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Inclusive Education in New Zealand:

culture, context and ideology
a
Keith Ballard
a
Department of Education , University of Otago , New Zealand
Published online: 04 Jun 2009.

To cite this article: Keith Ballard (1996) Inclusive Education in New Zealand: culture, context
and ideology, Cambridge Journal of Education, 26:1, 33-45, DOI: 10.1080/0305764960260103

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 Cambridge Journal of Education, Vol. 26, No. 1, 1996 33

Inclusive Education in New

Zealand: culture, context and
ideology
KEITH BALLARD
Department of Education, University of Otago, New Zealand
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ABSTRACT Parents and teachers in New Zealand who have developed inclusive, non-
discriminatory classrooms and schools are supported by education and human rights legislation
and by recent policy on special education. Resistance to inclusion within the education system
may be seen as reflecting disablist attitudes and practices. Inclusion values diversity, not
assimilation. It is consistent with separate development, which might be chosen, for example, by
those in the deaf and Maori communities as a means to maintain their language and culture.
Education policies and practices are examined from the perspective of disability as a socio-
political issue within a broader context of new right, libertarian ideologies that have impacted
on the resources and structure of education and other state activities in New Zealand over the
last decade.

INTRODUCTION
Inclusive education is an international phenomenon (Pearpoint & Forest, 1994).
It is a movement that began as a values-based challenge to exclusionary and
disablist policies and practices (Biklen, 1985; Sonntag, 1994) and has gained
strength from demonstrable achievements in educating all students in ordinary
classroom settings irrespective of their differences in intellectual, physical,
sensory or other characteristics (Ballard, 1992; Stainback, S. et al, 1989).
Support for inclusion may also be derived from studies that have identified
significant inadequacies in the curriculum of segregated special education
(Wood & Shears, 1986; Fodham, 1989; Rubenfeld, 1995) and from critical
analysis of the entire special education enterprise as an ineffective and indefen-
sible strategy for the management and control of 'surplus population' (Soder,
1984), premised on educational theories and practices that are seriously flawed
(Biklen, 1988; Heshusius, 1989; Skrtic, 1991).
New Zealand has evolved a dual regular and 'special' education system,
much like that in Western industrial democracies, and significantly influenced
by research, theory and legislation from Britain and America in particular
(Mitchell, 1987). In this paper my interpretation of how inclusion is being
advanced and resisted in New Zealand stresses the importance of culture and
0305-764X/96/010033-13 © 1996 University of Cambridge Institute of Education
 34 K Ballard

context for understanding the meaning that particular people assign to an idea
and the uses they put that idea to. Even within such a small nation as ours
(population 3.3 million), there is considerable diversity in the position that
different groups hold on inclusive education and it is evident that people may
redefine and reposition themselves as they respond across time to changing
experiences and circumstances.

INCLUSION: DEFINITIONS AND POLICY

Inclusive education in New Zealand means that every student has the right to
access the curriculum as a full-time member of an ordinary classroom alongside
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other students of similar chronological age. This position is non-exclusionary,

emphasising a belief that 'the education of each student is equally important'
(Biklen, 1987, p. i) and that no student should experience segregation on the
basis of disability. It is premised on the concept of the 'non-restrictive' environ-
ment (Taylor, 1988) and implies that every child should have the resources and
support that they need for successful learning. Specification of 'full-time'
involvement derives from research evidence that genuine membership of the
class is threatened by student withdrawal for 'special' teaching and therapies
(Biklen, 1985). The need for involvement with same age peers is recorded as a
strategy to resist out-of-age-group placements based on discredited psycho-
metric models of 'mental ability' (Gould, 1984) that are still used by some
professionals in advisory services.
Recent legislation may be seen as supporting inclusive education, with the
Education Act (1989) stating that:

People who have special educational needs (whether because of dis-

ability or otherwise) have the same rights to enrol and receive
education at state schools as people who do not. (Section 8)

These rights to education mean that:

Every person...is entitled to free enrolment and free education at any

state school during the period beginning on the person's fifth birthday
and ending on the first day of January after the person's 19th birthday.
(Section 3)

