Abstract
The aim of this paper is to investigate the discourses that emerge when Sweden’s Art and Music School leaders talk about the inclusion of pupils with disabilities in relation to policy. A starting point is that both earlier studies and policy documents have revealed inclusion problems within Art and Music Schools. The research question is: how are Art and Music School practice, policy and inclusion of pupils with disabilities connected within and through leaders’ discursive practices? The data are based on three focus group conversations with a total of 16 Art and Music School leaders from northern, central and southern Sweden. Discourse analysis as a social constructionist approach is applied since it provides a means to investigate the connection between social change and discourse. Concepts from both discursive psychology and Foucauldian-inspired discourse analysis are applied in order to investigate connections between rhetorical strategies on a micro level and discourses on an institutional level. The concept of multicentric inclusion is introduced and applied in the analysis. In addition, concepts from educational policy theories are applied in order to analyse how policies are conceptualised and enacted in the context of leaders’ discursive practices. Regarding terminology, the results challenge this researcher when the concept of mixed abilities is introduced by the participants. The analysis exposes three discourses: multicentric inclusion discourse, normality discourse and specialisation discourse. There are tensions between the multicentric inclusion discourse and the normality discourse, as well as between the multicentric inclusion discourse and the specialisation discourse. The analysis leads to the following suggestions in order to achieve justice in music education practices and policies: (a) to enforce a specific national inclusion policy, (b) to challenge the normality discourse and (c) to bring together the multicentric inclusion discourse with the specialisation discourse.
Swedish Art and Music School policy
For several years, many Art and Music Schools 1 in Sweden have invested in providing specific activities directed towards pupils with disabilities (Di Lorenzo Tillborg, 2017b, 2019; Kulturskolerådet, 2018). Despite the efforts towards inclusion, in 2014, 6 out of 202 Art and Music Schools in Sweden did not include children and adolescents with special needs, 2 neither in regular activities nor in specific activities directed towards such groups (Di Lorenzo Tillborg, 2017b, 2019). Such specific activities will be referred to as ‘special activities’ from now on. This result is arguably in conflict with democratic values with regard to a music education that cares for and copes with equity, inclusiveness and diversity. As argued by Ockelford (2012), research is fundamental to the development of both practice and policy. The present paper uses such results and arguments as starting points when addressing the need for research on challenges to inclusion.
The present paper is part of an ongoing research project that focuses on Sweden’s Art and Music Schools during a time when they are subjected to a national policy process. The data consist of focus group conversations conducted in 2016 and 2017 with Art and Music School leaders. ‘National policy process’ is the term I have chosen to apply (Di Lorenzo Tillborg, 2017a) to the process officially initiated by the Swedish government when commissioning an investigation on Art and Music Schools in order to create ‘a national strategy’ (in Swedish, en nationell strategi; SOU, 2016: 47) for those institutions. The report from that investigation (SOU, 2016) can be described as one of the policy documents within the national policy process.
The most recent step in that national policy process was a proposition from the government (Prop, 2017/[2018]) built both on the national investigation report (SOU, 2016) and on the many referral responses (Regeringskansliet, 2018) connected to it. The needs and objectives stated by the proposition constitute what can be defined as a ‘national strategy’ or a national policy. Since there is no law stating that every Swedish municipality should have an Art and Music School, the national policy has the status of guiding principles, not of mandatory regulation. Each municipality can choose whether and how to translate the national policy into their local practice. The consequences of the national policy process have already been visible during the process, with policy being enacted by leaders who then become policy actors (Björk et al., 2018; Di Lorenzo Tillborg, 2017a).
I have previously (Di Lorenzo Tillborg, 2017a) described Sweden’s Art and Music Schools as a ‘loosely coupled system’ (Weick, 1976). Within such systems, there might be different kinds of rules, norms and policies running. However, some broader policies might have been common for the institutions even before the national policy process. Examples of such relevant broader policies in Sweden are the Disability Policy (Government Offices of Sweden, 2018a), based on the UN Convention on Human Rights for Persons with Disabilities (United Nations, 2019), and the policy for Children’s Rights (Government Offices of Sweden, 2018b), based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2019). None of these policies are specific Art and Music School policies, but they are policies that apply to all individuals with disabilities and to all children in Sweden, respectively. In the focus group conversations, Art and Music School leaders make no reference to such broad policies, but they do talk about the absence of inclusion policies for Art and Music Schools. Leaders in the conversation from 2017 mention the investigation report (SOU, 2016) that had been presented at the end of 2016. The government proposition (Prop, 2017/[2018]) was presented in 2018 and hence after the focus group conversations. Therefore, the participants could not make any reference to it.
