Lived experience and inclusive education: an exploration of the phenomenon of inclusive education in the life world of young people, parents and teachers

While much research has focused on the processes and practices of inclusion in schools, less is known about how these processes are experienced on a daily basis, and what these experiences mean to young people, parents and teachers. The development of inclusion in the Scottish education system is examined, to give context and background to this study, as well as the features of Scotland’s approach to the education of children with ‘additional needs’. A number of more general issues surrounding inclusive education in schools are discussed, identifying barriers, which appear to hold back the enactment of inclusion in schools, as well as difficulties surrounding the conceptualisation of inclusive education and its rôle, alongside the aims of education. Using a phenomenological approach as both methodology and method, this research seeks to gain a greater understanding of the daily experience of education, which describes itself as ‘inclusive’. Based on Husserlian phenomenology, as further interpreted in Merleau- Ponty’s theory of embodiment, in depth interviews were used to gain rich descriptions of experience, giving voice to seven young people, together with four teachers, one Learning Assistant and the mothers of two of the young participants, making fourteen in all. All the young people attended one mainstream, fully comprehensive, non-selective secondary school, for pupils aged between twelve and eighteen years. The young people in this study were identified by the school, as having a range of “additional needs” and might have been educated in alternative provision, prior to the extension to the policies of inclusion in Scotland. A range of methods was used, within the interviews, to enable the voices of those seldom heard in research, to be heard. The interview data were analysed by reference to Merleau-Ponty’s five existentials, and the phenomenological methods of Moustakas and van Manen, to create an eidetic description of the experience of inclusive education. The ethical nature of inclusive education was examined, through the lens of Levinas’ theory of alterity. The findings of the research underline the importance of the human relationship in all aspects of school life. Findings indicate a number of areas, where the characteristics of an inclusive education in a mainstream school, are not experienced as “inclusive”. Looking forward, the research findings suggest a need to reconceptualise inclusive education, as an ethical response to a call from the Other, based on Levinas’ theory of alterity, in which the unique singularity of each person is accepted and valued, allowing young people to grow and develop in schools, with a true ‘sense of belonging’

Hearing Silence: Understanding the Complexities of Silence in Democratic Classrooms and Our Responsibility as Teachers and Teacher Educators. A Response to Creating a Democratic Mathematics Classroom: The Interplay of the Rights and Responsibilities of the Learner.

This response to Priya Prasad’s and Crystal Kalinec-Craig’s article on the interplay of the Rights and Responsibilities of the Learner aims to engage with and add on to the authors’ exploration of learners overexercising or opting out of their rights. While grappling with these challenges alongside the authors, our curiosity deepened about a significant and understudied facet of democratic classrooms: silence. Through this response, we consider the multifaceted dimension of silence and how a focus on silence may help us more fully understand the tension between learners’ rights and responsibilities to self, each other, and the collective. Specifically, we engage in dialogue around three questions: If students have the right to speak, listen, and be heard, do they also have a right to be silent, or is that right surpassed by a responsibility to contribute verbally, because classmates will not be able to learn from unexpressed thinking? If a student is silent, how do we distinguish if they are choosing to be silent or are being silenced? What might it look like to think about rights and responsibilities as collective rather than individual

Hearing Silence:Understanding the complexities of silence in democratic classrooms and our responsibilities as teachers and teacher educators. A response to "Creating a Democratic Mathematics Classroom: The Interplay of the Rights and Responsibilities of the Learner."

This response to Priya Prasad’s and Crystal Kalinec-Craig’s article on the interplay of the Rights and Responsibilities of the Learner aims to engage with and add on to the authors’ exploration of learners overexercising or opting out of their rights. While grappling with these challenges alongside the authors, our curiosity deepened about a significant and understudied facet of democratic classrooms: silence. Through this response, we consider the multifaceted dimension of silence and how a focus on silence may help us more fully understand the tension between learners’ rights and responsibilities to self, each other, and the collective. Specifically, we engage in dialogue around three questions: If students have the right to speak, listen, and be heard, do they also have a right to be silent, or is that right surpassed by a responsibility to contribute verbally, because classmates will not be able to learn from unexpressed thinking? If a student is silent, how do we distinguish if they are choosing to be silent or are being silenced? What might it look like to think about rights and responsibilities as collective rather than individual

Common, low-frequency, rare, and ultra-rare coding variants contribute to COVID-19 severity

The combined impact of common and rare exonic variants in COVID-19 host genetics is currently insufficiently understood. Here, common and rare variants from whole-exome sequencing data of about 4000 SARS-CoV-2-positive individuals were used to define an interpretable machine-learning model for predicting COVID-19 severity. First, variants were converted into separate sets of Boolean features, depending on the absence or the presence of variants in each gene. An ensemble of LASSO logistic regression models was used to identify the most informative Boolean features with respect to the genetic bases of severity. The Boolean features selected by these logistic models were combined into an Integrated PolyGenic Score that offers a synthetic and interpretable index for describing the contribution of host genetics in COVID-19 severity, as demonstrated through testing in several independent cohorts. Selected features belong to ultra-rare, rare, low-frequency, and common variants, including those in linkage disequilibrium with known GWAS loci. Noteworthily, around one quarter of the selected genes are sex-specific. Pathway analysis of the selected genes associated with COVID-19 severity reflected the multi-organ nature of the disease. The proposed model might provide useful information for developing diagnostics and therapeutics, while also being able to guide bedside disease management. © 2021, The Author(s)

