Abstract
In the literature on inclusion and inclusive education there is a frequent conflation of (1) inclusion of diverse people, or people in all their diversity, (2) inclusion of diverse worldviews, and (3) inclusion of diverse epistemologies. Only the first of these is plausible—and perhaps even morally and politically mandatory. Of course, more needs to be said about inclusion and its possible difference from integration, conditions of access, etc. Regarding the second type of inclusion, not all worldviews merit inclusion. Moreover, worldviews and epistemologies are not identical: everyone may have a worldview but not everyone has an epistemology. Finally, the idea of diverse epistemologies makes only limited sense, as do the associated notions of ‘indigenous knowledge’, ‘legitimation of knowledge’ and ‘epistemic marginalisation’.
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Notes
Not all theorists differentiate between inclusion and integration. Thus, Restoule (2013: 33) writes, “To integrate all learners in relation to one another and all life, in the pursuit of full human development is an inclusive education.” See also Etherington (2017, p. xxxi): “authentic inclusion will consist of the integration of diverse identities …”.
As Nussbaum (2006, p. 210) argues, “… it would be progress of we could acknowledge that there really is no such thing as ‘the normal child’: instead, there are children, with varying capabilities and varying impediments, all of whom need individualized attention as their capabilities are developed”.
There are substantial reasons for doubting this. It has been pointed out by Haack (1998, p. 125) that the authors informed their subjects prior to the interviews that they would be participating in a study dedicated to finding out more about their unique ‘women’s ways of knowing’. This makes it virtually impossible to know whether the responses given were not biased by the authors’ suggestion.
James Lang argues against knowledge as transcending knowers and for the notion of knowledge as situated and constructed dialogically among knowers. He maintains that it is embodied with knowers and is in all cases partial, rather than universal: “Knowledge cannot be transmitted or received intact, but rather is constructed uniquely in each person, primarily via social intercourse, formal and otherwise” (2010, p. 310); “Knowledge does not transcend knowers, and it cannot be transmitted intact from one person to another” (2012, p. 9; see also Lang 2011); and: “Knowledge is inevitably mediated by individual knowers according to their situatedness; it exists only as embodied with socially constructed persons and as such knowledge is always partial and incomplete” (2012, p. 9). But what about these pieces of constructed or situated knowledge? Are they also partial and incomplete, or are they actually universal?
Either way, it would appear that this is an incorrect attribution. When Rushton was asked during a live televised debate at the University of Western Ontario in 1989 whether he believed in racial superiority, he denied this emphatically. He added,
from an evolutionary point of view, superiority can only mean adaptive value – if it even means this. And we've got to realize that each of these populations is perfectly, beautifully adapted to their own ancestral environments. (Knudtson 1991, p. 187)
Belief, adequate justification and truth may not be jointly sufficient for knowledge, but each of these is a necessary constituent or condition: that is, there can be no question of knowledge- (or knowing-)that in the absence of any one of these. See Horsthemke 2021, especially chapter 3.
Consider the following autobiographical sketch:
I am a German who has lived and worked in South Africa for most of his life, a heterosexual vegan atheist, former professional rock and jazz musician, with a love of Italian, Mexican and Indian food, Native American, Celtic and Japanese music, Czech and Finnish cinema, a preference for Anglo-American analytical philosophy, and married to a QiGong instructor who prepares our minestrone according to the Five Elements, and with whom I have two sons with traditional Sotho and Zulu names. The list could be continued with numerous other examples, and I suspect something very similar may be true for a surprisingly large number of people. But does … my love of Indian food translate into a desire to live in Mumbai or into an endorsement of the existing caste system? Does one’s fondness of traveling in Russia signal support for the state’s incarceration of the band members of Pussy Riot [or its poisoning of political dissenters]? Hardly. Furthermore, … for every example that might be cited to suggest that globalisation is stirring up the ‘cultural pot’, one could think of many poor, uneducated and generally disadvantaged members from various cultures who (despite external influences) have not changed much over the years in terms of interests, expectations, goals, rules, customs, etc. (Horsthemke 2017)
See also Valk (2018, p. 8):
Neglecting to give space in the public square to various worldviews allows the dominance of particular worldviews. The public square should be a place where worldviews are engaged critically, but knowledge and awareness of these worldviews are needed, in order that a secular public square is not mistaken for a neutral public square.
However, the criteria for rejecting a worldview, after critical engagement, remain unaccounted for.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Franziska Felder for inviting me to present an earlier version of this essay in a symposium at the annual PESGB conference, March 2019. I am indebted further to Barbara Thayer-Bacon and to two anonymous reviewers.
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Horsthemke, K. Diversity and Epistemic Marginalisation: The Case of Inclusive Education. Stud Philos Educ 40, 549–565 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-021-09764-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-021-09764-x