In order to contextualise the present paper, it is relevant to mention one of the tension fields that emerged earlier (Di Lorenzo Tillborg, 2017a) in the present ongoing research project since it relates to the focus of the present paper on the inclusion of children and adolescents with disabilities. The relevant tension field is the tension between ‘reaching all children versus improving a few children’s special skills’ (Di Lorenzo Tillborg, 2017a: 70) which reveals that reaching all children is a goal that might be disregarded when improving a few children’s special skills is one of the discourses struggling to establish hegemony (see Lindgren and Ericsson, 2010, regarding the notion of struggling discourses). The expression ‘special skills’ alludes to what the leaders refer to as advanced skills that might potentially lead to higher education in the arts and that a few individuals might be interested in developing. This mentioned tension field does not necessarily have to be interpreted as a dichotomy; the two discourses need not be mutually exclusive, but they might actually overlap or even complement each other.
The aim of this paper is to investigate the discourses that emerge when Sweden’s Art and Music School leaders talk about the inclusion of pupils with disabilities in relation to policy. More specifically, the research question focuses on Art and Music School practice, policies related to Art and Music Schools (including the national policy process) and children’s rights to be included in the publicly funded Art and Music Schools, when articulated within and through leaders’ discursive practices. A number of concepts related to disabilities will be discussed in the next section.
Disabilities in research and practice
Applying the ‘right’ concepts in order to promote inclusion of individuals with disabilities is a complex task due to the risk of unintentionally representing ableist discourses that proclaim that disability is ‘inherently negative, ontologically intolerable’ (Campbell, 2008: 3). Studying inclusion of a particular group of individuals can be a way to try to counteract marginalisation, but labelling groups of individuals has often been a strategy to legitimise definitions of normality in society, as exposed by Foucault’s studies of mental institutions and prisons (Foucault, 1974/2004, 1976/2002). Researchers interested in disability issues need to be self-reflexive about how to apply concepts and about the possible consequences of their own choices. In his PhD thesis about definitions of the concept of disability, Grönvik (2007: 38) states that ‘we should not judge ourselves too hard in our use of the concept. It will slip away, and there will be conceptual shifts’. He hence recognises that even when you choose one concept, the way in which it is used might not always be the same. The challenge, according to Grönvik (2007: 38), is to ‘try to avoid the most serious misconceptions’ through a reflexive approach for each research case.
The concept ‘with special needs’ 3 has been commonly used (Di Lorenzo Tillborg, 2017b; Fronczak, 2011; Kivijärvi and Kaikkonen, 2015; Ockelford, 2012; Ståhl, 2012), but it has also been problematised. Many practitioners and researchers in Sweden (Asp-Onsjö, 2006; Gårdare and Sandh, 2011; Larsson-Swärd, 1999; Gustafsson, 2002; Ståhl, 2012) rather choose the concept ‘in need of special support’ to emphasise that there is no difference in human needs, but instead in the arrangements required in order to satisfy an individual’s normal needs. It has also been stated that all children need special support sometimes (Gustafsson, 2002). Such an argument emphasises that abilities might change over time and between contexts, which should lead to providing extra support to all children when needed. However, Hjörne and Säljö (2006) have pointed out that the opportunity for extra support is often limited to those with a diagnosis or an ongoing investigation.
The concept of disability is widely applied in international research, which can be confirmed by the results of a search for journals in the Norsk Senter for Forskningsdata (NSD, 2018): more than 70 international journals include this concept in their titles. There is not a single definition of the concept, but it ‘will mean different things even at the same time and in the same culture’ (Grönvik, 2007: 38), which seems to be inevitable according to Grönvik’s conclusions. For each researcher, then, there is a need for constant reflection on ‘choices of definitions’ and on ‘the consequences of choosing definitions’ (Grönvik, 2007: 34). Taking a social constructionist stance in line with Burr (2015), I consider the concept of disability to be socially constructed. Two consequences of that social constructionist stance are that: (a) the meanings of the concept depend on prevailing norms, and (b) society is responsible for including all individuals.
The participants in the present study, both in the first and in the second focus group conversations, introduced a concept that was unknown to me before meeting them: the Swedish concept of funktionsvariation, 4 which can be translated as ‘variation in function’, ‘variation in ability’ or ‘mixed abilities’. The concept seems to be increasingly used in Swedish society (Di Lorenzo Tillborg, 2019) as a broad concept that can apply both to individuals with functionality and abilities in accordance with prevailing norms about functioning in society and to those with functionality and abilities not in accordance with such prevailing norms (Nationella Sekretariatet för Genusforskning, 2018). In a similar way, the English concept of mixed abilities can be applied to groups where individuals with and without disabilities are included (Herman and Chatfield, 2010); such groups include a mix of abilities amongst the individuals.
