Social Exclusion/Inclusion: Foucault's analytics of exclusion, the political ecology of social inclusion and the legitimation of inclusive education

Abstract

This article offers a broad philosophical and historical background to the dyad of social exclusion/inclusion by examining the analytics and politics of exclusion first by reference to Michel Foucault who studies the modern history of exclusion and makes it central to his approach in understanding the development of modern institutions of emerging liberal societies. Second, it traces the political ecology (and etiology) of ‘social inclusion’ as a response to the crisis of the welfare state and the French Republican tradition of social solidarity initiated in France by Rene Lenoir and subsequently adopted as a fundamental principle for the European social model. Third, it provides a philosophical discussion of inclusive education that draws the distinction between the legal and moral legitimation of rights and questions the moral justifications (or the lack of them) offered for the right to inclusive education.