Constructing inclusion or reinforcing difference? A critical discourse analysis of inclusive education policy in Mozambique

This study examines Mozambican inclusive education policy through Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), drawing on Fairclough's tripartite model and Van Dijk's theory of elite discourse. The corpus comprises eleven legislative and strategic texts published between 1992 and 2024, with strategies extending to 2029. Analysis of textual features, discursive practices and social contexts reveals recurring patterns: equity framed through obligation, disability positioned via deficit categories, participation articulated largely as consultation and authority constructed as centralised. International agendas such as the Salamanca Statement and the Sustainable Development Goals are domesticated into national frameworks, while donor-driven rights rhetoric and nationalist inclusion discourses coexist with persistent references to special education and diagnostic intervention. The findings indicate that Mozambican policy discourse blends symbolic commitments and rhetorical affirmations of equity and participation with limited substantive guarantees of enforceable rights or resources. This discursive hybridity reflects post-conflict reconstruction, resource scarcity and donor dependency, situating Mozambique within broader critiques of tokenism and bureaucratic exclusion while highlighting regional trajectories towards hybrid African models of inclusion. The study contributes to debates on inclusive education in the Global South by showing how policy texts linguistically negotiate tensions between equity and difference.