Inclusive cultures in science education: the case of science learning in Luxembourg

The publication of the National Action Plans for People with Disabilities (LE GOUVERNEMENT DU GRAND-DUCHÉ DE LUXEMBOURG, 2016; MINISTÈRE DE LA FAMILLE, DE L’INTÉGRATION ET À LA GRANDE RÉGION, 2020) set the political stage for strategies to intensify inclusion in Luxembourg. One area of focus is the right to education for people with disabilities, with the aim of fully developing the personality of all learners, their talents and creativity as well as their mental and physical abilities. This implies offering tasks and materials that take into account the learners’ diverse competencies, experiences, backgrounds, languages and ways of thinking and enable them to acquire knowledge on different learning paths and with diverse learning objectives. In other words, according to the action plans, inclusive education means offering learning opportunities that address the learners at their individual level of competence and support them in their learning linguistically, cognitively and practically. The informal learning setting of the Luxembourg Science Center with its interactive and hands-on activities enables learning at different levels of competence, in different languages and with an orientation toward practical applications. Based on several examples, this chapter discusses how the political intentions called for in the Luxembourg Action Plans for Inclusion can be put into practice. In a first step, the chapter reviews the Luxembourg Action Plans for the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and identifies actions that support the development of an inclusive culture in science learning for children and youth. Secondly, using selected activities of the Luxembourg Science Center, approaches are outlined for an inclusive education system in science learning that enables the learners to participate in experimentation and to access scientific content. Building on the selected examples, inclusive science learning is described as a process in which learners develop competencies in science through experimenting with materials and through the exchange with others in a way that is sensitive to diversity. This chapter discusses the implications of such an inclusion-sensitive science education in a theoretical (Section 2) and applied (Section 3) reflection, using the informal learning sector as an example. The concluding discussion (Section 4) summarizes the opportunities and difficulties of inclusive science learning, showing that informal and formal education settings complement each other to form a full picture of inclusive science learning.