Folklore Based Analysis for a Culture-Specific Concept of Inclusive Education

Disabled People’s Organisations, parents’ organisations and professional groups and individuals have, over the past decade, been grappling with the concept of inclusive education and how it can best be implemented. The United Nations and its specialised agencies have provided the framework for its planning and implementation (UN 1994; UNESCO 1994) but also fuelled much criticism. For instance, Haskell (1998) refers to inclusive schooling as “contemporary cultural imperialism of western ideologues”. Indeed, many studies of inclusive school practices have so far been carried out in the North. Unfortunately, political, social, economic and cultural conditions in the countries of the North are markedly different from those in the South. To what extent, then, is the concept of inclusive schooling/education relevant to the South? Should planning for inclusion follow models of the North? These are broad and complex questions, which we cannot ignore if we are to learn from cross-cultural perspectives. The purpose of the study reported here was to determine community attitudes towards persons with disability in Tanzania as a basis for exploring the existence of inclusive practices through an analysis of the community account of its own action, as contained in fireside stories and proverbs.