Conference Agenda

Since the Publication of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (United Nations, 2006) and against the backdrop of social transformations such as digitalization, demographic changes and shifting labour markets (Dobischat et al., 2019; Kraus, 2022; Nuissl, 2023), the importance of inclusion in nonformal education and the world of work has increased significantly. Access to lifelong learning opportunities is regarded as a prerequisite for social participation and social cohesion (Schreiber-Barsch & Zeuner, 2018; Grotlüschen et al., 2024). Consequently, inclusion has become a central topic in educational research, with a growing body of literature addressing the implementation, effectiveness and challenges of inclusive schooling (e.g., Finkelstein et al., 2021; Keles et al., 2024; Navrátilová et al., 2024; …), inclusive higher education (e. g., Filippou et al., 2025; Louw & Louw 2025; Stentiford & Koutsouris, 2021; …) as well as inclusive work places (e. g., Garg & Sangwan, 2020; Rezaia et al., 2023; …).

However, these developments hat not yet been adequately reflected in research on nonformal adult and continuing education. In particular, disability as a category of analysis has often been overlooked in this field when examining inclusion (Heimlich & Behr, 2018; Schreiber-Barsch, 2023; Seitter & Franz, 2019). Existing reviews tend to conceptualise inclusion in broader terms, for example concerning LGBTQ+-inclusive adult education (Baumgartner et al., 2025), ageing and later-life learning (Schmidt-Hertha et al., 2022), or general questions of social justice and equity (Oduaran, 2019; Walters & Cooper, 2011). The few studies that explicitly address disability, indicate that people with disabilities remain underrepresented in adult and continuing education programmes (e.g., Federal Statistical Office, 2024; Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, 2021; UNESCO, 2019), suggesting that access is still not equal. Research at the subjective level show not only persistent barriers to access, but also to participate in both formal and nonformal work related education (e. g., Grünenfelder & Zumbach, 2023; Pfister et al., 2017; Wenger, 2025). Moreover, studies adopting critical-deconstructive (e.g., ‘doing dis_ability’, Köbsell, 2016; Boger, 2019) or intersectional (e.g., Schreiber-Barsch et al., 2025b) perspectives on disability are (still) rarely represented within adult and continuing education research. As a result, debates on inclusion have so far not fostered a theoretically grounded discussion of inclusion-related issues. This underscores the need for more systematic, theoretically informed, and reflexive research approaches that critically examine how inclusion is conceptualized, operationalized, and (re-) produced in adult and continuing education research.

To systematically capture this research gap and to move beyond a predominantly German-speaking context, this paper presents the results of a scoping review of international publications on inclusion in the field of adult and continuing education. The review examines which dimensions of inclusion are (not) addressed within existing research and investigates how disability is defined, operationalised, and reproduced within the literature, if at all. In addition to this substantive focus, the contribution places particular emphasis on methodological and epistemological questions while critically reflecting on knowledge production processes using the following methodology.

Inclusive education is increasingly positioned as a lever for both equity and economic participation. Yet in contexts shaped by superdiversity—where disability, migration background, socio-economic vulnerability, gender, and linguistic difference intersect—education systems often rely on linear policy assumptions that underestimate the non-linear, emergent dynamics of exclusion. This paper applies complexity systems theory to explain why inclusive education reforms may fail to reduce persistent NEET (Not in Employment, Education, or Training) trajectories, even when policy commitments appear strong on paper.

We argue that exclusion and NEET outcomes are not the result of isolated deficits but emerge through feedback loops across multiple system levels: school-level practices (e.g., tracking, resource allocation, teacher beliefs), family constraints (e.g., economic precarity, caregiving burdens), labor-market signals (e.g., credential inflation, employer discrimination), and public narratives (e.g., deficit discourses about disability and diversity). These interactions produce tipping points and path dependencies that lock vulnerable youth—particularly those with disabilities, neurodivergence, or migration backgrounds—into trajectories of educational disengagement and labor-market exclusion.

The study positions Turkey as a "middle-income laboratory" to generate insights relevant for low-income contexts (LICs), where institutional capacity and resources are constrained but demographic and social complexity is high. Turkey's education system exhibits characteristics common to many LICs: rapid urbanization, large-scale internal and external migration, uneven implementation of inclusive education policies, and high youth unemployment. By analyzing Turkey's experience through a complexity lens, we aim to identify transferable lessons for LICs facing similar challenges.

