, children and staff of the

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organization, the degree to which their function is in consonance with the ethos of inclusive
education and the way in which children feel about their environment. Inclusion is often
conflated with the term integration. The term integration refers to the efforts of the able-
bodied people for the disabled people according to their standards and the conditions. On the
other hand, the term inclusion refers to bringing a marginalized group or individual to the
mainstream section of the society (Angelides, & Aravi, 2007). It further refers to a collective
endeavour to bring an end to discrimination and provide equal opportunities for all the
students. The objective of inclusive schools is to establish a system that includes all the
students and ensure that everyone’s needs are met. Scholars have argued that inclusion and
exclusion are part of participation and marginalization in the context of race, gender,
sexuality, class, unemployment and poverty along with the traditional roles played by the
school. Schools help children to attain education and tame their deviant behaviour. In Cyrus,
the education system is completely centralized. The Ministry of Education is entrusted with
the responsibility of designing, managing and controlling the curriculum, the resources and
textbooks that are to be distributed. The Ministry in association with the inspectorate directly
exert their control on the school. Teachers are also included in the framework of supervising
the special schools (Angelides, Charalambous, & Vrasidas, 2004). The provision for special
school in Cyprus was implemented by in the year 1979. One of the features of this law is that
it provisioned that disabled children should be taught in separate schools. However, this law
has come under criticism for solely pertaining to the needs of special children. Over the past
few years, the government in Cyprus has promoted the spirit of special education. The
authors argue that the pervasion of special units and the pattern in which it functions poses
challenges for the students (Hajisoteriou & Angelides, 2013). Special classes that are targeted
for the special children not only keeps them away from socializing in the mainstream society
but there is another problem. It leaves room for subjective judgement as well as the

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possibility of high-handedness. To deal with such situations, the authors propose that the
curriculum should be designed that is in conjunction with the curriculum of the mainstream
schools. In the Cypriot society, the ideological and the philosophical pillars of the new
curriculum were published in the year December 2008.
According to Angelidas and Hajisoteriou (2013), an educator should listen to the
children. Children are important actors and their subjectivity should be tapped in the
designing of a curriculum. Studies have shown that children have the potential to act as
catalysts in transforming their life chances. Paying attention to the articulations of the
children would be helpful in recognizing the factors that pose constraints in the path of
inclusion. Research on students’ understanding of racism will be helpful in understanding the
impact of racism on the self-esteem of children. The voices and articulations of children
should be taken into account for looking into the school policies and practises for
intercultural education. In his study of the intercultural pedagogical practises among the
immigrant children in Cyprus, Angelides examines the education policy in the Cyprian
context. Angelides contends that interculturalism emphasize on the nature of cultures that
represents the duality of commonality and difference in cultures. Interculturalism is premised
on the principle of eliminating oppression through empathetic education, promotion of moral
consciousness and understanding the experiences of discrimination from the viewpoints of
the victims. The MEC (Ministry of Education and Culture) in Cyprus spearheaded ZEP
(Zones of Education Policy) with the objective of dealing with functional illiteracy,
marginalization present in the school curriculum and the failure of the school in integrating
students of the migrant population. The MEC strived to eliminate the monocultural and
ethnocentric elements that are present in the Cyprian education. The Ministry was also
committed in promoting intercultural ideology that would connect the traditional values of
Cyprus with the knowledge from other cultures. It is determined with to eliminate stereotypes

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from the textbooks and encourage schools to be conducive to the success of students
irrespective of the educational background. The aim of schools would be to promote
education that upholds the principle of human dignity. A school should be a be a bastion that
do not exclude children from the pursuit of education based on their cultural identities.
Coming over to the agentic role played by children in the sphere of classroom, children
define intercultural classroom spaces as those that promote collaborative learning, learning of
different languages and a classroom that is culturally responsive to the diverse population.
Immigrant children in Cyprus believe that classroom becomes an important space for
spreading awareness about the different identities along with the sharing of intercultural
knowledge. The children believed that classroom spaces that celebrates the cultural
differences and have porous boundaries would definitely promote interculturalism.
The role of the teachers becomes important in promoting the spirit of
interculturalism. Teachers in the schools of Cyprus take the upper hand to ease the cultural
tensions that may emerge during the interaction between the native students and the
immigrant students (Angelides, Stylianou & Leigh, 2004). Students sometimes felt alienated
in expressing themselves to their peers and such students expect the teachers to play the role
of a mediator and help them with the situation. Studying and participating in culturally
heterogeneous environment becomes a fodder for better communication nad problem solving.
Collaborative learning encourages the native students to understand their immigrant
counterparts better and help them with their everyday problems. However, language barrier
can pose as a major constraint and therefore, it is important to revise and reformulate policies
pertaining to multiculturalism. However, the present intercultural policies have been
empowering for the immigrant students as they felt they were not mere receivers of
knowledge but also had a more substantial role. Angelides argue that teachers should collect
feedback from students and listen to their experiences of acculturation. These knowledge