While the Act can be interpreted as allowing every child access to the local
community school, it also makes provision for the Chief Executive of the
Ministry of Education to direct that a student must receive special education at
a certain school. Parents may appeal against such a direction, but, while a dual
system of regular and special provisions is retained, it remains possible for
parents to be denied access to their local school where that school resists
enrolling their child, usually on the grounds that school resources are inad-
equate.
 Inclusive Education in New Zealand 35

Nevertheless, disability groups and other advocates for inclusion have

strongly supported the legislation as a firm basis for change toward non-
discriminatory educational practices. The Assembly of People with Disabilities
(DPA New Zealand, Inc.) wrote in their submission to government in support
of the legislation that, while the development of separate special education in
New Zealand had been 'well intentioned', it was time to end separate provisions
and develop

a unified system of education, in which the dual systems of special and

regular education are merged to provide a more equitable, efficient and
appropriate system designed to better meet the unique needs of every
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pupil. [DPA (NZ) Inc., 1987]

A similar position was advanced by the Interagency Group (1991), which

comprised the New Zealand Society for the Intellectually Handicapped, New
Zealand CCS (people with physical disabilities), Royal New Zealand Foun-
dation for the Blind, and the Special Education Service (the government agency
that provides advisory services to schools, including psychologists and speech-
language therapists). Their report, entitled Inclusive Education for All, saw the
Education Act (1989) as 'providing for the right of all learners to be educated
in regular education settings' (p. 4), premised on a belief that 'all children can
learn and that the basic responsibility for learning in the school setting is with
the regular classroom teacher' (p. 8).
The right of access to the regular education system provided for in the
Education Act is supported by legislation in the Human Rights Act, which, from
February 1994, outlawed discrimination on the basis of disability. While an
'exemption clause' would appear to allow schools to reject students if 'special'
resources could not 'reasonably be made available', it is suggested that the Act
does not limit the provisions of other acts, so that under the Education Act 1989
'disabled children (have) the right to be educated in local schools' (Henderson,
1993, p. 7). This right is further supported by the Special Education Policy
Guidelines (Ministry of Education, 1995), which state that 'learners with special
education needs have access to the same range of age-appropriate education
settings as other learners' (Section 1.1) and have the 'legal right...to enrol and
attend school on the same basis as all other learners' (Section 1.2).

SUPPORT FOR INCLUSION

The Interagency Group Report (1991) stated its belief that the regular class-
room teacher can, and should, take responsibility for all students, irrespective of
student ability or disability. This idea is supported in New Zealand by teachers
in inclusive schools (Ballard, 1992; Ballard & Morton, 1988) and by some
special school principals and teachers in segregated special education who
support inclusion as a goal for all students (Tomkins, 1994).
 36 K. Bollard

Support for inclusion from experienced practitioners in segregated special

education settings agrees with the view that the essential skills needed are those
of the mainstream classroom teacher (Tomkins, 1994). While probably in a
minority, these voices are, nevertheless, important evidence that the rationale for
'special' education is being seriously challenged from within that area. Also, this
position reflects an awareness that some New Zealand schools, with access only
to the limited support resources available to other state schools, successfully
operate as inclusive, non-discriminatory settings responsible to all students in
their community. Their achievements challenge continued segregation in other
parts of the education system and indicate that geography, where a family lives,
can be more significant than 'clinical diagnosis' for the kind of education a
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student may receive (Biklen, 1988).