In the focus group conversations, I applied the concept of disability. 5 As mentioned, the concept is applied in the present paper when referring to individuals or groups of individuals with characteristics deviating from prevailing norms.
Discourses of inclusion in research, policy and practice
Similar to the concept of disability(ies), inclusion can also be seen as a complex and ambiguous concept, used in different ways in education research, policy and practice. In education research (see Florian, 2008; Fridlund, 2011; Nilholm, 2006; Peters, 2007), the concept of inclusion has been applied in ways that Skowronski (2013: 85) describes as partly normative, aiming to change prevailing unjust strategies. Inclusion has also been applied by researchers (Göransson, 2006; Haug, 2014; Nilholm, 2006) in a more direct way as an ideal to aim for; a school for all, where the teaching is adapted to each individual’s conditions and interests. Several Art and Music School projects and associations with the aim of promoting inclusion of children and adolescents with disabilities, such as En kulturskola för alla [An Art and Music School for All] (Kulturskolerådet, 2018) and the organisation for individuals with mixed abilities, Passalen (2018), apply the same kind of ideal that researchers such as Göransson (2006), Nilholm (2006) and Haug (2014) apply.
Inclusion has also been defined by researchers (Ferm Thorgersen and Christophersen, 2016; Haug, 2014; Persson, 2014; Wennergren, 2007) in terms of democracy and democratic rights for all individuals, which connects to the aim of changing unjust structures and strategies, as described by Skowronski (2013).
There are some complications when applying inclusion to change unjust structures. One such complication is how to determine when inclusion has been attained; another complication regards the limits between inclusion and exclusion. Considering different aspects of inclusion, not only its physical or spatial aspects, might be a way to deal with such complications. Asp-Onsjö (2006) has developed a model where inclusion is analysed with regard to three aspects: spatial, social and educational. She explains that the fact that all individuals are included in the same room does not automatically imply that social and educational aspects of inclusion are considered. For some relevant excerpts, the present analysis applies the three aspects of inclusion according to Asp-Onsjö (2006) as a way to analyse how inclusion is spoken of.
The concept of inclusion is crucial to policy discourses, as well as to research and practice discourses. In the government-commissioned investigation (SOU, 2016), the concept of inclusion has a central position, starting with the title ‘An inclusive Art and Music School on its own terms’ (‘En inkluderande kulturskola på egen grund’). Inclusion is mentioned in the investigation report as a goal to be achieved by Art and Music Schools, which already seems to be the case in general, according to the investigation. The investigation does not provide a clear definition of the concept, but it does connect it to (1) every child’s right to participation, (2) the importance of information and (3) the importance of representation (SOU, 2016: 237). Inclusion is to be applied to all children, regardless of background or disability, according to the investigation. Amongst the suggestions for how to achieve inclusion, the investigation report mentions a higher degree of visibility, broader content, teacher competence and adapted buildings/locations.
In line with the investigation (SOU, 2016), the government proposition (Prop, 2017/[2018]) positions inclusion as a central goal to be achieved. The document emphasises the already existing government development funding that Art and Music Schools can apply for when, for instance, working particularly with children and adolescents with disabilities. Other efforts to achieve inclusive Art and Music Schools are new investments in higher education, including a new education degree specific for Art and Music Schools.
Music education scholars have argued for the importance of including diverse learners in music education contexts. Kivijärvi and Kaikkonen (2015), as well as Georgii-Hemming and Kvarnhall (2015), argue for inclusion within the current structures, providing opportunities for meetings between diverse learners. However, in Finland, the case of Resonaari, a Finnish music school for individuals with disabilities, is described as a distinct music school offering the empowerment that other institutions fail to offer (Laes and Schmidt, 2016). For the present article, it is interesting to investigate how leaders talk about inclusion in Sweden’s Art and Music Schools, both regarding current activities/programmes and regarding parallel, specially arranged structures for specific groups.
British researcher Ockelford (2012) states that it is important that the global music education research field admits serious shortcomings, and focuses more on the area of pupils with special abilities. I suggest that Ockelford’s argument is highly relevant not only to the research field but also to music education practice and policy. The analysis of the present investigation shows that some Art and Music School leaders acknowledge shortcomings in local practices and policies with regard to pupils with disabilities.
