The Social Life of Inclusion

What does inclusive education mean in everyday school life? David Brehme reframes inclusion as a question of belonging. Drawing on vivid ethnographic observations from two inclusive middle schools in Germany, his study follows students through their first days and months in Year 7. He shows how belonging is made, tested, and sometimes denied through school rituals, rules, the shifting meaning of difference, and the fragile work of peer relationships. Moving beyond the question of whether inclusion »works«, the volume reveals the often overlooked social life of classrooms: how young people learn the many things required to become somebody who belongs.