Education for children with disabilities in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia : developing a sense of belonging

Abstract

With this book I want to put a focus on the cultural aspects of inclusive education and its implications. For countries of the global South, inclusion and inclusive education need to be discussed on different grounds compared to Western countries. Aspects like feeling like a family and developing a sense of belonging may be more important in Ethiopia compared to other cultural environments. In the book I analyse these contexts. I look at how certain aspects influence inclusion, equity in education and the life of children with disabilities in Ethiopia. The Appendix provides details about the research process and the methods which were used. The results of the study I am presenting were embedded in a study of a bigger project1 initiated by the University of Vienna. This project focused on environmental factors that support or restrict activity and participation of school-aged children with disabilities in the field of education in different societal and cultural contexts. These different contexts had been given by including three capitals of different countries, namely, Vienna (Austria), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) and Bangkok (Thailand), in the research design. The following discussion is based exclusively on the data from Ethiopia which was collected from 2010 until 2012.