The challenge to policymakers, school leaders and practitioners is not whether music education should be provided to all children and adolescents, but rather how to provide music education to all children and adolescents, as argued by Ockelford (2000, 2012). It is important to acknowledge that there are no universal solutions; maybe there are as many solutions as there are individuals (Ockelford, 2012). Swedish scholar Altermark (2016: 132) proposes an approach where ‘the universals as such’ are to be critically examined.
Ockelford (2012) presents an argumentation in line with Passalen’s (2018) vision – that when particular research about children and adolescents with disabilities no longer is needed, only then has the music education field attained an equal music education. What is needed is to create inclusive environments in order to promote social justice (Darrow, 2015). Darrow (2015) further states that diversity and social justice are closely connected to the educators’ ability to, among other things, recognise the stereotypic and stigmatising discourses about people with disability.
Laes (2017: 73) problematises the concept of inclusion, and questions whether inclusion ‘yet remains an impossibility in the efforts to create a more democratic music education’. Laes’s approach is to try to go beyond the ordinary, dominant discourses when working for inclusion – an approach that challenges a way of thinking of inclusion as bringing those in the margins to the centre.
A similar approach to problematise the concept of inclusion is exemplified by Hess (2015), who positions herself against inclusion as a way of adding or bringing certain peripheral perspectives/groups to the dominant centre. Instead, she refers to Dei’s (2013) concept of the multicentric curriculum, where the ‘centre’ that each pupil brings to the classroom is in focus. Such approaches call for new ways of defining and applying the concept of inclusion.
Another way of conceptualising inclusion is to connect it to interactions. I would say that Bunar (2018: 98) makes that connection when stating that newly arrived immigrant children and adolescents (who have been living in Sweden for no longer than four years) must be included as soon as possible in ordinary school classes and also in after-school activities, where interactions with ‘not newly arrived’ individuals are possible. That view of inclusion is in line with the views of Georgii-Hemming and Kvarnhall (2015), as well as of Kivijärvi and Kaikkonen (2015), who argue for facilitating meetings between diverse learners.
Drawing from the earlier research that has been presented, and especially from Bunar (2018) and Laes (2017) and from Hess’s (2015) interpretation of Dei (2013), it seems necessary to emphasise intercultural interactions, complexity and multicentricity when applying the concept of inclusion. I would, therefore, suggest the concept of ‘multicentric inclusion’ as an alternative when focusing on inclusion in order to emphasise all the different centres that correspond to all unique individuals. In that way, the present paper aligns with education research that aims to change prevailing unjust strategies (Skowronski, 2013), applying inclusion as a concept to be understood as multicentric. For the present article, multicentric inclusion is applied in the analysis as a concept connected to how Art and Music School leaders talk about pupils and potential pupils with disabilities.
Methodology and design
Discourse analysis as a social constructionist approach is applied in this study since it provides a means to investigate a connection that is important to my research object: the connection between social change and discourse. Exposing repressed and excluded discourses can be a way to counteract marginalisation and promote democracy (Foucault, 1971/1993). Concepts from discursive psychology and from Foucauldian-inspired discourse analysis are applied in order to make connections between rhetorical strategies on a micro level and discourses on a broader, institutional level.
The concept of discourse is applied on a micro level in line with discursive psychology. In that sense, the concept focuses on rhetorical strategies (Billig, 2004; Burr, 2015; Potter and Wetherell, 2004; Puchta and Potter, 2004) used by the Art and Music School leaders when they try to legitimise a certain positioning. When applied on this level, the concept is not connected to larger discourses, but rather it refers to what happens in the specific focus group conversation that the leaders are engaging in at the moment. In order to make connections to discourses on an institutional level, the concept of discourse will also be applied in a Foucauldian sense, which means that discourse is more than just language – discourse actually constitutes the subjects and objects that it speaks of (Foucault, 1969/2011, 1971/1993). When applying the concept in that sense, the analysis might expose how the leaders position themselves as subjects in larger discourses. The analysis might also be able to expose normality discourses (Foucault, 1974/2004, 1976/2002) that constitute object and subject positions. Therefore, a Foucauldian-inspired analysis may make it possible to expose how power is exerted when certain discourses benefit some but not others. The description of these two levels of the analysis might give the impression that the discourses I present are sharply separated from each other, but I would argue that they are intrinsically connected to each other. The analysis will therefore not be conducted as a twofold process but as a complex process that moves between different levels.
