The power to exclude: Facing the challenge of inclusive education in Cyprus

A consideration of the struggle aiming to bring about a shift from special to inclusive education is very revealing for the analysis of the way power manifests itself, and for the way it is exercised in a social formation. Taking Cyprus as a case study, this article identifies the contextual features that mark the boundaries of the discourse surrounding inclusion. Particular consideration is given to the influence of traditional cultural notions of what constitutes healthy normality, and to the way religious, political, ideological and economic views have shaped prejudice on the island. It is argued that inclusive education brings into confrontation a powerful state and its professional classes on the one hand, and persons with disability and their advocates on the other. The struggle for self-empowerment is partly dependent on the transformation of a discourse that has traditionally seen disability in "medical" or "charity" terms, to one that conceptualizes it in terms of "human rights" in a fully-fledged democracy.