Fulfilling the Right to Education in Inclusive Education: The 4a Analysis and Rawls’s Concept of Social Justice

Abstract

Inclusive education is part of efforts to realize social justice for children with disabilities as a vulnerable group. In practice, there remains a gap between educational policies and their implementation, despite inclusive education being recognized as a human right. This research aims to analyze the fulfillment of the educational rights of children with disabilities through the 4A framework (availability, accessibility, acceptability, and adaptability) and John Rawls’s perspective of social justice. The research employed a qualitative approach with a case study design through interviews, observations, and documentation studies. The results showed that inclusive education services and access were available; however, they did not fully guarantee equal learning opportunities due to limited resources and insufficient competencies in inclusive education practices. These findings indicate that inclusive education remains in a transitional phase from normative inclusion toward substantive justice. The implications of these findings highlight the need to strengthen resource capacity, improve educator competencies, and establish more systemic affirmative policies so that inclusive education extends beyond administrative access and contributes to achieving more substantive and sustainable educational justice for children with disabilities.