The concept of discursive practices is applied in a Foucauldian sense as a way to delimitate an area for analysis or a piece of evidence for a larger discourse (Foucault, 1969/2011). The discursive practices, in this case are the focus group conversations with the Art and Music School leaders. The concept is also applied as a connection to educational policy theories based on the view that discursive practices are discursive processes related to policy (Braun, Maguire and Ball, 2010). By connecting the concept of discursive practices to policy theories, the complex relationship between policy and practice can be approached and investigated. Discursive processes that are related to a policy process may have the power to influence the process itself, while at the same time a policy process can influence the discursive processes connected to it. The relationship between discursive practices and other social practices is multifaceted. The present study has its ontological starting point in a view where discursive practices and other social practices are mutually connected, constituting one another (Winther Jørgensen and Phillips, 2000: 132).
Ball et al. (Ball, 1994; Bowe, Ball and Gold, 1992) have conceptualised policy processes as ‘policy cycles’ since they develop in a cyclical way; contributions from actors in each context where a policy is conceptualised will impact the other contexts. The analysis of such connections and of how different contexts can impact each other can also apply for the analysis of the national policy process for Sweden’s Art and Music Schools. It is necessary to clarify how the concept of policy itself is applied in this text. Policy might be conceptualised as a specific policy text, but in the present text, policy is conceptualised as process, as text, as discourse and a set of practices in line with the approach of policy researchers such as Ball (1993) and Schmidt (2017). Such an approach connects to Foucault’s (1969/2011, 1971/1993) ideas of discourse as constituting object and subject positions; Ball (1993) even states that policy constitutes object and subject positions. The process of interpreting and translating policy (as text or as process) into practice, as opposed to just implementing it, can be described as policy enactment (Braun, Maguire and Ball, 2010). For the present analysis, the concept of policy is applied, taking into account that policies might be enacted by actors in different contexts in a cyclical way. Hence, Art and Music School leaders can be regarded as policy actors, or policymakers within the contexts of practice, when enacting policy in practice.
The research method in this study is qualitative. The data consist of three focus group conversations. A total of 16 leaders from 15 different Art and Music Schools in northern, central and southern Sweden participated in focus group conversations with me as a moderator. The leaders were chosen from another study by the author (Di Lorenzo Tillborg, 2015, 2017b) where 202 Art and Music School leaders answered a national survey. They represent Art and Music Schools as well as Music Schools; small, medium and large municipalities; and municipally as well as privately administrated schools (all municipally funded). 6 When invited to the conversations, the leaders were informed about my interest in Art and Music Schools in change in relation to the governmental plans for creating a national strategy; the national policy process became a common platform that we shared as a starting point for the conversations. Therefore, it is relevant to analyse how the leaders relate to policy, even when policy is not explicitly spoken of. Inclusion was not mentioned as a premise for the conversation, but rather it was introduced to or by the leaders during the conversations.
Ethical considerations have been made in relation to the research ethical principles of Lund University (Lund University, 2018; Vetenskapsrådet, 2018) and according to Wiles (2013).
In addition to the mentioned common ethical considerations, other ethical aspects call for reflection. Undertaking research on the inclusion of a specific group of individuals is a way to counteract marginalisation, but it might also risk stigmatising the individuals in that group, especially if the researcher is an outsider. I am aware that categorising a group of individuals based on only one category will never result in a homogeneous group. When applying the concept of mixed abilities, 7 the leaders in the conversations focus on those with disabilities since those with abilities in accordance with norms are not considered to need special support or special activities. The individuals in this group might take numerous positions in different contexts. Focusing on only one common aspect is a limitation of the study, but I would argue that it is also a necessary delimitation in order to expose challenges to inclusion.
Analysis of results
The results show variations in how Art and Music School leaders talk about including pupils with disabilities. None of the leaders mentioned the Swedish Disability Policy (Government Offices of Sweden, 2018a) or the policy for Children’s Rights (Government Offices of Sweden, 2018b), but some of them did talk about the absence of an inclusion policy. Here, those policies are considered as textual interventions, or ‘policies as texts’ in line with Ball (1993) and Schmidt (2017).
The focus group conversations started with the leaders introducing themselves and talking about Art and Music Schools in relation to the national policy process; that part of the data is presented elsewhere (Di Lorenzo Tillborg, 2017a). Only the data with relevance for the aim of the present paper are included in the results. The participants in the first conversation chose the names Anna, Cecilia, Johan and Thomas. Those in the second conversation chose the names Bo, Iris, Maja, Otto and Selma. Those in the third conversation chose the names Britta, Hanna, Jonas, Lisa, Peter, Petter and Samuel.
