ABSTRACT
This chapter returns to examine some conceptual and value issues that emerged in previous chapters. The first aim is to highlight the problems with simple dichotomies, for example, special needs v. inclusive education, rights v. needs discourse and the social model v. the medical model of disability. The second aim is to focus on the uncertainties and ambivalence about the position of disability in relation to the concepts of ‘difference’ and ‘diversity’ as used in positions about inclusion and inclusive education. On one hand, inclusion is about more than disability and is relevant to all learners, but on the other hand, there have been critiques of the international agenda and practices as having overlooked people with disabilities. This can be seen to reflect the abstract language of inclusion as about ‘responding to the diversity of needs of all’. The third aim of this chapter is to examine what it means to say difficulties and disabilities are ‘real’ or ‘socially constructed’ and the implications for inclusion principles and assumptions about knowledge and the objects of knowledge. The chapter concludes with an examination of the promise and limitations of the capability approach.
