Language, Terminology, and Inclusive Education: A Case of Kazakhstani Transition to Inclusion

Tsediso Michael Makoelle

SAGE Open, 2020, vol. 10, issue 1, 2158244020902089

Abstract: Kazakhstan has adopted the idea of inclusive education. The country has embarked on transforming its education at all levels of schooling to reflect the ethos of equity and inclusion. Tremendous success has been registered so far; however, the language used in the realm of its special/inclusive education has not changed much, as it still bears the hallmarks of the past Soviet vocabulary. Therefore, this article provides an analytic perspective on exclusive terminology and vocabulary still being used, which in one way or another perpetuates misconceptions and stereotypes about diversity and difference. The researcher of this study interviewed school principals, teachers, professionals, and parents in 12 inclusive schools. Reviewed literature includes Kazakhstani education policies, research papers, and speeches delivered by education administrators, politicians, educationists, and experts in the field of special/inclusive education. The implications of the use of language and terminology are discussed in the context of transforming education toward an inclusive education system. Lessons are drawn from the empirical study and literature review, thus making recommendations on how to move forward with the language and terminology change process within the emerging discourse of inclusive education in Kazakhstan.

Keywords: discourse; inclusive education; inclusive language; inclusion; language (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244020902089 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:10:y:2020:i:1:p:2158244020902089

DOI: 10.1177/2158244020902089

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in SAGE Open
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().