Aligning Value and Practice: Reimagining Inclusion in Contemporary Higher Education

ABSTRACT In contemporary higher education, inclusion is widely invoked as a core institutional value, yet its practical enactment remains uneven and often symbolic. This paper interrogates the tension between inclusion as an espoused value and inclusion as a demonstrable professional competence. While universities foreground inclusion in mission statements and strategic plans, such commitments frequently operate as ‘non‐performative’ gestures that proclaim change without redistributing power or transforming structural conditions. By distinguishing values from competences, the paper reframes inclusion not only as a moral value but as a set of intentional pedagogical, curricular, and organisational practices that can be developed, evidenced, and held accountable. Drawing on research in inclusive pedagogy, co‐creation, and the political economy of higher education, the analysis exposes how marketised logics can commodify inclusion while simultaneously obscuring its uneven and inequitable implementation. The persistent values‐practice gap is shown to be more than an implementation failure: it is a structural feature of systems that benefit from ambiguity, reputational gain, and minimal disruption. The paper argues for ‘embedded, contested competence’, in which inclusion becomes a shared responsibility supported by institutional alignment, resourcing, accountability, and critical reflexivity. Bridging the gap requires not only technical refinement but a renewed commitment to the value of transforming the conditions under which inclusion is realised.