Isolation and inclusion in Australian early childhood settings

In many developed countries, including the United Kingdom and Australia, there has been a recent policy focus on social inclusion. The term social inclusion has been used to frame broad social policies related to the participation in society and its institutions of all citizens, particularly the multiply disadvantaged (Hayes et al, 2008). While the terms social inclusion and social exclusion are used widely, they have rarely been applied to discussions about children and their early childhood educational experience (Vinson, 2008). The purpose of this Chapter is to examine how social inclusion has been applied in early childhood educational settings in Australia, specifically in relation to children who are developmentally different. Inclusion policies have been developed for children with intellectual and physical disabilities and have been in place across the educational sector for more than a decade. While attention has been paid within the educational system to the experiences of children with disabilities, there has been less discussion about the social inclusion of young children at the other end of the spectrum, those who are intellectually gifted.