Critical policy analysis and disability rights violations in the context of inclusion: unravelling official rhetoric and counter-voices in education policy

The article employs Policy Discourse Analysis (PDA) to examine how the concept of inclusion and its human rights foundations are featured and possibly distorted in recent official documents and political rhetoric. The article also examines how parents of children with disabilities and disability organisations criticise dominant discourses enshrined in current policy documents and politicians’ rhetoric. The analysis reveals a recurrent pattern of misrepresentations of inclusion and linguistic manipulations to obscure disability rights violations through the spatial shifting of students into segregated forms of education provision. The study also sheds light on power imbalances underpinning the policymaking process by providing insights into how parents and disability organisations attempt to counter dominant narratives of inclusion. The significance of the article lies in the empirical documentation of the disempowering effects of language, demonstrating why reforming “language” alongside “policy” and “education” is imperative to address the exclusion and marginalisation of disabled students in education.