ATYPICAL CORPOREALITY AS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT AND THE INCLUSION PROBLEM IN THE RUSSIAN EDUCATION SYSTEM

Abstract

The article deals with the issue of stereotyping disability in Russia and the Russian education system. As educators make attempts to ensure that people with disabilities begin to access quality education in Russia, results often disappoint. Aiming to uncover the fundamental reasons that underpin failures in the implementation of inclusive practices, the authors suggest that the perception of disability understood as the social construction of atypical corporealityconditions the implicit understanding of what inclusive education is.The purpose of this article, therefore, is to identify the specific features of the social construction of atypical corporeality and explore ways in which these features are manifested in educational practices. Accordingly, the complexity of the object of study determined the need to refer to a wide range of methodological frameworks of cultural, semiotic and constructionist schools, which allowed the authors to determine the coding methods involved in the social construction of an atypical body. The theoretical investigation allowed the authors to conclude that the construction of atypical corporeality is the outcome of an underlying social agreement regarding the implementation of a particular model of disability (in particular, the article compares the social and medical models). Furthermore, a comparative analysis of educational practices used in the systems of inclusive education in conjunction with the problems of the body in society reveals the inconsistency of their implementation in Russia. Consequently, the authors conclude the article by outlining the key conditions for the social construction of atypical corporeality. Moreover, they identify the following controversy as the main obstacle preventing the implementation of effective inclusion practices into the Russian education system: while declaring the adherence of the “social model” of disability, the Russian education system continues to rely on the medical understanding of the body persistently implementing the medical model.