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would enable the teachers for seeking better ways to promote intercultural education and
upheld the principle of inclusion (Hajisoteriou & Angelides, 2015). To promote inclusion,
children should be placed in groups based on their ethnicity, language, style of interaction
and different set of skills possessed by them. Collaborative techniques would reduce
prejudice about foreign students and at the same time foster mutually responsive tasks.
Teacher should take account of the suggestions of students and promote teamwork.
Continuing the discussions on the role of teachers, Angelides, (2014) in his study of
the role of teachers found that teachers, who are part of schools that comprises of disabled
children, have to exert extra efforts. It is argued by the author, that the government needs to
be more supportive in terms of resources for these teachers. Teachers in order to provide
quality education should be given adequate support (Angelides, Stylianou & Gibbs, 2006).
Instead of allocating all responsibilities on a single teacher, more teachers should be
appointed to make the task less cumbersome. Teachers should be provided with escort
assistants who would cater to the requirements of the special children. The Ministry of
Education needs to adopt community-oriented approach that would aid the teachers in
providing education to the children with special needs. Learning is a participatory and
collaborative process and the role of teachers is quite instrumental in facilitating this mode of
education (Angelides & Ainscow, 2000). Multidimensional learning and group-oriented
learning would be useful transforming the contemporary nature of education. Angelides and
Gibbs, (2006), have found that there is efficiency when teachers work with vignettes. The
term vignettes refer to the hypothetical person who comprises of all the characteristics of a
real student the teacher would deal with in the future teacher-student interaction. The
methodological advantage off using vignettes is that is characterized by communal enquiry
and collaborative understanding. It attempts to integrate the various stakeholders in imparting
of education like the school, policy makers, academicians and researchers. This method

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allows the teachers to reflect on their mode of teaching and continuously improvise on it
(Evagorou, et al., 2014). Another advantage of using the vignette method by the teachers is
that it enables to make a sense of the complexities of the school communities. And engage in
better practises that would develop the organization of the school.
Hajisoteriou, Neophytou and Angelides (2015), in their study of the high-level
officer’s attitude towards intercultural education in Cyprus found that they believe in the
essence of equality, mutual respect and justice forming the crux of intercultural education.
They believe intercultural education upholds the values of human spirit and democracy.
Curriculum is understood to be a cultural and social construction. Curriculum designing is
representative of the design of spaces of learning. The human agency that is involved in the
construction of the curriculum is important to achieve the objectives of the curriculum. The
design of the curriculum reveals the politics and social location of the people in charge of the
tasks. The authors are of the opinion that autonomy of the teachers should not be the goal of
the curriculum but rendering students the autonomy to participate in the decision-making
should be the greater objective. There is an imperative to adopt the curriculum as a praxis
approach. This approach would question the existing curriculum structure and promote a
more ethical and inclusive curriculum structure.
Not just countries like Greece but the leading powers of the world like united
Kingdom have similar problems in schools. For example, gender, ethnic and class
stratification are key issues that plague schools in UK (Angelides, Vrasidas & Charalambous,
2007). It is ironical keeping in mind the diverse population of UK and the financial support it
receives to improve its education system. It has been identified that the garb of neoliberal
policies in United Kingdom exacerbates the exclusion of the ethnic minorities. There is a
relationship between the educational attainment of minority children and the factors that
impede their educational attainment. The Black students face several kinds of disadvantages

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and so as the Muslim minorities in UK. Family, lineage of the family, peer group and
teachers together play an important role in the educational attainment of the child. Similarly,
Muslims are the most vulnerable when it comes to the discrimination and exclusion in
education (Faas, Hajisoteriou & Angelides, 2014). Right wing and conservative leaders
exploit this fear of the citizens and entrench their vote banks. In the wake of the Muslim
students who have to bear the burden. They are either looked upon with suspicion due to their
distinctive identity or they have to maintain the image of a victim in crisis. cartoon crisis in
Denmark, growing fear of terrorism and the islamophobia, it is the minority. According
Stalker, (2002), the working class, marginalized immigrant Muslim boys are represented as
economic burden to the developed nations and at the same time encroaching on the
employment opportunities of the citizens. Therefore, they are perpetually viewed as outsiders
who are infringing on the interests of the country. Attempts at making hijab an unacceptable
dresscode in schools are some of the attempts to otherize the Muslims and exclude them from
the educational sphere. In this light, Ireland’s stand on hijab in schools underlines an
inclusive policy by adopting a liberal framework. Studies have shown that peer group
support plays a significant role in reducing the effects of exclusion or eliminating exclusion.
Tracking system in primary school education and early streaming have been recognized as
contributing towards exclusion.
Conclusion
The above discussion focuses on important issues of inclusive education,
interculturalism and marginalization. Inclusive education can be achieved by understanding
the dimensions and nuances of the term. The issue of marginalization faced by children is not
limited to the context of Cyprus but is also evident in countries like UK and France.
Marginalization can lead to a feeling of insecurity, alienation and exclusion from the space of

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classroom. To reduce the effects of marginalization, inclusive education policy should be the
goal. For this, teachers, students, school authority and academicians all need to participate in
a collaborative process. There is a need to understand the problems faced by the marginalized
students from their perspectives and include them in transforming their condition. It s found
that teachers play a crucial role in reducing the implications of marginalization and therefore,
they should be sensitized to deal with the situation. Listening to the experiences of the
marginalized students and engaging in collaborative artmaking can be important steps in
promoting interculturalism and inclusiveness in the educational sphere.

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References
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