Focus on Policy: Beyond Convictions: Interrogating Culture, History, and Power in Inclusive Education

Inclusive education is a laudable concept and an ambitious reform movement that promises to enhance access, participation, and outcomes for all students. A core strategy to achieve this important agenda is build communities of practice governed by inclusive principles and values. The purpose of this article is to critique several key premises of inclusive education to address culture, history, and power issues. Specifically, we argue inclusive education cannot be achieved nor sustained if it ignores enduring legacies of racial oppression and stratification in U.S. society. We also challenge inclusive education’s assumptions about community membership, identification, and identity changes. Finally, we propose inclusive education must have moral, political, and intellectual dimensions to pursue a transformative agenda that does not merely compel students to assimilate into a mainstream society that is fraught with inequalities.