Celebrating diversity in education and the special case of disability

For many authors, the central difference between integration and inclusion is that the latter conceives human diversity in positive ways, and even celebrates it. The article aims at investigating into the normative persuasiveness of such a view. It is specifically interested in the moral - in contrast to political or practical - arguments in favour of such an approach. Two routes or lines of arguments are distinguished. A negative line of argument aims at preventing discrimination on the grounds of disability, whereas a positive line of argument targets at establishing respect. As the latter line of argument assumes that disability does not pose a special problem and should rather be seen as one of many ways of being different, the article then directly investigates into this assumption. It concludes that such an approach does both underestimate the challenge of disability and the challenge of inclusion in the context of education.