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This publication draws together research and learning from around the world, in papers which highlight the need for inclusive education and some of the steps being taken to implement it. 

The settings brought to life here reveal the work of teachers, leaders and policy makers in geographically and culturally diverse situations. In each of the chapters we see the challenges they face and the significant efforts they make to ensure access to, and engagement with, a quality education for all children. The collection includes 15 case studies:

Special educational needs and disability section:

• Teaching for All: mainstreaming inclusive education in South Africa
• Successful inclusive education starts with teachers: what have we learned? A multi-country case study
• Teaching English as a second language to the visually impaired in disadvantaged contexts: a case study from Chiapas, Mexico
• The Theatre of the Classroom

Displaced populations section

• Teaching on the run: safe learning spaces for internally displaced persons
• Developing resilience through English language teaching in youth centres across Iraq
• Capacity building for inclusive classrooms: the Living Together training
• Integrating Syrian refugee children and their parents into Lebanese early education systems

Gender and inclusion in the classroom section

• A gender equality and social inclusion approach to teaching and learning: lessons from the Girls’ Education Challenge
• Teacher development and gender equality in five Nigerian states
• Creating gender-inclusive schools in Turkey: the ETCEP project in action
• Education, English language, and girls’ development: exploring gender-responsive policies and practices in Nepal

Minority ethnic groups in the classroom

• Social inclusion and the role of English language education: making a transition from school to higher education in India
• Storytelling for diverse voices
• Inclusive education in marginalised contexts: the San and Ovahimba learners in Namibia

Background: Historically, challenges faced by students with disabilities (SWDs) in accessing higher education institutions (HEIs) were attributed to limited public funding. The introduction of progressive funding models such as disability scholarships served to widen access to, and participation in, higher education for SWDs. However, recent years have seen these advances threatened by funding cuts and privatisation in higher education.

Objectives: In this article, the funding mechanisms of selected developed and developing democratic countries including the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa and India are described in order to gain an insight into how such mechanisms enhance access, equal participation, retention, success and equality of outcome for SWDs. The countries selected are often spoken about as exemplars of best practices in relation to widening access and opportunities for SWDs through government mandated funding mechanisms. Method: A critical literature review of the sample countries’ funding mechanisms governing SWDs in higher education and other relevant government documents; secondary academic literature on disability funding; online sources including University World News, University Affairs, newspaper articles, newsletters, literature from bodies such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Disabled World and Parliamentary Monitoring Group. Data were analysed using a theoretically derived directed qualitative content analysis.

Results: Barriers which place SWDs at a substantial educational disadvantage compared to their non-disabled peers include bureaucratisation of application processes, cuts in disability funding, means-test requirements, minimal scholarships for supporting part-time and distance learning for SWDs and inadequate financial support to meet the day-to-day costs that arise as a result of disability.

Conclusion: Although the steady increase of SWDs accessing HEIs of the sampled countries have been attributed to supportive disability funding policies, notable is the fact that these students are still confronted by insurmountable disability funding-oriented barriers. Thus, we recommend the need for these HEIs to address these challenges as a matter of urgency if they are to respect the rights of SWDs as well as provide them with an enabling environment to succeed academically.

African Journal of Disability, Vol 8, 2019

This journal volume includes:

• 33 research articles
• 2 review articles
• an opinion paper
• a case study
• two book reviews

Additionally there is a special collection of 3 papers concerned with the Role of Assistive Technology.

Background: This article emanates from a study funded by the KwaZulu-Natal chapter of South Africa’s National Research Foundation on the ‘Archaeology of Ubuntu’. It explores the notion of ubuntu and disability in a group of Zulu people from four communities within KwaZulu-Natal. The study is based on the notion that ubuntu is humaneness. Being human is linked to notions of care, respect and compassion.

Objectives: The article explores the treatment of people with disabilities from the elders’ perspectives in this community.

Method: This article is based on qualitative data resulting from structured interviews conducted in the KwaZulu-Natal Province between February and March 2015.

Results: The results reveal that society considered the birth of a disabled child as a curse from God and punishment from the ancestors. The results also indicate that people with disabilities were excluded from community activities; marrying a disabled person was unthinkable because they were stigmatised and dehumanised. The work of Hannah Arendt is used to interrogate people’s perceptions of others with disabilities in their communities.

Conclusion: The article posits that treatment of people with disabilities is not cast in stone but can be renegotiated and restructured through community engagement to represent genuine inclusion.

