An old episode to start a new series: Inclusive Education with Maya Kalyanpur

As we gear up for DiveIn's upcoming season 4 and a new series on inclusive education, we're revisiting a conversation that offers the perfect starting point: a global perspective on inclusion, disability, and educational equity.

In this episode, Federico talks with Maya Kalyanpur, professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the University of San Diego. Dr. Kalyanpur began her career teaching children with intellectual disabilities in India, served as an advisor on inclusive education to Cambodia's Ministry of Education, and has conducted research throughout South Asia and the United States.

Together, they explore:

• What we mean when we talk about the Global South and why the term is more political than geographic
• How disability and inclusion are understood differently across cultural contexts
• Why educational models developed in the United States and other Western countries do not always translate well to other parts of the world
• The tensions between international inclusion policies and local knowledge
• Lessons from India and other countries about community, family, work, and disability
• How educational systems can unintentionally create new forms of exclusion while attempting to promote inclusion
• What scholars and practitioners in the United States can learn from the Global South
• Why humility, collaboration, and listening to communities are essential for advancing equity in special education

Throughout the conversation, Dr. Kalyanpur challenges us to rethink some of the assumptions we take for granted about disability, schooling, independence, and inclusion. Rather than exporting solutions from the Global North, she argues for building educational systems that emerge from the cultural values, histories, and lived experiences of local communities.

As DiveIn prepares to launch its new series on inclusive education, this episode provides an important reminder: before debating how inclusion should happen, we need to ask whose perspectives are shaping our understanding of what inclusion means.