Små børns perspektiver på inklusion – et bidrag til forståelsen af ‘barn med handicaps’ betingelser for udvikling af rådighed i ressourcebørnehuse

This thesis investigates the inclusion of ‘children with disabilities’ as a historical and societal issue from an analytical child perspective.
Thesis statement: How do the inclusion arrangements implemented in special day care institutions establish conditions for ‘children with disabilities’ with regard to their development of participation in and command over everyday life in toddler departments (nursery) until the transition to departments for older children (kindergarten)?

The author problematises a historically produced and binary-bound framework of understanding of ‘children with disabilities’ versus ‘ordinary children’ in order to look at whether/how such a framework of understanding contributes to maintaining a segregating and compensatory management of inclusion aimed at ‘those with special needs’. In situations where what is often referred to as the ‘disability’ is made the subject of programmatic training or instrumental acts of care, it seems that the personal motives of ‘children with disabilities’ fall outside the professional gaze of the staff.

According to the author, the distribution of work between general and special needs education, and the practical dualism it entails, is based on the notion of ‘the generic body’, which has a segregating effect on ‘children with disabilities’. One possible way out of this is through these children being met as the subjective variations of the human body that they really are, which all our bodies are living proof of. Therefore, the author argues that ‘children with disabilities’ must also be included within the ‘general’ and not be distinguished as something special.

The empirical data is collected using observations, descriptions from field notes and interviews over a period of 60 days. 

Bendix-Olsen, K. (2019). "Små børns perspektiver på inklusion – et bidrag til forståelsen af ‘barn med handicaps’ betingelser for udvikling af rådighed i ressourcebørnehuse". Akademisk avhandling. Roskilde Universitet.