In two of the focus group conversations, I introduced the topic of disabilities with a question about how to reach children and adolescents with disabilities. In the third conversation, the leaders themselves introduced the same topic. In all conversations, I followed up by asking about special activities and/or about participation in regular activities.
Conceptualising disabilities
When the leaders in the first conversation introduced themselves and their schools, they mentioned working to reach more children and adolescents as part of their goals as leaders. Following up on that, the theme of disabilities was introduced by the moderator with a question about how to reach out to children and adolescents with disabilities, asking if they ‘have some kind of plan’ or if these pupils ‘may attend to the regular activities’. Johan answered: I must say that in general that if there is something that I feel that, how should I put it, that we have a development potential then it is exactly this … this issue with funktions … variationer.
In a similar way as Johan, Otto expresses difficulties in applying the right term to a group of pupils with disabilities – ‘Yes, it is difficult to name it properly’ – and he also chooses to talk about mixed abilities. The leaders in that conversation apply the same terminology. Selma questions whom to include in this particular group: ‘Is it those who have a diagnosis or is it those who can, who … this is quite difficult to say how to sort it up’.
Similarly to Johan and Otto, Selma’s utterance connects to the complexity of applying the ‘right’ concepts to promote inclusion but avoiding representing ableist discourses (Campbell, 2008). In this particular excerpt, there is also a certain resistance to dividing people into able-bodied or disabled, which connects to Foucault’s (1974/2004, 1976/2002) resistance to society’s definitions of normality. This rhetoric connects to a larger institutional inclusion discourse. This excerpt can be interpreted as an example of how to discuss inclusion as multicentric, considering the complexity of categorisation and inclusion. The leaders’ ways of talking connect to policy as discourse, in the words of Ball (1993); policy is here conceptualised in the discursive practices, with arguments for creating a common terminology and enforcing multicentric inclusion.
In the third conversation, no consensus regarding the concept of mixed abilities is established. The concept is not even mentioned by the leaders. Instead, the Swedish concept funktionshinder, which can be translated as obstacle(s) to abilities, and the concept of mongoloid 8 are mentioned. A consensus seems to be established where leaders speak of schools for pupils with disabilities and training schools for pupils with severe disabilities in the first place. In the second place, they speak of individuals with disabilities. One example of that is a quote by Hanna, who states that in their municipality, there is ‘a teacher who is responsible for the activities at the training school for severe disabilities and at the special school for disabilities. And at the moment, we have no one of those pupils in the voluntary activities’. Hanna refers to the close collaboration between Art and Music Schools and compulsory schools for pupils with disabilities. The ‘voluntary activities’ mentioned by her correspond to what I have referred to as the regular activities at the Art and Music School: activities that are not directed to a specific group of pupils but that anyone can attend to.
Leaders in that conversation mention other issues when the theme of disabilities is discussed. Britta talks about a pupil who was allowed to start at the Art and Music School before the minimum age because that pupil ‘needed help and support’ since a sibling had died. The story is mentioned when she explains that her Art and Music School do not have special activities for pupils with disabilities. ‘It can be this kind of thing’ or ‘a school nurse who gets in touch’, as she details it further.
Mental illness emerges as a theme in the second conversation when the leaders discuss disabilities. Anna, Cecilia and Johan talk about the importance of Art and Music Schools for pupils with mental illness and state that Art and Music Schools have a responsibility for them: Those children are home from school but choose, almost 100% of them, to attend Art and Music School. Because it is like a lifesaver, because if you are home from school because of sickness, you don’t go to school, don’t meet your friends, nothing. Then it is … it says something about our significance. (Anna)
Mental illness is also a subject in the third conversation. Lisa talks about the subject when introducing herself since she also is responsible for a community home. 9 The shared administration makes it easier to reach this specific group of pupils, according to her. No specific policy ‘as text’ (Ball, 1993) is mentioned regarding pupils with mental illness, but rather there seems to be a consensus regarding inclusion on a discursive level or, in Ball’s (1993) policy, as discourse.
Pupils with dyslexia are mentioned in the first conversation as a specific group. Johan describes an art activity that seems to appeal to pupils with dyslexia: We have [name of activity] that we are very proud of that dyslexics really apply themselves to and they get dignity and strength through it. And they start when they are eight, and we have to kick them out when they are 19.
Anna talks about support in relation to individual development, emphasising that ‘we will not speculate about how far you can go, because you never know it from the start’. It might be argued that Anna uses the pronoun ‘we’ as a rhetorical strategy, probably to include the other people in the room, and ‘you’ in order to state that it is common sense that it is not possible to predict how a pupil will develop right from the first lesson. This statement emphasises the temporal dimension of needing support, in line with the concept ‘in need of special support’ (Asp-Onsjö, 2006; Larsson-Swärd, 1999). This excerpt can also be interpreted as an example of aiming for multicentric inclusion since individuals are included with their own development potentials and mixed abilities.
