Inclusion matters: Learning in collaboration with students with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities

Abstract

Children with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities are rarely included in discussions of inclusion/inclusive education. This paper begins from the premise that their inclusion matters and that it is helpful to begin at the level of the classroom where children and teachers have some agency. The aim is to make students with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities the focus of discussion of inclusion and belonging, and to show how, by seeking to research their lived experience with them, we can shed light on matters that are important. The work draws on theory concerning relational belonging encompassing affect, attachment, people, places and temporal rhythms, plus occupational science theory about co‐occupation characterised by shared physicality, intentionality and emotionality. From case study research conducted in a special school in England, the vignette method used stresses embodied attentiveness and knowing. The findings show the physical, embodied, time and place, and co‐occupation dimensions associated with achieving belonging in a special school classroom that are likely to matter to broader inclusive education. Discussion of these leads to the conclusion that through their different ways of knowing, students with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities draw attention to relational foundations for inclusion that are too readily forgotten.