ABSTRACT
Inclusion in education is an ongoing principled process that requires commitment and dedication to be carried out through alignment between inclusive policies, culture, and practices. In this chapter, we provide a critical overview of the nature of inclusion in education at the national level by synthesising research literature and policy documents. The focus is on how inclusion as a principle of education practice is formed in education policy and governed to be implemented in practice. We present how education policy provides an ambiguous notion of inclusion let alone weak guidance about implementing the process into practice, leaving the idea of inclusion as principled education practice open to interpretation with ambivalent manifestations. We argue that despite the political liturgy of a strong commitment to inclusion in Finland and related policy-level progress, the vagueness of the conceptualisation of inclusion in education, the reduction of inclusion to a special education agenda, and the lack of centralised governance of the fundamental ideals of inclusion in education with adequate resource allocations pose a threat of watering down the agenda of inclusion.