The majority of students typically segregated into special schools or classes
in our education system are those with intellectual disabilities (Mitchell &
Mitchell, 1987) and minority students and those living in poverty are
significantly more likely to be so classified and placed out of the mainstream in
New Zealand (Bevan-Brown, 1994; Olssen, 1988), as elsewhere (Sapon-Shevin,
1989). Teachers and parents increasingly assert the value for such students of
mainstream instructional strategies and involvement in the mainstream curricu-
lum (Ballard & Morton, 1988). Also, in contrast with students in segregated
settings, studies indicate that students with disabilities in inclusive schools are
less likely to experience negative labels and interactions with non-disabled peers
(Mitchell, 1990) and are more likely to have friendships with non-disabled peers
and to be involved in regular sport and other activities in their community
(Rietveld, 1989).
From within the present dual education system, inclusive education is
achieved by the process of integration through mainstreaming, the movement of
children with disabilities from segregated settings into ordinary, age-appropriate
classrooms. Parents of children with disabilities, in particular mothers in this
gendered area (Munford, 1994), began the integration movement in New
Zealand in the late 1940s (Sonntag, 1994). They have consistently rejected the
idea that their child with a disability should be sent to schools or classrooms
different from those attended by brothers, sisters or neighbourhood children.
Brown (1990) has compared the struggle for mainstreaming in New Zealand
with the American civil rights movement, and has recorded the 'grief, the
bewilderment, the despair in parents' eyes' as they have confronted resistance to
integration, and the implied message that their children 'are not of equal
value...and...are a problem' (p. 26). For many parents, says Brown (1994), the
word 'special' is viewed 'with loathing; it hangs around their child's neck like a
dead albatross, signalling the separateness of their lives' (p. 241). In contrast,
getting into the mainstream, as another parent recorded, 'made me feel more
normal—like an ordinary Mum' (Bogard, 1994, p. 62).
Educators who work alongside such parents as partners in the integration
movement take the view that there is no sound, theoretical or empirical basis for
the idea that there are distinct types of students—special and regular—who
 Inclusive Education in New Zealand 37

require different teaching methods and separate education facilities' (Stainback

& Stainback, 1984, p. 102). Professional support for inclusion rests in part on
theoretical and applied educational research from New Zealand and elsewhere
(in particular Canada, see Porter & Richler, 1991). It is consistent with
ecological and socio-cultural theories of child development which emphasise the
role of interpersonal processes and of context in learning. In this regard,
segregation could be seen as restricting the 'zone of proximal development'
(Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86), in particular for students with disabilities streamed into
homogeneous settings. Naturally heterogeneous mainstream settings, on the
other hand, offer diversity and complexity as powerful and non-discriminatory
learning contexts for all students.
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Important as such theoretical and empirical literature is to the ongoing

development of educational thought and practice, those committed to inclusion
also believe that children should not have to wait for research data before they
are allowed to go to school, because integration can be seen not as 'an
experiment to be tested but a value' to be followed (Ferguson & Asch, 1989,
p. 137). This position reflects that of the American advocate, Biklen (1985),
who suggests that schools should not be 'sorters and dividers of students', but
integrators and community builders (p. i). Integration, says Biklen, is 'a moral
question' and can be seen as 'a good, indeed a value we decide to pursue or
reject on the basis of what we want our society to look like' (p. 3).
Consistent with this view is a perspective that sees disability as a 'socio-
political issue' and 'part of a wider set of inequalities', such as those based on
sexism and racism, all of which result in oppression (Barton, 1992, p. 9). This
is not to diminish the personal challenge that individuals may experience
because of an impairment or other characteristic. Rather, it is to stress that
disability, which is associated with segregation in education and the community,
with unemployment and with poverty, is not an outcome of a 'condition' that
people have, but is created by the social attitudes and actions of a society that
fails to meet the needs of all its members (Cahill, 1991). This clearly positions
inclusion as a human rights issue, with the goal of empowerment and equity, not
assimilation.

OPPOSING INCLUSION
Disabled people in New Zealand identify the medical model of disability as
having dominated discourse in education and other areas (Hawker, 1993), so
that this 'particular perception of disability [has become] entrenched in the
bureaucratic and public mind' (Sullivan, 1991, p. 257). The medical model
distinguishes 'normal' from 'abnormal' students using some biological concepts
from pathological medicine and some statistical concepts of deviance from
psychology (Skrtic, 1986). It legitimises segregation by identifying problems in
learning and other areas as belonging with the individual, absolving the school
 38 K. Bollard

