ABSTRACT
The extent to which inclusive education is desirable or achievable for children with profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD) is a contentious issue. Whilst international policy suggests that inclusion is imperative for developing socially just societies, some commentators argue that the extensive learning impairments of children with PMLD prevents them from meaningful participation in mainstream education. In this chapter, Ben Simmons contributes to the debate in two ways. First, he presents key findings from a three-year research project that examined how mainstream schools and special schools provide social interaction opportunities for children with PMLD. Second, he develops a novel socio-ontological lens of belonging that draws attention to the structure of group interaction (the ‘numerical’ concept of plurality), and how social interaction presupposes the embodiment of a community's meanings, traditions and object-relations (the ‘cultural’ concept of plurality). By applying this lens to his research data, he illuminates how belonging occurs in both mainstream schools and special schools, but in qualitatively different ways. He concludes by suggesting that the inclusion debate should move away from examining which setting is ‘best’ for children with PMLD and focus on the conditions that can lead to belonging.
