The context of education in Guyana is different from other countries

Aug 23, 2017 Letters

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Dear Editor,
All education system needs an inclusive framework which guides inclusive practices and polices. Guyana’s mainstream education system is no exception. It too needs a guiding inclusive framework. Loreman (2009) provides a synthesis of the features of inclusive education which can provide the learning opportunities learners with Special Education Needs (SEN) and/or disabilities need to fully achieve the desired outcomes of the individual and the society.
Therefore, when learners with Special Education Needs (SEN) and/or disabilities share the same mainstream primary education system, habitus becomes unified and the power in society would have similar influence on both the learners with Special Education Needs (SEN) and/or disabilities and the general average population of learners. This will be evident in their achievements.
These features of Loreman (2009) synthesis include:
· All children attend their neighbourhood school. Schools and districts have a ‘zero-rejection’ policy when it comes to registering and teaching children in their region.
· All children are welcomed and valued.
· All children learn in regular, heterogeneous classrooms with same-age peers.
· All children follow substantively similar programs of study, with curriculum that can be adapted and modified if needed.
· Modes of instruction are varied and responsive to the needs of all.
· All children contribute to regular school and classroom learning activities and events.
· All children are supported to make friends and to be socially successful with their peers.
· Adequate resources and staff training are provided within the school and district to support inclusion (Loreman, 2009, p. 43).
Having an inclusive framework which guides inclusive practices and polices within Guyana’s mainstream education will help to minimize unintentional discriminatory actions by teachers in mainstream education. Guiding principles are key in a nested learning system like our mainstream education system. This guiding inclusive framework will then transcend from the mainstream education system into the society. Once the society starts thinking inclusively, there will be unison of practice in society and at school.
Guyana’s inclusive framework needs to be written in collaboration after intense deliberation with all stakeholders. However, key in this deliberation are the SEN specialists in the Ministry of Education, the mainstream teachers and the learners with a Special Education Need and/or disabilities. All need to be aware of the implications for Guyana’s mainstream education system for not having its own inclusive framework. Inclusive Education is context bounded and the context of education in Guyana is different from any other mainstream education system.
Bourdieu posited that human behaviour is objectively coordinated and consistent regardless of the rules of the place, location or society. Bourdieu employed the theory of ‘collective conscience’ posited by Durkheim. Bourdieu modified Durkheim’s collective conscience; which meant conscience which was just held in common because of a common location and role to that of conscience which is constructed collectively by individuals in their actions, which incorporate social structure and organization (Bourdieu, 1977, 1989). Bourdieu (1977, 1989) concluded that individuals exteriorize their perspectives in the way they act in a social setting or organization. This can be linked to teachers in an educational institution.
Bourdieu (1977, 1989) posited that through exteriorizing their individual interests, attitudes, and disposition to act, they develop the same habitus. The habitus created in the school guide the formation of the unified framework of perspectives, principles, and practices with regard to Inclusive Education. This researcher theorizes that the consistent collective conscience of teachers in Guyana’s mainstream school is negative and unwelcoming towards learners with SEN and disabilities. The collective conscience of teachers in Guyana’s mainstream school exteriorized is that they are more welcoming to having learners they perceive as not having disabilities and/or SEN.
Bourdieu stated that individuals dispense their habitus among the people with whom they share the same conditions of living or culture of professional practice. The habitus is that which is shared with the people working in the same cultural and learning environment. Bourdieu (1977, 1989) also stated that each individual passes through a unique interiorizing process. This makes up his/her individual personality and vision of overall social habitus.
The same conditions of living or culture of professional practice and same or similar status or position of influence in society or organization leads to the formation of the same habitus. Durkheim (1895) and Bourdieu (1977, 1989) individuals sharing the same position in society and living conditions will have the same habitus. It can be further theorized that teachers in Guyana, working in similar schools under the same conditions and living in the Guyanese society share the same habitus on learners with SEN and disabilities.
Moreover, Bourdieu’s thinking of the habitus of social beings brought together the interplay between agents, who are positioned and the symbolic realm of representations that can be termed as the exchange of meanings (Bourdieu, 1990a: 131). The habitus held by Guyanese teachers in mainstream education in Guyana can be influenced by teachers in positions to influence change.
The links with agents’ position and interest are the key elements that Bourdieu builds into the social space or set of relations in which the habitus exists. The relationship between the teacher and the learners with SEN will be affected by the culture of the school and the collective perspective of the teachers in the school. Social Aberration springs from children’s changing social, environmental relations, causing disturbances in social behaviour.
These social aberrations result in negative consequences for the learner in mainstream education. Cultural distortions can affect the collective conscience and the interaction between the agent and the representation in society. The cultural distortions in society and the school as an organization negatively influence teacher perspective on learners with SEN and/or disabilities. The culture of the school and the collective perspectives of the teachers and others education staff affect the social conditions necessary for inclusive education in a mainstream elementary education setting.
Further, Durkheim argued that the society exists separately and independently from the individuals who form it. Society must be seen as an independent being and must be analyzed as an entity separate from the individual it is comprised of. This means that all the perspectives, values, norms, beliefs, attitudes, principles, etc., that make up culture and key positions held on issues such as SEN and disability do not only exist in the minds of individuals but as a “collective conscience” independent and separate from them. The perspectives of children with SEN and/or disabilities, educators and teachers hold are directly influenced by the culture of the institution and the collective conscience on the issue.
Lidon Lashley, B.Ed., M.Ed., M.A.

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