Ethnographically informed action research: Exploring the extent to which an art/craft-based mathematics resource and inclusive pedagogy facilitate equitable teaching and learning at upper KS2.

Inclusion is a rhetoric of governance, discursively constructed in education policy and praxis by legislators, policy-makers, and school leaders with ideologies of natural order, neo-eugenics, ableism, and meritocracy that reproduce social-political injustice. Aligned to the standards agenda, inclusion legitimates the individualisation and medicalisation of pupils within state-schools. Labelling purported deficits and prescribing deterministic interventions (curriculum hierarchizing) leads to inequity in achievement, disaffection, marginalisation and exclusion. This ethnographic action-research explored the possibility of co-effecting cultural change within four UK primary schools (747 participants) where upper KS2 pupils were typically set on the basis of prior-attainment in mathematics. Inspired by Lani Florian’s ethos for an inclusive pedagogy, I designed and co-implemented a craft/art-based mathematics resource (36 workshops) that preserved the integrity of age-related NC learning objectives for all pupils, and incentivised the pursuit of knowledge/understanding within heterogeneous communities of practice (pairs, groups and whole-class) using relatable outcomes (interactive toys) that pupils aspired to recreate. Stimulating pupils’ holistic intellects (cognitive, aesthetic, practical, affective and imaginative) through an epistemic apprenticeship (artefact-in-the-making) facilitated engagement, enhanced learning power, and thus enabled many to exhibit competencies beyond their socially-constructed limitations. This constituted a form of domesticated activism that disrupted the normative image of able body and mind, and challenged ability-based assumptions and reductive practices. Responsive/contingent teaching and complex interventions were key operatives. They entailed real-time differentiation of knowledge-representation, learning episodes (objectivist/constructivist), teaching styles (instructional, guided, co-produced), as well as the socio-material distribution of cognition and support. The iterative processes in both the researcher-led implementations and teacher-inquiries revealed the fundamental ingredients of inclusive/equitable practice and informed the development of what I term the Inclusive Scaffolding Framework. Eleven dimensions of impact were identified and discussed (social, educational and institutional): • Transforming behaviour. • Balancing competition with cooperation. • Strengthening relationships. • Building confidence and positive self-image. • Incentivising engagement and school/class attendance. • Satisfying NC objectives (maths) without teaching to the test. • Delivering on the broad and balanced policy mandate. • Making relevant, improving or incentivising the learning of mathematics. • Facilitating inclusion of marginalised pupils. • Ensuring equity and equality in access to age-related subject knowledge and outcome. • Transcending discriminatory cultural assumptions and mechanisms of oppression.