This study examines the participation of women in Andean glaciology over the past four decades, combining a bibliometric analysis of 204 peer-reviewed articles (1983–2022) and a survey of female first authors (2018–2022). Results show a steady increase in women-led publications, rising from 8 percent in the 1980s–1990s to 30 percent in the past decade. However, structural barriers, including unequal access to funding, resistance to female leadership, and the disproportionate burden of caregiving, continue to limit gender equity in the field. Women-led studies are concentrated in Argentina and Chile, while countries like Colombia, Bolivia, and Venezuela remain underrepresented. The methods most commonly used by female researchers are fieldwork and remote sensing, which reflects limited access to laboratory-based approaches. Survey responses highlight both the motivations (scientific interest, conservation) and challenges (discrimination, lack of recognition, work-life imbalance) faced by women scientists. The findings reveal persistent epistemic and territorial asymmetries, especially in the context of international research led by Global North institutions. The study underscores the need for inclusive policies that go beyond formal representation, supporting equitable research leadership and collaboration. Promoting gender equity in cryosphere science is not only a matter of justice; it is essential for generating contextually relevant, socially just, and scientifically robust responses to climate change in the Andes.

The concept of inclusion has become a central and largely uncontested principle across global mental health, education, and social policy. Despite its widespread adoption, its underlying assumptions often remain insufficiently interrogated. This Perspective critically examines inclusion not as a neutral or inherently benevolent concept, but as a practice embedded within broader relations of power. Informed by sustained empirical and professional engagement across early childhood education and developmental neurorehabilitation contexts, alongside research on migration, inclusion, and inequality, the paper argues that inclusion, as commonly operationalized, may reproduce the very inequalities it seeks to address. By presupposing a normative center into which “others” must be incorporated, inclusion risks functioning less as a transformative process and more as a mechanism of adaptation, regulation, and normalization. The paper highlights how dominant approaches to inclusion tend to individualize responsibility, foregrounding competencies and access while obscuring structural and historical conditions of exclusion. It further explores how inclusion operates as a regulatory practice that defines the boundaries of belonging, often requiring partial conformity to dominant norms. Within global mental health, these dynamics are particularly salient, as efforts to expand access to care are frequently accompanied by the global circulation of standardized models that may not fully engage with local epistemologies and lived realities. In response, this Perspective proposes a shift from inclusion as incorporation toward inclusion as transformation, situating it within a broader commitment to justice understood as structural change. Rather than asking how individuals can be better included, it calls for questioning the systems, norms, and epistemologies that define belonging. Reframing inclusion in this way opens space for more relational, context-sensitive, and epistemically plural approaches to global mental health.

Despite growing recognition of racial and ethnic exclusion in the life sciences, mechanisms for achieving structural change remain underdeveloped. Grassroots organisations have emerged as key drivers of equity within the life sciences, yet their sustainability is regularly constrained by voluntary labour, financial precarity, and omission from institutional decision-making. Using the REED (Racial & Ethnic Equality & Diversity) Ecological Network as a case study, this paper examines how grassroots initiatives can advance racial and ethnic inclusion in academic and professional institutions. Founded in 2020, REED has grown into a UK-based, community-led network supporting ecologists from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds through training, mentorship, advocacy, and institutional partnership. Drawing on evidence from qualitative testimonies, self-report survey data (n = 20), and organisational records, we extract key principles and propose a four-pillar framework for institutional allyship: (1) dedicated funding streams, (2) structured mentorship programmes, (3) peer-led training for retention, and (4) equitable representation in decision-making spaces. We argue that institutions adopting this partnership-based model, centred on grassroots expertise, create a viable pathway to racial and ethnic equity across the life sciences, which can build more diverse research cultures and strengthen the epistemic foundations of science.

In a world of increasing human movement and displacement, language learning is an educational concern with significant implications for social inclusion in contexts of migration. This review of recent research analyses 40 empirical studies which explore various aspects of language education with adult migrants, investigating what they reveal regarding pedagogical approaches and the impact of policy on language learning, teaching, and assessment. It identifies issues in relation to diversity among adult migrant learners, the value of multilingual practices and the recognition of multiliteracies, as well as the potential of digital learning and affective approaches to language teaching. In addition, this review shows how migration and integration policies can influence language instruction, considering programme design, testing requirements, the learning of minoritised languages, and the role of educators in this field. It outlines directions for further research in areas including critical multilingual approaches to language teaching, equitable forms of assessment, trauma-informed pedagogy, the development of inclusive policies, and teacher education. This paper can thus inform educators, researchers, and policymakers by providing insights which may guide language-related educational support for adult migrants.

Against a remarkable diffusion of commitments to inclusion, equality and diversity in universities, and cases where these commitments are being contested, this study considers the institutional environments that shape universities’ inclusionary commitments. Historical and sociological institutionalist perspectives are used to make sense of how regulatory and resource conditions of the national higher education (HE) systems that universities inhabit blend with global cultural pressures and supply universities with socially desirable ways of pursuing inclusion. A comparative case study of inclusionary commitments in an English and a Norwegian public research university is provided. Despite substantial differences between HE sectors, both universities portray themselves as deliberate and strategic in their pursuit of inclusion, and the state is a key ‘rationalizer’ of this process through equality legislation. Nevertheless, inclusionary commitments appear more organizationally embedded and cognizant of student needs in the English university. In the Norwegian university, structural measures to foster inclusion become more visible within the comparatively rudimentary organizational structure, with regional cooperation and the needs of personnel being highlighted. The findings show that the spread of inclusionary organizational actorhood is marked by differences in regulation, national service and market orientations between HE systems. They are paving distinct possibilities for how universities may relate to their inclusionary commitments if challenged.

With a serious decline in music education and limited music technology within school settings, those wishing to practice music for a career or seek employment within the creative industries face economic barriers and social class ceilings. This article explores how young people can access education in electronic music production and align their music practice to industry roles outside of formal schooling. Research was conducted with young people from non-formal music education backgrounds who took part in a three-year programme that included mixing and mastering studio sessions, record label masterclasses and live sound engineering training days. The affordances of DIY musical skills acquisition, collaboration and creative industries social networks were vital for musical engagement and inclusion. Programmes of this nature hold significance for future pathways in music production for those who cannot access formal music education.

This special issue, Music and Inclusion: Philosophies, Practices and Possibilities, brings together international scholars and practitioners to interrogate what inclusion means within contemporary music education and participation.