Students as Occupational Participants

While BC’s inclusive education policy emphasizes all students be placed with same-age peers whenever possible, and human rights legislation establishes the duty to accommodate, FI contexts often function as conditionally accessible spaces. 

Townsend and Wilcock (2004) propose four cases of occupational injustice, and four corresponding occupational rights: 

• Occupational Alienation vs the right to experience meaning and enrichment in one's occupations

• Occupational Deprivation vs the right to participate in a range of occupations for health and social inclusion

• Occupational Imbalance vs the right to make choices and share decision-making power in daily life

• Occupational Imbalance vs the right to receive equal privileges for diverse participation in occupations

Using their lens of occupational justice, student engagement in FI was reframed as educational 'occupations' that encompass a balance of learning, communicating, social participation, and identity formation—all of which are shaped by linguistic, instructional, and institutional environments:

• Participation and engagement in academic, linguistic, and social activities

• Identity development as bilingual or multilingual learners

• Experiences of inclusion, exclusion, and belonging

Student Occupations

• learning

• communicating

• collaborating

• socializing

• self-regulating

• participating

• constructin personal identiy

• collective belonging

For Further Reading

Hammell, K. W. (2015). Occupational rights and critical occupational therapy: Rising to the challenge. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, 62(6), 449–451. https://doi.org/10.1111/1440-1630.12195

Hodges, A., Cordier, R., Joosten, A., & Bourke-Taylor, H. (2022). Closing the Gap Between Theory and Practice: Conceptualisation of a School-Based Intervention to Improve the School Participation of Primary School Students on the Autism Spectrum and Their Typically Developing Peers. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 52(7), 3230–3245. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-021-05362-5

Selanikyo, E., Yalon-Chamovitz, S., & Weintraub, N. (2017). Enhancing classroom participation of students with intellectual and developmental disabilities: Améliorer la participation en classe des élèves ayant des déficiences intellectuelles et des troubles envahissants du développement. The Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 84(2), 76–86. https://doi.org/10.1177/0008417416661346

Skinner, S. Y., Katz, J., & Knight, V. F. (2024). Meaningful participation in a general education classroom of a student with significant disabilities: Bridging the fields of occupational therapy and inclusive education. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 28(12), 2980–3001. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2022.2137589

Townsend, E., & Wilcock, A. (2004). Occupational justice and Client-Centred Practice: A Dialogue in Progress. Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy. Revue Canadienne d’ergothérapie, 71, 75–87. https://doi.org/10.1177/000841740407100203