Responding to the challenges of inclusive education in southern Africa

Since the publication in 2007 of the first edition of this seminal work, the broader concept of inclusive education has become well-established in many African countries. The editors believe it is time to look carefully at the successes and concerns associated with inclusive education in southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Malawi, and Lesotho) and to highlight strategies that have been shown to increase the likelihood of success. This new edition presents readers with cultural-historical contexts and the voices that emerge from them, together with insights into challenges and opportunities associated with inclusive education in southern African contexts. The first section of the book describes a number of such contexts and reviews progress to date. The second section focuses on strategies to respond to, circumvent or reframe the challenges that have been identified. These include changing the discourses on diverse learning needs, facilitating institutional change, creating new collaborative partnerships, involving parents, moving towards teacher education for inclusion, thinking differently about education support, understanding how the curriculum can contribute to exclusion and developing inclusive pedagogy within the southern African context. The discussion of these strategies links evidence from international and local research with the unique characteristics of particular contexts and illustrates how ideas can be put into practice in creative ways. In addition to providing an academic update, this text will be of practical value to teachers, learning support personnel and administrators, and indeed, anyone interested in promoting inclusive education. Professor Petra Engelbrecht is a Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Education Sciences, North-West University, Potchefstroom campus and Emeritus Professor of Education, Canterbury Christ Church University, England. Her research focuses on equity in education with specific reference to the implementation of inclusive education in diverse cultural-historical contexts and she has published extensively in this regard. Professor Lena Green is Extraordinary Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of the Western Cape and a practicing educational psychologist. She has studied and taught in the field of cognitive development and enhancement for the past 20 years. Her research focuses on ways of introducing cognitive education in all classrooms for all learners.