We synthesize research across four domains: (i) complexity theory and education governance (e.g., Byrne & Callaghan, 2014; Mason, 2008), (ii) superdiversity and disability (Vertovec, 2007; Artiles et al., 2011),

(iii) self-determination and agency as transformative mechanisms (Shogren et al., 2015), and (iv) NEET-related educational risk pathways (Eurofound, 2016; Elder, 2015). This synthesis reveals a critical gap: while inclusive education research has documented barriers at the individual and school levels, it has rarely examined how these barriers interact across system levels to produce aggregate outcomes like NEET rates.

Our conceptual contribution is a systems model that maps the mechanisms linking inclusive education practices to NEET risk under conditions of superdiversity. The model identifies key leverage points where interventions may have disproportionate impact: self-determination supports, transition planning, school-family collaboration, and institutional responsiveness to diversity. Importantly, the model also highlights unintended consequences of well-intentioned policies (e.g., how mainstreaming without adequate support can increase dropout risk) and threshold effects (e.g., how small increases in teacher capacity can trigger large improvements in student outcomes once a critical mass is reached).

We conclude with implications for policy design: inclusive education strategies should explicitly account for non-linearities, anticipate unintended consequences, and invest in adaptive mechanisms that improve educational-to-work transitions. This perspective strengthens the link between inclusion and structural transformation by making visible how "ignored complexity" translates into resource loss and stalled system change. By reframing inclusion as an adaptive system capacity rather than a checklist of interventions, we offer a new lens for understanding why some education systems successfully convert diversity into economic dynamism while others remain trapped in cycles of exclusion.

In line with Article 24 in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) (United Nations, 2008), inclusive education - emphasising all learners’ rights to participation, belonging, and meaningful learning - has become a priority in European education policy. This has resulted in a shift toward educating students with special educational needs in mainstream rather than segregated settings, a development identified in a comparative study across seven European countries (Buchner et al., 2021). However, this development has progressed unevenly across student groups. For students with intellectual disabilities (ID), the study indicates that they remain the group most frequently placed in special schools and receive their education in segregated settings. At the same time, students with ID are described as a “hidden population,” due to significant gaps in data about their education, resulting in “a lack of transparency in the implementation processes of the UNCRPD” (Buchner et al., 2021, p. 18).

In Sweden, by contrast, students with ID constitute a visible group as they are admitted to a distinct school form: the Compulsory School for Students with Intellectual Disabilities (CSSID). This school form follows its own national curricula, syllabi, and timetables, and in the 2024/25 school year, 1.5% of all compulsory‑school‑age students attended the CSSID (Swedish National Agency for Education [SNAE], 2025). As a formal ID diagnosis is required for admission, the Swedish system enables systematic examination of inclusion and UNCRPD implementation for this group. Yet, although the separate school form is intended to accommodate diverse needs, organisational boundaries may reinforce exclusionary processes (Göransson & Nilholm, 2014). The Swedish Education Act states that students with ID should be given opportunities to receive their education in mainstream classes (Public Law 800, 2010). Nevertheless, only 9.1% of CSSID students were integrated into mainstream classes in 2024/25, even though about 90% of CSSID units are located within or near mainstream compulsory schools (Göransson et al., 2022; Sjöqvist et al., 2021).

This discrepancy highlights a tension between rights‑based inclusion frameworks and organisational structures that remain largely segregated. However, within the UNCRPD framework, inclusion is not merely a matter of placement but concerns students’ actual opportunities to participate in the educational and social life of the school, a condition that further presupposes that diversity can function as a pedagogical resource when students are provided with genuine opportunities to engage in shared, meaningful activities (United Nations, 2008). From this perspective, inclusion can be understood as a dynamic process shaped by exclusionary forces operating both outside and inside schools (Malmqvist, 2025). As the proportion of students in the CSSID has increased in recent years (SNAE, 2025), questions arise regarding what teachers need to do - together in practice - to enable participation and learning for students with ID in line with the UNCRPD.

Against this backdrop, the aim of this study is to illuminate how inclusion, understood as all learners’ rights to participation, belonging, and meaningful learning, can be meaningfully realised in everyday school practice when the overarching educational system remains structurally segregated. The study is guided by the following research question:

• How can teachers develop shared working methods and didactic practices that enhance inclusion for students with ID, and what conditions emerge as significant in doing so?

The study is theoretically grounded in the Staircase Model of Inclusionary and Exclusionary Processes (Malmqvist, 2025), which conceptualises inclusion and exclusion as positions along a dynamic continuum rather than fixed states. The model highlights how students move between different degrees of inclusion and exclusion over time and provides an analytical framework for examining how collaboration between school forms may strengthen or counteract these movements.