Inclusive education, the dilemma of identity and the common good

Accounts of inclusive education that locate the concept of inclusion within theories of individual rights face two problems. The first problem, called ‘the dilemma of identity’, assumes that on one hand we need communities to develop and ensure a sense of identity and a feeling of social inclusion, whereas on the other hand, inclusion is only partly ensured via such forms of inclusion. Inclusion necessarily entails participation in societal goods such as education. The second issue is that those rights accounts do not take seriously the distinctive social nature of inclusion. In this article, I suggest a basic distinction between communal and societal inclusion that serves as a background for a fundamental suggestion: to conceptualise rights to inclusive education as part of an account of inclusion as a common good.