In democratic education, schools are places where democracy holds center stage, where students explore the aims and assumptions that underpin democracy, and where students develop a shared understanding of core values. Despite the democratic promise of schooling, however, schools often fail to prepare people to interrupt racism, classism, gender…

Stemming from the premise that no single solution can be adequate to deal with today's intricate school contexts and that this complexity cannot be overcome, the teachers' pivotal role in guaranteeing quality inclusive education has been extensively acknowledged. As a result, literature on teacher competency profiles has flourished in recent…

Through combining a diversity perspective and intersectionality approach, this paper contributes to the conceptualization of inclusive leadership for addressing diversity in schools. Drawing on literature from business and management studies as well as that of educational management and leadership, the paper first theorizes inclusive school…

Recent scholarship indicates a growing emergence in research on the experiences of transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) college students and on the ways in which colleges and universities do or do not address the specific needs of TGNC students (Beemyn, 2005; Beemyn, 2012; Goldberg et al., 2018; Nicolazzo, 2015). As visibility increases…

Interlocking mechanisms of exclusion function as gatekeepers to high-quality learning in schools, which perpetuate oppressive conceptions of ability, learning, and intelligence. Across educational ecosystems, these intersecting forms of oppression--including but not limited to racism, ableism, and colonialism--are reified through exclusionary…

We provide a high-level overview of inclusive education developments in England, Australia, the United States, and Canada, the countries within which much of our research has been completed. For each country, we discuss the work that we have each done within that context, key policy initiatives, and identified levers of system change. Despite…

The potential of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) has captured the imagination of policy makers, educators, administrators, teacher educators, as well as educational researchers. Over the past 20 years, there has been increasing interest in how the vision of UDL could be translated into practice. And yet, there is little agreement about whether…

Art education is an important field where marginalization, differing privileges, and oppression can be addressed, but we can do more. In today's politicized educational climate, a teacher who wants to create an activism-oriented lesson needs to understand the terms surrounding equity, diversity, and inclusion (ED&I). However, many tensions…

This commentary links child-family research to the systematic inquiry approaches under the umbrellas of student voice and youth participatory action research. It reviews the underlying premises of the latter two bodies of work, including recognizing young people as knowers, partners, and change agents through conducting research with rather than…

In this essay we discuss the shared vision for a critical Latinx pedagogy that has emerged from our five-year collaboration as professor and TA of a large undergraduate Latinx history course. We discuss specific classroom practices through which we seek to "embrace," "engage" and "empower" diverse Latinx students; to…

From 2005 to 2018, AAC&U led a national public advocacy and campus-action initiative to champion the importance of a liberal education for individual students and for a nation dependent on economic creativity and democratic vitality. At the heart of the initiative-titled Liberal Education and America's Promise, or LEAP, was a distinctive…

Educational psychologists seek to keep abreast of significant theoretical and practical developments within the field of inclusive education. This paper outlines and discusses Universal Design for Learning as a theory of inclusion, highly applicable for use by educational psychologists. The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework is…

Afterschool, summer and other out-of-school-time (OST) programs provide young people with a range of opportunities. Youth participants can build positive relationships with peers and adults, develop and hone academic and other skills, and engage in apprenticeships and other forms of intergenerational learning. However, there is a persistent and…

The historical record reveals that in the final opinion of the landmark school segregation case "Cooper v. Aaron," the U.S. Supreme Court justices intentionally used the term "desegregation" rather than "integration" to soften the ire of those opposed to the "Brown v. Board of Education" decision. The…

Diversity, equity, and inclusion is one of five pillars upholding the American Occupational Therapy Association's (AOTA) strategic plan. Ensuring organizational, educational and governance structures, policies, programs, and services all reflect diversity, equity, inclusion, justice and accessibility (DEIJA) is a priority for the profession. Yet,…