Exclusive tendencies: concepts, consciousness and curriculum in the project of inclusion.

This paper explores a view that exclusive structures in institutions reflect exclusive structures in the development of consciousness. In the context of a current rhetoric of inclusion in the UK, the paper starts by examining some of the theoretical conditioners of policy and practice in Special Educational Needs, and hence their effects on teacher thinking. Drawing on a survey of teacher perspectives on SEN, the paper identifies their correlation with economic resources, but asks whether exclusive attitudes might be further explained in terms of conceptual development. The paper thus brings together argument from (variously empirical) psychological, sociological and philosophical enquiry to question assumptions about the moral and political project of inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]