School leaders are confronted with navigating the critical proximity of an agenda for inclusion and an agenda for excellence that co-exist simultaneously in most schools, where the motives behind the objectives that inform each agenda are divergent. This paradox poses several challenges and possible constraints for school leaders. Do they find a way to pursue excellence while still staying true to the ideals of inclusion? Or do they foreground one at the expense of the other? In many schools, the yardstick to gauge the quality of education provision sees associated thinking go directly to academic achievement, where examination results are seen as a disproportional indicator of a child's intellectual worth. It is therefore assumed that a school that meets its academic achievement goals or ranking targets is deemed to be a provider of this so-called quality education. These academic results often determine the school's status within its community and its national, or even international ranking. This obsession with testing and rankings as a benchmark of success provides little room for school leaders to focus on the pedagogical approaches and operational strategies needed to meet the challenge of teaching learners with different learning needs. Also, when ‘quality education’ is tied inexplicitly to high-stakes testing criteria as a measure of excellence, there exists the space for a rather perverse and insidious process of gaming, where children who are not anticipated to achieve the desired results are ‘coerced’ out the system under the mantra that moving to another school better equipped to assist them, would be in their best interests.

Firstly, I conduct a narrative literature review highlighting the divergent objectives that inform an agenda of inclusion and an agenda of excellence, emphasizing how these co-existing agendas create tensions and add to the already existing complexities of school spaces. This review is complemented by presenting an overview of an agenda for inclusion and how it can be framed from a social justice perspective together with that of an agenda for excellence and how this is framed from a neoliberal perspective. In the second component of this paper, I present findings from a focused and selective bibliometric analysis of literature that addresses both concepts of an inclusion agenda and a neoliberalism agenda in schools. To determine the scope of the work, the co-authorship, and the countries that are most featured in examining the tensions for schools, when navigating the critical proximity or paradox of the ideals of inclusion and neoliberal ideals that coexist as objectives, are foregrounded. When conducting a literature search that considers inclusive education and neoliberalism in schools independently the volume of research is substantial. However, when searching for articles that investigate how neoliberal attitudes impact inclusive teaching, there is a dearth in the number of articles found that are relevant. Also, it was evident that a significant amount of the research and the collaborations and co-authorship that emerged from the systematic literature review are predominantly from countries considered to be developed and form the global north. It was also evident that trending keywords included ‘accountability’ in the sector and “intersectionality’. This indicates where newer research is focussing its interests.

Keywords: Inclusion, excellence, neoliberal, critical proximity, bibliometric.