Special Issue of the high-ranked International Journal of Inclusive Education


The ReGap partners Stephen Dobson, Gabriella Agrusti and Marta Pinto have edited a special issue of the scientific International Journal of Inclusive Education, which we are happy to announce that just has been published! The topic for the special issue is “Supporting the inclusion of refugees: policies, theories and actions”. The issue has seven contributions from six different countries. In their Editorial, the guest editors give the following introduction*:

If refugees are unexpected and undesired arrivals, there is a risk that they will be regarded as grit in the smooth functioning of existing society, institutional arrangements and culture. Of course, we are not talking of the grit of resilience and coping strategies of refugees (Credé, Tynan, and Harms 2017), and we are not talking of the grit that is increasingly identified as the key ingredient missing in the over-protected members of different generations, such as the Generation-Z following the Millennials (Lukianoff and Haidt 2018). When refugees are considered the ‘surplus population’ (Bauman 2004) to be disciplined into the host society, the risk is that well-meaning inclusion can result in the reverse and what has been termed ‘inclusive exclusion’ (Dobson 2004). So, we give with one hand the discourse of humanity, peace and inclusion and with the other hand, competitive individualism is expressed in practice in schools and other institutions where refugees must compete for scarce resources and more easily experience failure and exclusion. There is in such a case a disjuncture between the language of inclusion, the policy, the rhetoric, the communication strategy (the so-called comms and the creation of the right narrative) and the practice, existential experience and short, medium and longer-term consequences of exclusion.

Three articles based on the research from the ReGap project passed through the eye of the needle to the peer reviewers, and these are:

Valeria Damiani (2019) Words for inclusion: research experience and perspectives on the creation of online L2 resources for migrants and refugees in Italy, International Journal of Inclusive Education, DOI: 10.1080/13603116.2019.1673958

Ana Luísa Costa, Susana Coimbra, Marta Pinto, Elsa Guedes Teixeira & João Caramelo (2019) Professionals’ key knowledge, competences and practices to promote social inclusion of refugees, International Journal of Inclusive Education, DOI: 10.1080/13603116.2019.1678777

Brit Svoen, Stephen Dobson & Linda Tangen Bjørge (2019) Let’s talk and share! Refugees and migrants building social inclusion and wellbeing through digital stories and online learning resources, International Journal of Inclusive Education, DOI: 10.1080/13603116.2019.1678802

*Stephen Dobson, Gabriella Agrusti & Marta Pinto (2019) Supporting the inclusion of refugees: policies, theories and actions, International Journal of Inclusive Education, DOI: 10.1080/13603116.2019.1678804