Regular education where possible, special education where necessary: a critical discourse problematisation of Flemish education policy

Inclusion is widely promoted as a principle of educational equity, yet its meaning remains fluid, contested and open to divergent interpretations. Policy plays a crucial role in giving shape to these meanings and in constructing the realities through which inclusion is understood and enacted. This paper examines how inclusion is conceptualised in recent Flemish education policy by analysing five key policy texts on inclusive education. Using the Critical Discourse Problematisation Framework. The analysis highlights the complexity and ambiguity of Flemish education policy. Although policy texts express commitments to inclusion as a guiding principle and draw on elements of a rights-based discourse, inclusion is continually subordinated to concerns of feasibility and educational quality. This subordination is carried through assumptions of conditionality and dependence on deficit classification, parental choices, professional competence and the discourses around special education as the ‘best’/‘necessary’ option. We found that, through its policy discourse, Flemish education policy continues to normalise exclusion as a pragmatic response and limits the possibilities of systemic change.