Committee: Kihong Ku, Thomas Jefferson University, USA Christopher Pastore, Thomas Jefferson University, USA Lizbeth Goodman, University College Dublin, Ireland Bonnie Stewart, University of Windsor, Canada

Jess Mitchell, Ph.D. SMARTlab Practice-Based PhD in Architecture and Design Research, Thomas Jefferson University CC-BY 4.0 International

I was motivated to do this thesis because I felt I was noticing something that was missing. Something was missing in the ways we were talking about and actioning inclusion in education. I watched as some learners were missed even with a pedagogical and institutional commitment to inclusion.

And now that the very notion of inclusion has become so deeply politicized and weaponized in N. America, I feel even more committed to exploring what it means, what this missing piece could be, and how to articulate all of this in a way that addresses the fuzziness and seeming weaknesses in the application of ‘inclusion’ as a concept in education.

Research Problem and Thesis

**Research Problem: **something is missing from Inclusion as practiced in Education **Thesis: **There is a way to action inclusion in education that can address individual needs to locate and address ‘the missing middle’.

There are still learners who are falling through the gaps (encountering barriers and not having their needs met) in teaching and learning spaces. It led me to exploring what I call the ‘complex human entanglement’ that happens in the teaching and learning space.

• When individuals with hopes, dreams, pasts, experiences, and biases come together in class communities
• When instructors have power over learners in the form of designed decisions like those in the syllabus, assessments, completion, success, and more.
• The design decisions that are made about how to construct and schedule the learning moments.
• The social and political location of the moments the class happens within
• The social and political locations of the individuals in the class
• And more…

Based on these complexities I was interested in exploring what I call the missing middle.

I was eager to explore with former students, the ways that we co-created the relational, the interpersonal, and the space, in our particular locations, the time, the current events – the entanglements, and how it impacted their missing middles…

Continue reading on Jess’ web page