Educating All

Christopher McMaster completed a PhD in education based on a critical ethnography of developing inclusive culture in an Aotearoa/New Zealand high school. He has lived and taught in several countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, and New Zealand, as a regular and special educator as well as an advisor to schools.

This book contributes significantly to the conversation about inclusion as a critical component of school culture. Educating All recounts Christopher McMaster's experience as a critical ethnographer in a school community, given the task of not only studying the institution's culture, but of creating change as well. The school used a whole-school framework known as the Index for Inclusion, which addressed students identified as having «special» or learning needs. The outcome of this process was the realization that the faculty and the system were not adequately providing optimum services to «special needs» students. By incorporating the special needs unit into a larger department and by utilizing it as a teaching center rather than a classroom, the staff and school leadership were able to produce a better alignment of value and practice and to provide a re-interpretation of just what is meant by «mainstream».

This book contributes significantly to the conversation about inclusion as a critical component of school culture. Educating All recounts Christopher McMaster's experience as a critical ethnographer in a school community, given the task of not only studying the institution's culture, but of creating change as well.

Contents: Special and Inclusive? A Model of Special Education - What is in a Word? Exploring Inclusion - The Utopian Roots behind Inclusion - Neoliberalism in New Zealand Education - A Fish in Water and a Peasant at a Dance: The Importance of Culture - The Index for Inclusion - Our School: A Place for Every Learner - «All It Needs is a Plan»: The Index in Use - «Where Is [_______]?»: Re-examining Values and How They Are Applied in Practice - «That's Easy - Just Do It»: Experiencing Inclusion - Thinking through Inclusion: A School Leader's Perspective - Inclusion One School at a Time?