ABSTRACT
Inclusive education as a field is distinctive in making explicit its commitment to a particular values-position – in this case to the values of 'inclusion'. The question arises, therefore, whether such diversity is a reflection of the individuals who have contributed to this volume or whether it tells something about the state of the field of 'inclusive education' as it is constituted. Like effective schooling or special educational needs, for instance, but unlike, say, the sociology of education, it is concerned both with the development of particular practices and with inquiry into those practices. In a situation where different approaches disengage from each other, it is possible that one will become dominant within the field, determining research agendas and exerting an overwhelming influence on policy and practice. The challenge, therefore, is to allow development to engage productively with analysis without restricting the emergence of more just practices.
