Inclusion is seen as an ethical obligation, grounded in notions of equity and social justice for all groups and at all stages of education, with higher education (HE) representing a distinctive space where the inclusion agenda is becoming more influential. However, inclusion is also increasingly recognised as an ambiguous concept that might have lost its critical edge and is in many cases reduced to ‘chatter’. To explore inclusion in this context, we analysed 48 policy documents from the websites of the 24 Russell Group Universities (the ‘elite’, research-intensive, UK universities) using a critical discourse analysis approach. We found that inclusion was rarely defined clearly, and that tensions, complexity and pedagogical implications of inclusion were not discussed. Inclusion was also related to excellence and ideas about a ‘global university’ that are central to a university’s reputation and ability to attract international students and staff. We see three ways in which these findings are significant: the way inclusion was approached in the policy documents could largely be described as managerial/legalistic, seen as the responsibility of human resources; inclusion was perceived as an act of legal compliance that was also expected to influence everyday relationships – but without an explanation of how this could happen; and inclusion was discussed together with broader debates within HE, e.g. meritocracy, but without a critical reflection on what this means. We, thus, argue that universities should resist treating inclusion as a quality and performance index and recognise that inclusion is linked to the very purposes of HE.

中文翻译：

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英国精英大学包容政策的批判性探索

包容被视为一种道德义务，其基础是所有群体和所有教育阶段的公平和社会正义概念，高等教育 (HE) 代表了一个独特的空间，其中包容议程正变得越来越有影响力。然而，包容性也越来越多地被认为是一个模糊的概念，可能已经失去了它的关键优势，并且在许多情况下被简化为“喋喋不休”。为了探索这种背景下的包容性，我们使用批判性话语分析方法分析了 24 所罗素集团大学（“精英”，研究密集型，英国大学）网站上的 48 份政策文件。我们发现包容性很少被明确定义，包容性的紧张、复杂性和教学影响也没有被讨论。包容性还与卓越和关于“全球大学”的想法有关，这对大学的声誉和吸引国际学生和教职员工的能力至关重要。我们看到这些发现在三个方面具有重要意义：政策文件中处理包容性的方式在很大程度上可以描述为管理/法律上的，被视为人力资源的责任；包容被认为是一种法律合规行为，预计也会影响日常关系——但没有解释这是如何发生的；和包容性与高等教育内部更广泛的辩论一起讨论，例如精英管理，但没有对这意味着什么进行批判性思考。因此，我们，