By Dr Miriam Twomety, Module lead for Understanding Autism on the MA/ PG Dip in Inclusive and Special Education ( A collaborative programme with Hibernia College)
Historically, special education positioned students with a wide range of needs at the margins of education systems; however, the margins may now represent the true centre of educational transformation. As systems struggle to accommodate diversity, voices historically excluded must become central to reimagining education. Our course brings together educators representing a life trajectory, from the early years to adulthood.
Our students represent early years educators, primary and post primary teachers and principals, and educators in further and higher education including alternative learning centres. These educators support children and young people in mainstream education and those who do not thrive there. We provide innovative responsive and inclusive education that supports a wider and diverse range of learner needs, embracing heterogeneity, and supporting educators to understand different aspects of identity that may compound a student’s access to learning.
Our courses are research informed and are enriched by innovation in neurodiversity, trauma-informed care, and supportive mental health orientations. We support a collective of educators across the centre and margins and advance an inclusive philosophy grounded in diversity, belonging and social justice. Inclusion should not simply adapt learners to existing systems, but instead reshape education in response to human diversity and belonging. If the centre cannot hold, where rigid structures fail to meet diverse needs, the margins must ultimately offer insight, expertise, and the collective voice necessary to reconstruct more inclusive educational futures.
So, what does it mean to be inclusive and lead in this exciting field. If you do this Master’s, you will have the opportunity to experience the transformative power of research. Inclusion in Ireland remains both an educational and social imperative, as many learners continue to encounter exclusion and systemic barriers. Through critical and practice-based research Master’s students examine how educational systems can respond better to diversity and contribute to more equitable and inclusive futures for all. Roger Slee’s concept of belonging is central to this work; positioning schools as places of belonging, as authenticated practice not rhetoric, where students should feel valued, visible, and connected to their school community. Slee (2019) proposes, that while inclusive education and belonging may be challenging, it should be a first order requirement for sustainable futures.
As a postgraduate student on the MAISE, engaging in Masters level research, you can contribute to a more equitable, education system that recognises dignity, rights and the potential of every learner. You can also create new personal and professional futures that involve leadership and advocacy in this developing field. This is why research matters. It enables you to critically examine whether current systems work and what is needed to truly advocate for inclusion, and to consider inclusion and belongingness as meaningful constructs in your own setting and in the wider community.
Amanda Gorman’s poem The Hill We Climb offers a powerful conceptual, inspirational lens through which we view this work. Gorman writes that “there is always light, if only we are brave enough to see it, if only we are brave enough to be it”. These words resonate deeply with the pursuit of research into inclusive education. Research requires courage: the courage to question systems that have normalised exclusion, the courage to amplify hidden voices of students and families who may have been overlooked, and the courage to imagine education differently. Gorman also reminds us that “societies are not broken but simply unfinished”. This idea reflects the current state of inclusion in Ireland. While progress has been made, the work remains unfinished, and Masters level research can play a critical role in continuing that reconstruction.
Ultimately, transformation must become a whole context response, representing all education settings and endeavours. The evidence of transformation appears at micro and macro level. Inclusion does not finish at the school gate; it becomes a community endeavour. Inclusion in society is the ultimate goal, and it must become increasingly embedded within both policy and practice. This transformation cannot occur without our Masters students’ rigorous and compassionate research that listens to the lived experiences and foregrounds inclusion, voice, hope, and belonging. Our students represent a wider definition of inclusion in every form of education – whether at the centre or on the margins. They represent an incredible triangulation of experts in education and experts by experience. They embody the lived experience which is grounded in authenticity. We advance a transformative and inclusive vision that develops educators, leaders, and researchers as agents of change.
Through research supervision we scaffold reconstructive thinking and together we create new visions and new versions of the whole. We guide our students as researchers to explore possibilities; reimagining.
We must climb that hill towards a more inclusive future, and “be the light”.
References
Gorman, A. (2021). The hill we climb: An inaugural poem for the country. Viking.
Slee, R. (2019). Belonging in an age of exclusion. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 23(9), 909–922. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2019.1602366