Episode 8: Separate is Not Better

On this episode of the Inclusion Think Tank Podcast, we welcome my guest Priya Lalvani, Priya is a professor of disability studies and the coordinator of the inclusive education graduate programs at Montclair State University. We discuss inclusive education from her perspective as an educator, mother, and researcher. 

Episode Transcript

Arthur: Welcome to the Inclusion Think Tank podcast presented by New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education NJCIE. As the name suggests, this podcast will discuss inclusive education and, most importantly, why it works.

On this episode, I welcome my guest Priya Lalvani. Priya and I discuss inclusive education from her perspective as an educator, mother, and researcher.

Arthur: So I would like to welcome everyone back to another episode of the Inclusion Think Tank podcast presented by NJCIE. I am happy to welcome my guests today, Priya Lalvani to the podcast today. And Priya, thank you so much for joining us. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Priya: Thank you so much Arthur. And excited to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Arthur: To start, I would like to find out a little bit how you became interested in inclusive education.

Priya: So it's interesting that you ask me this question. No one's ever asked me that before, and I've never really thought about it before, and quite frankly, I don't think I'd be able to identify how I became interested in inclusive education. And frankly, I don't even think I would say that I became interested in it.

I actually don't remember a time in my adult life when it wasn't simply a given. For me, it wasn't something I learned in grad school. In fact, it was explicitly not emphasized. My graduate program, it definitely wasn't something that I became interested in because I had my daughter was born with a disability.

I think my thinking about inclusive education and disability rights precedes those things. The only thing I can think of is, you know, in the early nineties, I got a job, not to date myself. But, in the nineties, I worked at an adult day facility, a day program for adults with intellectual disabilities.

At the time, this was a group of people who had previously been institutionalized at Willowbrook Institution and other institutions like that around the country. And it was there that I think I became profoundly aware of issues around oppression and segregation and the outcomes of segregation.

Priya: They were like it was before me. At the time, I was very young. I didn't know anything. I didn't know about inclusive education or education or anything, for that matter. But I worked there, and it was through the relationships that I formed and, coming to understand the value of all people.

And it was there that I think I came to understand why to the full range of human diversity actually looks like. So, as I said, the relationships that I developed there were very precious to me. But I think more than that, a profound sense of an understanding of human rights was awakened.

So by the time my daughter was born, and my daughter was diagnosed with Down's syndrome when she was born, it wasn't even a thought. I and my husband from day one, it was simply an assumption. It was what we envisioned that she would participate in all the same programs that her brother had, because ‘Where else would she be?’ was the idea by virtue of the fact that she existed. We assumed that she would belong in our family, and in the community, and in schools.

So I don't know if I've answered your question, but I don't think I ever worked my way toward inclusive education. If anything, my husband and I, we both- we've always worked backwards. In other words, the assumption is she is included. Let's work backwards from there to try to figure out how to support her and how we will support her there.

Arthur: You’ve definitely answered the question. I love that whole perspective of, it was always there for you and in your mind. And I like the working backwards thing too. That’s a great way to approach a lot of things in life and especially that inclusive education part.

So as you mentioned, you are a mother and you are also an educator. You're a professor. And can you share with us how you would define inclusive education and what it means to you?

Priya: Yeah, so it's interesting for me because I approach inclusive education from these various vantage points of my identities and my roles, right? So I'll talk about like approaching it from each of my different identities as a teacher, educator, as a disability studies researcher and as a mother, right? So it's like a three pronged approach for me.

So as a disability studies researcher, for me, inclusive education is about equity and rights. Inclusive education is an avenue for equity in schools and therefore ultimately equity in society. My views about inclusive education align with the perspectives of the disability rights movement. Separate education, segregated education. It's a form of segregation. Right?

And it's ultimately rooted in the oppression of people with disabilities. So from that role, that's how I approach inclusive education.