and other systems from responsibility for changing to meet the needs of people
now categorised as 'different'.
Once categorised as in need of fixing, 'special education' is then seen as the
agency for 'treating' the impaired student, using a 'scientific' approach that is
not seen as available to ordinary classroom teachers (Wilton, 1989, p. 5). Even
if the student remains within a mainstream setting, the Individual Education
Plan and other 'special' strategies may serve to label, separate and distance the
student from ordinary classroom activities and from the regular curriculum
(Biklen, 1989). Nevertheless, the teachers and parents who support separate
special education believe in the importance of diagnostic categories from which
corrective educational programming can be designed. People in the Specific
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Learning Disabilities area, for example, point to what they identify as the failure
of mainstream strategies to understand and teach their children.
Support for separate special education was evident in the last major
government review of the field, the Draft Review of Special Education (Depart-
ment of Education, 1987). Although never 'undrafted', this report, modelled
on the Warnock Report (Warnock, 1978) in Britain, continues to have
influence through its promotion of the 'least restrictive environment concept',
which provides a firm basis for continuing segregated provisions, since it
implies that some students will need to be in 'restricted' settings. For many
parents this approach supports their case for 'choice' and, for example,
parents who choose Conductive Education for their child may well see the
mainstream as the 'restrictive' setting that does not provide for their needs
and wishes.

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONTEXTS

For more than a decade education and other state sector activity in New
Zealand has existed in a context of ongoing reforms driven by political ideolo-
gists of the New Right. This 'rolling back of the state' (Kelsey, 1993), with its
emphasis on individualism, competition and reduced funding for public ser-
vices, continues to impact on policy and practice and requires that people who
would address issues of equity and social justice must do so in a climate of
libertarian values that seem radically at variance with a concern for an egali-
tarian society.
In education the ideological goals of 'efficiency' and 'consumer choice' have
been pursued with reforms premised on the notion of education not being a
'public good' but a 'commodity to be traded in the marketplace' (Grace, 1988,
p. 14). The 1984-1989 Labour government disbanded the central government
Department of Education (responsible for policy, administration, curriculum
development and Inspectors of Schools) and the 10 regional Education Boards
(which employed teachers and provided a wide range of services to schools).
Each school became an independent, competitive, self-managed 'education
provider' under a Board of Trustees. The stated goal was community control,
 Inclusive Education in New Zealand 39

but a high level of centralised control has been achieved through legal contracts
for service delivery procedures, audited by a new Ministry of Education (Codd,
1994).
For a number of reasons, special education has not fared well in this
decade of upheaval in structures and values. In 1990 the national (conservative)
government's Minister of Education, 'because of resource difficulties',
attempted to 'revisit' the sections of the Education Act 1989 that gave all
children access to state schools (Gates, 1993). While 'massive lobbying' pre-
vented this (Gates, 1993, p. 2), the Minister subsequently directed the Special
Education Service not to 'actively promote mainstreaming when to do so is not
the Gqvernment policy' (Smith, 1992). Although various review and consul-
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tation processes took place from 1987 to 1995 (Gates, 1993), the Ministry of
Education operated without a special education policy and in 1993 deleted its
one specialist position in this area (Morrison, 1993). A focus of government
activity during this period was on issues of resource allocation, in particular
strategies for the categorisation of student 'needs' that would allow targetting
(Mitchell & Ryba, 1994). The lack of overall policy meant that special
education had no direction and in this context IHC (NZ) chief executive J. B.
Munro said that gains made in progress toward inclusion were 'being lost'
(cited in Morrison, 1993). DPA chief executive David Henderson described
this situation as 'appalling and creating life-long disadvantages for people', as
the education system continued to discriminate against children with disabili-
ties (cited in Morrison, 1993).
The Special Education Guidelines promulgated in July 1995 would seem to
be a positive response to these concerns as they emphasise the right of students
with disabilities to access the same educational settings as other learners.
Nevertheless, it remains clear that, in disregard of such policies and of the
Education Act, many state schools continue to resist enrolling students with
disabilities (Phillips, 1995). Opposition to such discriminatory and apparently
illegal acts is made difficult by the fact that parents must now confront each
self-managed school on its actions and former potential sources of parent
support and advocacy in the Education Department, its inspectors and advisors
no longer exist.
Also, as Codd (1994) has pointed out:
Under the influence of market liberalism, educational administrators
are being forced to surrender their traditional commitment to social
justice in order to pursue the goals of competition and increased
individual choice, (p. 157)
Resources and their allocation remain as ongoing concerns. The Policy
Guidelines record that learners with 'identified special education needs [will]
have access to a fair share of the available special education resources' (Section
3, emphasis added). This could suggest a regime of targetting and rationing,
rather than an attempt to adequately resource schools to meet the needs of all
students.
 40 K. Ballard

