ABSTRACT
The statement on social inclusion in the National Curriculum for Physical Education (NCPE) document identifies three key principles for the development of a more inclusive curriculum. These are (1) setting suitable learning challenges, (2) responding to pupils’ diverse learning needs, and (3) overcoming potential barriers to learning and assessment for individuals and groups of pupils (DfEE/QCA 1999:28). In serving these principles, issues of ‘race’, gender, disability, sexuality, religious and cultural differences, special needs, and ethnicity tend to be foregrounded. But what about social class? Often, social class is either forgotten or disregarded in discussions of social exclusion in education and Physical Education. Indeed, social class seems to be marginal to the discourse of social inclusion more generally. In this chapter the marginal status of class in combating social exclusion will be challenged through three distinct but connected arguments.
