The Journey to Inclusion / Studies in Inclusive Education (PDF)

This book offers insight on the politics of
inclusion in Vietnam through a Foucauldian and post-colonial perspective on
disability and education. Drawing on a socio-historical analysis of the
inclusion of disabled people in Vietnam in the twenty-first century, the book
guides readers through a 'history of the present.' By reflecting on the
treatment of disabled people in Vietnamese social history, the book argues that
this journey to inclusion calls for critical reflections on the challenges and
possibilities for policies to transform exclusion for disabled people. The book
unveils the problematics of social and educational institutions in governing
disability and difference through a critical reflection on discourses and power
in the global and local juncture, in relation to its engagement with disability
in the global South. The intersection between the global politics of disability
rights and development and the local politics of inclusion in Vietnam shapes
the cultural politics of education. The ways inclusive education is
historically constructed, within this socio-historical condition, reflects the
challenges of inclusive thought and action for transforming injustice.

Going beyond 'deconstructive politics,' The
Journey to Inclusion argues for a re-positioning of the relationships between
the global North and South as an alternative approach to inclusion. It suggests
that critical research must construct a politics of engagement with subjugated
voices and representations in transnational, national, and local contexts. A
reflexive, critical, and inclusive dialogue that engages with Southern
knowledge offers a political platform for reframing justice in the twenty-first
century.