What task might a principal undertake that would be more critical to teachers and students than to engage in leadership for inclusion? All education stakeholders have an inescapable vested interest in enabling principals in their mandate to be better informed about inclusion and to provide leadership based on such insights. In this manner, principals can directly support teachers who enact inclusion with students on a daily basis. Whilst our aspirations for such professional growth and practice in principals are laudable, exactly what this growth and practice might represent is mostly nebulous; therefore, good leadership for inclusion is more likely to occur by happenstance than by meticulous design. That is no longer the case.
This important and timely collection of international writings examines just what comprises the critical issues within inclusion and provides principals with a series of practical guides to direct their practice. This book takes leadership for inclusion out of the purely theoretical realm and firmly plants it in the professional lives and realities of principals and teachers in schools. The fundamental tenets and suggestions provided here have international application and should be essential readings for all principals and others in similar positions who are concerned about the welfare of teachers and students involved in inclusive education.
Leadership for Inclusion: A Practical Guide makes a significant contribution to an emerging literature in which all professional educators, and especially principals, are beginning to vigorously take on the new challenges presented by inclusion and inclusive schooling. Overall, this volume of candid propositions about principals’ practice invites the reader to engage in likeminded analyses and syntheses and to enfold their newfound knowledge and skills into their leadership. Given the influence that inclusion now has on education around the world, there is no task more worthy.