In all three conversations, I applied the concept of disabilities when talking to the leaders. The leaders applied other concepts and included pupils other than those with disabilities in the conversations. My own binary division between abled and disabled was challenged by a broader multicentric inclusion discourse where mixed abilities are taken into account, connecting to Foucault’s (1974/2004, 1976/2002) resistance to society’s normality discourses and to Campbell’s (2008) efforts to avoid representing ableist discourses.
Conceptualising inclusion in regular activities
Several leaders talk about including pupils in regular activities. When asked if any special arrangements are made when including pupils in regular activities, Cecilia answers: Cecilia: No, no. It could be a drama group, a dance group… Moderator: That’s those who can be there actually. Cecilia: Yes, and on the same terms.
Anna explains that those who are able to participate in group activities do so on the same terms, but those (pupils with disabilities) who participate in individual activities may get more time than others. In this case, special arrangements are made regarding regular activities, even though it only applies to individual activities. It is unclear if there are pupils who do not participate at all because they would need special activities or because they would need special support for group activities. Arguably, the struggle between the normality discourse and the inclusion discourse is once again represented in Anna’s statement: the inclusion discourse constitutes a subject position of a leader who strives for equity and who compensates for disabilities by adjusting the time frame, while the normality discourse constitutes a subject position of a leader who does not make any such compensations.
Iris makes a statement about how to connect special activities with regular activities: As soon as the teacher sees that their interest is maybe for a particular instrument and the teacher makes the judgement that they would manage it, then the teacher helps them with the transition.
Otto says that they ‘accept all and try’ and that they ‘have never had to say no because someone could not make it’, while Selma says that ‘there is no specific policy’ they need to follow, but they ‘do accept all individuals that apply and solve the situations as they come up’. The reservation that it could hypothetically be necessary not to accept some pupils is made with the rhetorical strategies ‘have never had’ and ‘could not make it’ in order to legitimate a hypothetical case of refusing a pupil; if a pupil cannot make it, it would not be the responsibility of the Art and Music School. The normality discourse is represented; those who deviate from ‘normality’ can be rejected. Otto’s utterance is also a way of not recognising that there is a problem – the opposite of what is encouraged by Ockelford (2012). The other leader, Selma, describes how arrangements are made to solve any situations, which is an example of including in the current structures (Georgii-Hemming and Kvarnhall, 2015; Kivijärvi and Kaikkonen, 2015) and if necessary in more than one aspect (Asp-Onsjö, 2006). The broader multicentric inclusion discourse is represented; each individual’s conditions and abilities are considered. Talking about the absence of a specific policy connects to the fact that, by the time, there were no national governmental policy documents, regarding either inclusion or any other aspect for Art and Music Schools (Di Lorenzo Tillborg, 2017a; Kulturskolerådet, 2018). The broader national policies such as Disability Policy (Government Offices of Sweden, 2018a) and the policy for Children’s Rights (Government Offices of Sweden, 2018b) are not mentioned when leaders talk about the absence of policy. Policy as text (Ball, 1993) is not mentioned, but policy is enacted (Braun, Maguire and Ball, 2010) in the practice context according to the discursive practice of the leaders.
Conceptualising inclusion in special activities
Several leaders state that they have special activities for pupils with disabilities or, in their terminology, mixed abilities. Some of them state that a music therapist is responsible for such activities in their schools, and one says that they have some teachers working with special activities. In one case, the special activity is a group that combines art and music activities: We have a special activity that we call [name of the mixed art and music activity], and there the children who cannot participate with others can participate. And also adults. So, we mix them because, I mean, you are 50 but you might be like a three-year-old. I mean, it is like this, right? So, there we mix. Then we also have those who attend to the integrated activities who can handle that. (Cecilia)
Iris states that they have special activities. A music therapist leads those activities, and the target group is the group of pupils who attend special schools for children with learning disabilities 10 and training schools for children with severe learning disabilities. 11 Children with neuropsychiatric disabilities are ‘of course’ welcome in all courses, as she puts it, and she continues by saying ‘that’s what we want’. Saying ‘of course’ can be a demonstration that including everyone is the obvious way to work at her school. ‘Of course’ is a rhetorical strategy which enforces the inclusion discourse. Even in this case, policy is conceptualised and enacted in the practice context when the leaders talk about making arrangements for inclusion.
