This presentation reports on insights from a UK China collaborative summer school on inclusive education involving staff and postgraduate students from the University of Strathclyde and Beijing Normal University. The intensive programme combined interactive workshops, school visits, intercultural collaboration, and structured reflection, with a focus on inclusion as lived educational practice rather than solely as policy or strategy. Drawing on participant reflections, observational data, and theoretical framing, the presentation advances the central finding that inclusion is first experienced relationally, through care, trust, and meaningful interaction, before it is articulated conceptually or institutionally. Four interrelated insights are examined. First, learning environments act as a ‘silent teacher’, with physical space, routines, and tone shaping participation and belonging. Second, embodied and experiential learning activities foster deep empathy, particularly in relation to neurodiversity and trauma-responsive practice. Third, inclusive education depends on voice understood as influence, not merely participation, foregrounding listening, agency, and communication in diverse forms. Fourth, cross-cultural dialogue highlights that while inclusion is contextually defined, shared challenges transcend national systems. The presentation concludes by synthesising these insights into practical recommendations for future international programmes, emphasising relational foundations, reflective design, theory-practice integration, and sustainable networks. The findings contribute to ongoing debates on inclusive pedagogy, intercultural learning, and partnership-based professional development in higher education.
David Roxburgh (Fri,) studied this question.