From my role as a teacher educator, I need to think about more practical ways of approaching it, right? So from that perspective, it's about access. And I think about inclusive education as, ‘How do we prepare teachers to recognize the barriers to learning for all children? How can I prepare teachers that I work with to understand what access really means? How to recognize and disrupt all kinds of barriers, whether they're physical barriers, sensory barriers, learning barriers or attitudinal barriers? How can they recognize that?’ And, ‘How can they develop strategies in their classrooms to creating a meaningful education that is responsive to each child's unique needs and strengths?’

Priya: But then you also asked as a mother. I'm personally invested in the idea of inclusive education. I'll be very transparent, as a mother, right? Of course, like any mother, I want my children to be accepted, and not just accepted, but valued members of their communities.

But I really grapple with how I can nurture in my children, in both my children, a sense of positive identity, a strong sense of self and an ethic of caring in the context of a society in which disability is generally positioned as a negative thing.

As something to be fixed, as something to be eliminated, as something to be cured, remediated, a problem. Like most parents of children with disabilities. I want my children to live in a community in the future and in society where they are valued and they can participate.

But the question for me is, ‘How can we get to that place?’ Right? How can we talk about inclusive communities where we still live in a society where we have segregated schools? where we're separating children? Where we're sorting children based on their abilities and disabilities?

I mean, schools should mirror our society, or at least they should mirror the society that we want to have. So it's all very well and good for people to talk about democracy and democratic society and social change and equitable communities.

But we had better start thinking, ‘How can we get to that place, or even talk about that place when there's an inconsistency between those ideals and the realities of segregated schooling?’

Priya: So for me, as a mother, inclusive education is a first step towards a society in which all people belong are accepted. And I guess overall, I would say, inclusive education, we shouldn't think about it as something that we do to be nice or to be kind. It's it's not the kind of thing to do, it's the right thing to do. Yes, in fact, it's the civil rights thing to do. And I want to make it clear I don't have inclusive education as one option. I don't view it as one option among a continuum of options.

I view inclusivity in schools across race, ethnicity, culture, linguistic diversity, gender, class, and disability as a fundamental civil right of all children and, quite frankly, a precursor to a democratic society.

Arthur: Yes, a lot of things, we learn a lot of things in school. We learned in kindergarten and preschool, we learn how to share with with friends and just, we learn the basics in school. And I love what you said that it should mirror what the society we hope to look like outside of school.

And when children grow up to be adults and everybody living together. I always tell people that I have a disability. Yes, I live with a disability. And I also shop in your stores. I also visit your malls and your movie theaters.

So on a general whole level, we’re not kept separate from everybody else. We don't have separate stores and things like that. So, we should all be together. And I think as I said it, it starts in the schools we learn a lot of our basic things about life in general in schools.

Priya: And not just kids, but like you said, not just kids with disabilities, but all kids, right? You're going to be adults. And you're right. You're going to be shopping in the same stores and working in the same workplaces.

So, how do we get to that place where there's that world, which there is. If non-disabled children have never sat next to a child, a person with a disability got to know them in schools.

Arthur: Schools should look like what we desire our society to look like outside of schools. It's really so true.

So, for our next set of questions, I'd like to switch gears a little bit to talk a little bit about your research that you have done. So, as a researcher, your work focuses on mothers, and they share with us what you have found in your research about mothers who are trying to navigate inclusive education.

Priya: I would say that that's one strand of my research. I also do research with teachers and their perceptions of education. So, my research with mothers who navigate intensive education tends to find that- and parents as well, not just mothers, but also parents.

I do a lot of work with mothers, though, because mothers tend to- disproportionately, they are doing the work of advocacy. But what I find is that mothers who advocate for inclusive education or who seek it, particularly when their child has a label of intellectual disability or has a developmental disability, encounter a great deal of institutional resistance from schools.

Many are not informed about the benefits of inclusive education, or it's not offered as an option for their child. And unfortunately, my research is consistent with a larger body of research in this area. It's not that my research is an outlier here. It actually is consistent and supports a vast body of research that finds that parents who seek inclusive education for children with, particularly with some certain disabilities are likely to face a great deal of resistance from the schools.