In light of the importance of disability data collection and the disaggregation of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) outcome indicators by disability status, the Washington Group on Disability Statistics (WG) undertook an exercise to review, among WG member countries, the extent to which data on SDG indicators currently available can be disaggregated by disability status. Requests for disaggregated SDG data for 13 selected indicators were sent to 146 member countries. 48 countries responded and 39 provided data. Response data is tabulated and discussed.

Background: Understanding caregivers’ views on rehabilitation services is important as it may assist in informing healthcare services and patient management.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to explore caregivers’ perceptions and satisfaction regarding rehabilitation services in the Western Cape, South Africa, and to inform clinical practice and policy in this emerging field.

Method: This study used a descriptive, qualitative design using in-depth interviews with conveniently selected participants. Interviews were conducted with 13 caregivers of patients with: amputations (3), cerebrovascular accidents (5) and neuromuscular disorders (5). Thematic content analysis was conducted with the transcripts.

Results: Four key themes emerged, which were (1) financial difficulties, (2) caregiver and therapist relationships, (3) facility management and (4) caregiver experience with service delivery.

Conclusion: Based on the participants’ feedback, the rehabilitation services seem to be meeting the basic rehabilitation needs of the patients; however, the needs of the caregivers require attention.

Background: Culturally, hearing children born to Deaf parents may have to mediate two different positions within the hearing and Deaf cultures. However, there appears to be little written about the experiences of hearing children born to Deaf parents in the South African context.

Objective: This study sought to investigate the roles of children of Deaf adults (CODAs) as interpreters in Deaf-parented families, more specifically, the influence of gender and birth order in language brokering.

Method: Two male and eight female participants between the ages of 21 and 40 years were recruited through purposive and snowball sampling strategies. A qualitative design was employed and data were collected using a semi-structured, open-ended interview format. Themes which emerged were analysed using thematic analysis.

Results: The findings indicated that there was no formal assignment of the interpreter role; however, female children tended to assume the role of interpreter more often than the male children. Also, it appeared as though the older children shifted the responsibility for interpreting to younger siblings. The participants in this study indicated that they interpreted in situations where they felt they were not developmentally or emotionally ready, or in situations which they felt were better suited for older siblings or for siblings of another gender.

Conclusion: This study highlights a need for the formalisation of interpreting services for Deaf people in South Africa in the form of professional interpreters rather than the reliance on hearing children as interpreters in order to mediate between Deaf and hearing cultures.

Background: In this article, we reflected on our experience of the cost of parenting a child with autism, including our ongoing search for educational and therapeutic intervention.

Objectives: We aimed to give an academic insight into the state of autism education and care in South Africa as seen by us, with special attention to its cost and sustainability.

Methods: Using evocative autoethnography as storied scholarship together with critical autism studies, we reflected on stories of the past 5 years since our son’s diagnosis.

Results: Our experiences agree with international studies that establish autism as the most expensive disability. In addition to the high costs of diagnosis, existing intervention and support approaches are unaffordable for the majority of South Africans. We recommend that teachers should be trained to participate in early screening and diagnosis, as well as co-therapists, to strengthen the implementation of inclusive education.

Conclusion: The kind of autism intervention currently offered in South Africa is financially and socially unsustainable. Instead of positioning autism as an individual or family dilemma, it should be addressed as an educational and societal issue. Future research should explore cost-effective options for a developing country context, while promoting best practice within inclusive settings.

Articles include:

• Editorial: Intersecting Indigeneity, colonialisation and disability
• Yuin, Kamilaroi, Sámi, and Maori people’s reflections on experiences as ‘Indigenous scholars’ in ‘Disability Studies’ and ‘Decolonisation’
• Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology: Practitioners’ Reflections on Indigeneity, Disability and Neo-Colonial Marketing
• ‘My granddaughter doesn’t know she has disabilities and we are not going to tell her’: Navigating Intersections of Indigenousness, Disability and Gender in Labrador
• Disabling Bodies of/and Land: Reframing Disability Justice in Conversation with Indigenous Theory and Activism
• The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its implications for the health and wellbeing of indigenous peoples with disabilities: A comparison across Australia, Mexico and New Zealand
• Challenges in global Indigenous–Disability comparative research, or, why nation-state political histories matter
• ‘Black on the inside’: albino subjectivity in the African novel
• The role of indigenous and external knowledge in development interventions with disabled people in Burkina Faso: the implications of engaging with lived experiences
• An intersection in population control: welfare reform and indigenous people with a partial capacity to work in the Australian northern territory
• Inclusion of marginalised Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples with neurocognitive disability in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)