Otto talks about the special niche of his own school, and that they do not ‘go outside that and create special courses’. He continues by explaining that he does not have ‘that knowledge either’. The expression ‘going outside’ would possibly not be used if Art and Music Schools had a specific inclusion policy. Since there was no such policy by the time for the conversations, inclusion seems to be regarded as something extra that could be taken into regard if the Art and Music School leader chooses to do so. Broader inclusion policies such as the Disability Policy (Government Offices of Sweden, 2018a) and the policy for Children’s Rights (Government Offices of Sweden, 2018b) are not mentioned. Lack of knowledge is also pointed out as a reason for not having special activities for this group of pupils. There seems to be a need for challenging stigmatisation (Darrow, 2015) and normality discourses, emphasising that there are no universal solutions (Ockelford, 2012). The statement legitimises a normality discourse by pointing out the absence of a national policy text regarding inclusion. The example confirms the tension between reaching all children and improving a few children’s special skills, (Di Lorenzo Tillborg, 2017a), representing an inclusion discourse and a specialisation discourse. The inclusion discourse connects to leadership working for inclusion, but, in this particular case, there is a lack of discussion regarding the three aspects of inclusion, in Asp-Onsjö’s (2006) terms: spatial, social and educational. The specialisation discourse connects to leadership working for specialised training within a niche.
Concluding discussion
The research question for this paper was ‘How are Art and Music School practice, policy and inclusion of pupils with disabilities connected within and through leaders’ discursive practices?’ The analysis shows that practice, policy and inclusion are discursively intersected but are also disconnected on a discursive level. A noticeable disconnection is the one between practice and broad Swedish inclusion policies (Government Offices of Sweden, 2018a, 2018b) since such policies are not even mentioned in the leaders’ discursive practices. Inclusion for pupils with disabilities is connected to practice when leaders talk about inclusion in multicentric ways. There are discursive intersections between policy and inclusion: the leaders talk about inclusion despite the absence of a national inclusion policy, and they also talk about not being obligated to include pupils with disabilities due to the absence of a national inclusion policy. In other words, the absence of a specific national inclusion policy for Art and Music Schools can make it possible to legitimise the absence of a local inclusion policy, which favours the normality discourse. The broad national inclusion policies are not enough to ensure that every Art and Music School works for inclusion at a local level. There is an urge for a specific national inclusion policy for Art and Music Schools if the government is to be able to sustain democratic values successfully regarding an equal and inclusive music education – a music education that cares for and copes with diversity.
A gap seems to exist between the special activities and the regular activities due to the normality discourse. If not only spatial but also social and educational inclusion (Asp-Onsjö, 2006) were provided in regular activities, it might be possible that some pupils who participate in special activities would be able to participate in regular activities. That would probably facilitate meetings between different kinds of pupils, promoting more equal and democratic music education (Georgii-Hemming and Kvarnhall, 2015). This could be a way to enforce multicentric inclusion. Art and Music School leaders face the challenge of developing inclusive practices. One way of doing that is to engage in policymaking, creating, changing and enacting policy. The proposition from the government (Prop, 2017) is a step in that direction.
The aim of this paper was to investigate the discourses that emerge when Sweden’s Art and Music School leaders talk about the inclusion of pupils with disabilities in relation to policy. The following discourses have been exposed through the analysis: the multicentric inclusion discourse, the normality discourse and the specialisation discourse. There are tensions between the multicentric inclusion discourse and the normality discourse, as well as between the multicentric inclusion discourse and the specialisation discourse. Following an approach by Schmidt (2015) where he proposes ‘marrying two discourses’, the present analysis leads to the suggestion to bring together the multicentric inclusion discourse and the specialisation discourse in order to achieve justice in music education practices and policies, where every child’s potential to improve special skills is taken into account.
Regarding terminology, the results challenge this researcher when the concept of mixed abilities is introduced by the participants. The concept is applied in the discursive practices of Art and Music School leaders as referring to pupils with abilities not in accordance with prevailing norms, as a synonym for the concept of disabilities but changing the focus from disabilities to a variety of abilities. However, as explained in the section ‘Disabilities in Research and Practice’, the concept might also be applied as referring to all individuals. Applying concepts is indeed complex (Campbell, 2008; Grönvik, 2007). The different ways of applying the concept of mixed abilities and the consequences of these different approaches for education research, policy and practice call for further research.
Research on inclusion might play a decisive role for inclusion. The present study leads to the conclusion that research on multicentric inclusion with regard to music education policy and practice, specifically focusing on disabilities and special support, is a much-needed field of further research.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.