‘Inclusion is me turning myself inside out’ – how teachers enact inclusion in Swedish Municipal Adult Education

This study focuses on the enactment of inclusion in Swedish Municipal Adult Education (SMAE). The study is based on interviews with 25 teachers and on approximately 30 hours of observations of SMAE teaching and learning settings. Informed by the theory of policy enactment, the article analyzes the ways inclusion is enacted in SMAE and the challenges surrounding this process. The findings show that inclusion in SMAE is enacted in various ways and accompanied by many challenges. The analysis also revealed that although SMAE teachers enact inclusion from a broad perspective using the concept of diversity as a guiding principle, their enactments operate under different locally shaped conditions, meaning that access to inclusive learning environments cannot be the same for all SMAE learners. In addition, the study highlights that SMAE teachers constantly balance between the acts of teaching and caring, a consequence of weak institutional support structures, pointing to the need for student health teams and a clearer policy on inclusion in SMAE.