Playing the game of education is playing the game of life for students with disability

Education is a human right founded on principles of social justice and protected by legislation. For students with disability and their families, however, achieving equity and inclusiveness in education can be an exhausting game. Even before engaging with the game of education, prerequisite games of otherness, ableness, and worthiness must be played. Globally, young people with disability face discrimination and exclusion. Limits are placed on young people with disability, sometimes from birth. Indeed, some do not make it to, or past birth. Some walk through the school gates only to be denied access to the curriculum, or flourish with targeted differentiation one year, but are denied this the next year. This rollercoaster of progression and regression is akin to the ancient game of Moksha Patam (also known as Snakes and Ladders), a moral game that aims to teach children about the complexities of life and how to reach salvation. Virtue/adhering to norms is rewarded. Evil/otherness is punished. Unlike Moksha Patam, education should not be a game of chance. This chapter examines how the translation of legal rhetoric into inclusive practice is challenged by cultural and societal attitudes to, and conceptions of being ‘human’, and consequently, who is worthy of education.

© 2025 selection and editorial matter, Amelia Walker, Helen Grimmett, and Alison L. Black; individual chapters, the contributors.

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