Inclusive Education and Disabilities: Narratives from Ghana

Emma Seyram Hamenoo , Victoria Dayan
Share:
Articles
DOI: https://doi.org/10.47985/dcidj.385
Submitted: 2020-11-02 09:31:24
Published: 2021-05-06

Purpose: Inclusive Education (IE) has been recognised internationally as the ideal model of educational access to all. Despite this, it faces many challenges. The present study explored the narratives of 10 participants with diverse disabilities in Accra, Ghana, keeping the focus on (a) how children with disabilities in an Inclusive Educational facility understand their educational experiences, (b) how they perceive their relationship with peers and teachers in school, and (c) how accessible they find existing school infrastructures.

Method: Using a phenomenological approach, data was generated through in-depth interviews with 10 participants from two selected schools.

Results: The experiences of participants, in some instances, were found to be two-sided. While participants felt accepted by some of their peers, they also experienced bullying by others. While some of the teachers were supportive, others were not. All the participants agreed that the physical school environment was disability-unfriendly.

Conclusion: Despite limited participation of children with special needs, greater stakeholder commitment was observed. This is promising for the future success of Inclusive Education in Ghana.

Keywords

Peer acceptance bullying stigmatization infrastructure mainstream school phenomenology

Authors

Emma Seyram Hamenoo

Emma Seyram Hameoo is an Associate Professor at Nord University, Norway. She holds a PhD in Social Work, MPhil in Peace and Conflict Transformation and B.A degree in Social Work. She has taught for several years at the Department of Social Work, University of Ghana. She is currently part of the teaching staff at the faculty of Social Sciences at Nord University. Her research interests include inclusive education, disability and child trafficking.

Victoria Dayan

Victoria Dayan is an Assistant Director with the Ghana Education Service. She holds an MPhil in Social Work and a B.A degree in Sociology and Theatre Arts. She is also a trained teacher with a Diploma from Tamale Training College. She is currently the head of the language department at St. John's Grammar Senior High School, Achimota, Ghana. Her research interests include inclusive education and disability. 

How to Cite

Emma Seyram Hamenoo, Victoria Dayan (2021-05-06). Inclusive Education and Disabilities: Narratives from Ghana. Disability, CBR & Inclusive Development, Vol. 32 No. 1 (2021): Spring, 37-51. https://doi.org/10.47985/dcidj.385

Download Citation

License

Copyright © 2021 The Author(s)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

View License

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution License By-NC-ND 4.0  that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See  The Effect of Open Access ).

Similar Articles

161-170 of 229

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.

Most read articles by the same author(s)