Introduction

The Inclusion Movement is probably the most radical political movement of our time. Not merely a group of educationalists talking of including children in mainstream schooling (although we are that too), we are a worldwide movement representing all the people of the world calling for equality of resources, respect and opportunity. The inclusive world we are building is very different from the profit before people global economic system under which the majority of the world currently lives. We are building a world in which, in the words of Micheline Mason, ‘each and every human being has a right to life, to respect and to the means of participation in their societies’ (Mason, 2000, p 118).

My personal journey to inclusion began long before I was born. My genes contain the cultural memories handed down through generations of Jewish and African enslavement, French Huguenot protestant persecution, and white, working-class English oppression. My family history, the tales we tell and our outlook on the world have been shaped by historical forces larger than ourselves. My generation has witnessed tremendous social, economic, political, technological and cultural change. I was born only 20 years after the Second World War where the projected fear of the few allowed for the attempted annihilation of the Jewish people, gypsies, homosexuals, communists and people with learning impairments. Who would have believed then that Nelson Mandela would become President of South Africa; that laws would protect the rights of women and gay people; that discrimination on the grounds of race and disability would be illegal; and that the United States of America would have a black president of African descent?