Thinking the Adoption of Inclusive Education Policy in Ontario Schools.

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to advance a proposal for the analysis of the adoption of inclusive education policies. In particular, I use the notion of ‘Policy Enactment’ to re-conceptualize the process of putting inclusive education policies into practice. The argument is that the traditional ‘implementation’ model to analyze the adoption of inclusive education policies devalues the significant role of context in both policy analysis research and practice. Analyzing education policies based on the construct of ‘enactment’ offers a context-informed approach that can help policy actors and researchers to better understand how inclusive education policies are incorporated into practices. The paper concludes that a policy enactment perspective empowered by a Neo-Institutional lens, is a more robust tool for analyzing inclusive education policies as their translation is far from being a mere upfront conversion of text into action.