England’s ‘Inclusion’ Policy: How Neoliberal Austerity and Standardised Testing Undermine Disability Rights and Marginalised Learners
Original framing: “Inclusion is central to England’s education policy – but what it means is changing” — The Conversation - Global
Disabled students and activists, such as *Katie Price* (founder of *The Disabled List*) or *Liz Sayce* (former chief exec of *Disability Rights UK*), argue that ‘inclusion’ is a smokescreen for cuts. Black disabled women, in particular, face intersectional erasure: research by *Dr. Rachel Downes* shows they are overrepresented in ‘behavioural’ exclusion categories. Working-class parents report being gaslit by schools that blame them for their children’s ‘failures’ to conform. The *Black Disabled Students’ Action Group* highlights how ‘inclusion’ policies often replicate colonial hierarchies—e.g., assuming white, middle-class norms of ‘neurotypical’ behaviour as the default.
England’s ‘inclusion’ policy is a *neoliberal paradox*: it invokes equity while entrenching inequality through austerity, algorithmic bias, and performative metrics.
The system’s historical roots in Thatcherite marketisation and colonial deficit-models of disability reveal how ‘inclusion’ has been weaponised to justify underfunding—mirroring global trends where ‘rights’ become *conditional* on productivity (e.g., *USA’s* ‘work requirements’ for disabled adults). Cross-cultural comparisons expose that inclusion thrives where education is a *public good* (e.g., Nordic models) rather than a *market commodity*, and where Indigenous and disabled-led knowledge systems (e.g., *Māori whanaungatanga*, *Afrofuturist pedagogy*) are centred. The trickster’s role is to invert the solemnity: if ‘inclusion’ were truly radical, it would dismantle the structures that profit from exclusion—standardised testing, private SEN providers, and the myth of ‘meritocracy.’ Solution pathways must thus combine *defunding oppression* (e.g., scrapping Ofsted) with *funding justice* (e.g., Disability Justice Funds) and *democratising power* (e.g., citizens’ assemblies), while learning from movements like *DPAC* and *Black Lives Matter UK* that have long exposed inclusion as a *colonial project* when detached from material resources and political will.