ISSUES OF CULTURE AND COMPLEXITY

The issue of 'choice' has particular meaning in the context of disability and
special education. The lobby for retaining segregated special education provi-
sions emphasises the issue of parent choice. Those who oppose segregation
argue that the state cannot afford to provide for all possible choices and should
not offer services that are of questionable educational and social value, especially
where this limits funding for inclusion. These competing views and ideologies
interact within a more complex arena.
Those supporting inclusion do so on the basis that students have a right to
access the nation's culturally valued curriculum in state schools that do not
discriminate on the basis of race, gender, disability, religion or other character-
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istics. However, the right to inclusion does not mean that individuals or groups
have to take part and some may choose separate provisions in order to retain
their identity and culture. Also, coming together by choice may assist minorities
to analyse issues affecting them and use their collective strength in political
action (Brown & Smith, 1992). In New Zealand, as elsewhere (Lane, 1992),
many people in the deaf community see separate education for deaf children as
essential for retaining deaf language and culture. For similar reasons, many
Maori support the notion of 'parallel development', which includes education in
early childhood centres, schools and tertiary settings where the language of
instruction is Maori and the settings are designed and operated according to
Maori culture.
Maori people and deaf people have a strong claim to state resources for
educating their children in their respective cultures. From a position of collec-
tive identity, their education, which may well be aligned with the National
Curriculum, may prepare them for involvement as bilingual and bicultural
citizens in the majority culture. This contrasts with the situation in traditional
segregated special education. Here, segregation may not always reflect parent
or student choice. It may involve rejection from mainstream settings or the
denial of choice inherent in medical-model categorisation and professional
placement. Students in traditional segregated special education lack a clear
basis for a collective identity, except perhaps as developing members of an
oppressed minority group (Cahill, 1991). They are typically exposed to instruc-
tion, settings and a curriculum that is isolated and different from that available
to their mainstream peers. This seems likely, in part at least, to account for
some disabled people in New Zealand experiencing lowered expectations, lack
of achievement, early school leaving, unemployment (Neale, 1984, cited in
Wicks, 1991) and being thought of as 'sick, childlike, asexual, pitiable, charity
cases who are dependent on others' (Cahill, 1991, p. 10). Citing data from a
study by Neale (1984), Wicks (1991) noted that 'only 2.9 per cent of parents
of disabled students saw any possibility for further education (beyond high
school) in comparison with 54.8 per cent of the parents of non-disabled
students' (p. 284). For those that make it into the tertiary sector, some
experience success, many a further struggle for resources and others overt
 Inclusive Education in New Zealand 41

discrimination, especially in terms of access to some professions, including

teaching (McKay et ah, 1995).
One view from within the New Zealand disability movement is that if
adequate resources are available then 'parents are more likely to choose [in-
clusion] and schools are happy to accept children' (Brereton, 1991, p. 1). There
is also the view that segregated provisions should be retained as a legitimate
choice for parents and students. This is evident in a recent revision of DPA
policy on education. In its 1987 submission on the Education Act, DPA called
for an end to the 'dual system' of special and regular education. Now, DPA
states that 'people with disabilities must have the choice to be educated with
their non-disabled peers' [DPA (NZ) Inc., 1994, Section B.I.2], but also the
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right to attend 'special learning facilities' (Section B.I.3). This position on