Genomic investigations of unexplained acute hepatitis in children

Since its first identification in Scotland, over 1,000 cases of unexplained paediatric hepatitis in children have been reported worldwide, including 278 cases in the UK1. Here we report an investigation of 38 cases, 66 age-matched immunocompetent controls and 21 immunocompromised comparator participants, using a combination of genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic and immunohistochemical methods. We detected high levels of adeno-associated virus 2 (AAV2) DNA in the liver, blood, plasma or stool from 27 of 28 cases. We found low levels of adenovirus (HAdV) and human herpesvirus 6B (HHV-6B) in 23 of 31 and 16 of 23, respectively, of the cases tested. By contrast, AAV2 was infrequently detected and at low titre in the blood or the liver from control children with HAdV, even when profoundly immunosuppressed. AAV2, HAdV and HHV-6 phylogeny excluded the emergence of novel strains in cases. Histological analyses of explanted livers showed enrichment for T cells and B lineage cells. Proteomic comparison of liver tissue from cases and healthy controls identified increased expression of HLA class 2, immunoglobulin variable regions and complement proteins. HAdV and AAV2 proteins were not detected in the livers. Instead, we identified AAV2 DNA complexes reflecting both HAdV-mediated and HHV-6B-mediated replication. We hypothesize that high levels of abnormal AAV2 replication products aided by HAdV and, in severe cases, HHV-6B may have triggered immune-mediated hepatic disease in genetically and immunologically predisposed children

The performance of expert valuation witnesses in Australia

Earlier research in the UK found that the performance of expert valuation witnesses was inconsistent. This paper aims to examine the organisation, training and performance of the expert valuation witness in Australia. After reviewing the legal content, the paper examines the criticisms that have been made of expert witnesses and carries out survey work of expert valuation witnesses in Australia using a comparable survey instrument to that used earlier in the UK. The paper concludes .. that the current expert witness system is operating reasonably well in Australia, but that more formal training may help to overcome potential bias

Travelling theory: Western knowledge and its Indian object

From the1830s the colonial government in India became the agency for the promotion of ‘Western education’, that is, education that sought to disseminate modern, Western, rational knowledge through modern institutions and pedagogic processes. This paper examines a historical episode in which certain key categories of modern Western thought were pressed into service to explain a consequence of the dissemination of Western knowledge in colonial India. The episode in question was that of the alleged ‘moral crisis’ of the educated Indian, who, many argued, had been plunged into confusion and moral disarray following his exposure to Western knowledge in the schools and universities established by his British ruler. In the discourse of moral crisis, the knowledge being disseminated through Western education was simultaneously put to use in explaining an unanticipated effect of this education. How adequate was Western knowledge to explaining its own effects? More generally –for this paper is drawn from a larger study of how modern Western knowledge ‘travelled’ when transplanted to colonial India – what is the status of the knowledge we produce when we ‘apply’ the categories of modern Western thought in order to understand or explain India

Immunisation handbook 2006

Immunisation is a highly effective strategy for the prevention of infectious disease throughout life. The results of the 2005 National Coverage Survey (as summarised in the Introduction) have shown we have made progress in improving immunisation coverage in New Zealand since the previous survey in 1991. The implementation of the National Immunisation Register and the Meningococcal B Immunisation Programme have focused health professionals and the public on the benefits of immunisation. We will be able to build on these successes to use the National Immunisation Register to improve immunisation coverage so that children whose parents wish to immunise their children receive their age appropriate immunisations. The Immunisation Handbook 2006 provides information for health professionals on vaccine preventable diseases, the vaccines available, and the updated National Immunisation Schedule, as well as practical advice and strategies for health professionals immunising children and adults in New Zealand. A new chapter identifies new vaccines likely to be available in New Zealand during the time this edition of the handbook is current. The 2006 National Immunisation Schedule introduces a pertussis containing vaccine to be offered at the age of 11 years to protect adolescents and young adults against pertussis. This new vaccine provides an opportunity to decrease the impact of pertussis in young people and reduce the size of pertussis epidemics. The meningococcal B vaccine will continue to be offered to infants and children under the age of five years until it is no longer necessary to control the disease. I would like to thank the members of the Immunisation Technical Working Group who have contributed to rewriting the Immunisation Handbook 2006, and to thank all those who acted as peer reviewers. I trust this edition, like its predecessors, will prove a valuable resource for health professionals