And I just want to contextualize that in the context of New Jersey, because here I am a teacher, educator, and researcher in New Jersey, and we need to understand that New Jersey has historically, how can I put it, not done a great job of inclusive education, and New Jersey places massive numbers of students in self-contained classrooms, separate classrooms or separate schools right out of district schools, many of which offer no opportunities in a school day for a person, for a child with a disability to have any interaction with a non-disabled peer? So many are entirely segregated settings.

In fact, it's interesting to note that New Jersey ranks among, probably one of the most heavily segregated education systems in the union consistently for 30 years. And by that, I mean racially, socioeconomically, and by disability. New Jersey maintains one of the most segregated school systems, so that all that is to provide context of where mothers who live in New Jersey, who advocate for inclusive education and what they are up against. And what I find from all of my research, one thing comes out very starkly that these mothers, these parents, are often steered toward self-contained environments.

And that's a term that I use in my research that's not commonly used, but it's a term that I've sort of been using. We hear about steering practices in other contexts. But we don't talk about the steering practices of special education.

So what does that mean, is that mothers are specifically informed that self-contained classrooms are definitely the better place for their child, like this is what you want self-contained classrooms.

Priya: Segregated spaces are packaged, if you will. They are marketed. They are sold in a highly appealing ways, and parents trust the judgments of professionals who are telling them this is better for your child. Here is where they will get a lot of support. Here we have better staff, here you're going to get an individualized curriculum, and we're failing to tell those parents that all of those things that are so appealing, that of course, I get as a parent like, why would I not want those things, right? All of those things, can also be provided in a general education setting by law, actually. So by telling parents that the self-contained setting is the best place for their child with a disability, and many, many parents trust that.

But of course, many parents also question that right. Not everyone is going to accept the judgment of what professionals are telling them. So some parents will question it, and there's a group of parents that advocate strongly for inclusive education, and my research finds that among that group, many perceive themselves to be in a fight or a battle for inclusive education.

They will expand inordinate amounts of energy and resources and time, emotional resources and financial resources in this quote unquote fight as the word often comes out for inclusive education.

And it's interesting that inclusive education in New Jersey, especially and even nationally, even today, is largely parent driven. And that's a problem on so many levels, right? We have special education laws that actually protect the educational rights of students with disabilities.

And yet, so many decades later, we still have parents who feel the need to even have to do this. But beyond the fact that it's emotionally and financially draining on parents, we also have to ask about equity issues because if parents are advocating for inclusive education, then you have to ask questions about which parents are even able to take on that. Who has the privilege to be able to take on that fight? To have the resources available to them. And who can draw upon their cultural capital and their financial capital and their privilege.

Priya: And I count myself among those mothers, by the way, right? I'm a professor of inclusive education and I've had to be in that place. So you have to ask, how do how do parents, how do mothers navigate that?

And should they have to navigate that, right? Because ultimately, when schools are responding to individual advocacy by parents? Or as many of us mothers like to call it, the squeaky wheels among us, right? When schools respond to the squeaky wheels, it makes it go away.

“All right. We'll do it for you.” So you'll get what it does is eventually it leaves the system itself unchanged. It allows me to advocate for my child, let's say. But the system itself remains unchanged.

Arthur: I love that you mention that you are one of the mothers, you know, and that is there are so many parents and mothers who are working toward this for their own children and for all children, but having the like, you said the system remaining unchanged is as part of a bigger, bigger conversation, I think a bigger issue.

So again, Priya, thank you for this great conversation. I really enjoyed it, and I hope you have a great day.

Priya: Thank you. Thank you, Arthur. I really enjoyed talking to you, too.

Arthur: Yes. All right. And you take care.

Priya: OK.

Arthur: This concludes part one of my conversation with Priya Lalvani. We continue our conversation next week with a discussion about ableism.

We thank you for listening to this episode of the Inclusion Think Tank podcast. This podcast is brought to you by New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education. Be sure to subscribe on YouTube or Spotify. And don't forget to follow us on social media @NJCIE. Until next time.