choice reflects a wish to endorse the range of views among parents and disability
groups. It also, in part, reflects a fear that lack of support for segregated special
education will see government close facilities without then moving funding and
resources into the mainstream.
Slee (1993) has pointed out that a 'resource driven analysis' of integration
is problematic in that it takes attention away from the need to address disablist
policies and practices in education. A focus on 'cost' is especially problematic in
the ideological political climate of New Zealand, with retrenchment of the state
a major emphasis and where 'the ascendency of the New Right has transformed
the public sector so that increasingly it resembles the capitalist workplace'
(Sullivan, 1991, p. 270). For example, in the new commercially oriented public
health system, one Regional Health Authority proposed that, because of lack of
funds, kidney dialysis could be denied patients on grounds which included
blindness, intellectual disability and 'major antisocial behaviour' (McCarthy,
1994, p. 5). The inclusion of disability in the criteria list was seen by DPA
president Anne Hawker as indicating that people with disabilities 'are less
valuable human beings' (Hawker, 1994, p. 5).
The same interpretation may be applied to schools that justify discrimi-
nation against students with disabilities on the basis of lack of 'resources' or the
'unfairness' of taking teacher attention away from 'others' in the class. In
denning some students as 'different', in making their access to resources a
privilege and not a right, disability is constructed as a devalued position and
created as the experience of oppression within disablist settings. As Sullivan
(1991) suggests, 'the pervasive and deep-seated ideology of able-bodiedness
negates disabled people in all situations' (p. 269). In a context where there is
increasing inequality between schools in richer and poorer socio-economic
communities (Gordon, 1993), where some state high schools say their oper-
ational budget is now dependent on recruitment of full-fee paying students from
Asia (Gordon, 1994) and where national high school examination papers carry
advertising, the 'resource' justification for discrimination on the grounds of
disability seems likely to recur until, perhaps, the new human rights legislation
is tested in this regard.
 42 K. Ballard

LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE

If there are lessons from New Zealand for others, they may exist in the
experience, common elsewhere, that segregated special education, because it
denies people access to ordinary educational and developmental opportunities,
typically leads to segregated lives. From this, the right to be included becomes
fundamental to an equitable society. While our legislation and recent Policy
Guidelines support such a position, it remains the case that policy made at the
level of the individual school or classroom (Fulcher, 1989) determines what
happens to children and warrants research on its origins, maintenance and what
may lead to change. Also, there would seem to be much to learn from studies
on the increasing numbers of parents, teachers and teacher educators who have
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shown through their experiences that our mainstream teacher education and
classroom teaching practices can meet the needs of all children (Ballard, 1992).
This is not to imply that the classroom teacher operates alone or necessarily has
expertise across all areas of student learning or other needs. Rather, inclusive
teachers share problem solving with other teachers and work with advisors on
sensory or other disabilities in the same way that they use the expertise of
curriculum specialists.
Where inclusion is achieved, it involves recognition of the value of diversity
in schools and communities. With diversity comes the need to address com-
plexity. For example, the impact of hegemonic political ideologies on the entire
school system needs to be understood as part of the context of inclusion. Also,
the wish of some disability groups and some cultural minorities for separate
schooling from which they can interact with mainstream society from a position
of identity and strength is part of the context of inclusion. Such groups may, as
is evident in the Maori language school system, develop inclusive policies for
their disabled people (Bevan-Brown, 1994). In understanding such develop-
ments, there are calls in New Zealand, as elsewhere, for the research focus to
move from disabled people onto disablist practices (Sullivan, 1991); for the
disabled (Cahill, 1991), and for Maori (Bishop, 1994), to have control of
research about themselves so that authentic experiences, analysis, and voices are
heard; for others to clarify the values that pervade our work, be accountable
to the disability community and to help address educational and commu-
nity problems through collaborative action-oriented research (Ballard, 1994).
Creating an inclusive education system means challenging discriminatory
practices, values and paradigms.

Correspondence: Keith Ballard, Department of Education, University of Otago,

PO Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand.

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