Mainstreaming

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The approach of combining different groups into commonly accepted frameworks promotes equality and participation in social or educational contexts
2. The process of incorporating less represented groups into dominant societal or educational settings to enhance inclusiveness
3. Bringing individuals from marginalized backgrounds into widely accepted social or institutional structures to foster equal opportunities

Etymology: "Mainstreaming" is built from "mainstream" and the suffix "-ing", so its story is largely the story of its first half. "Mainstream" began as a river term: a "main stream" was the principal channel of a river, as opposed to its tributaries and branches. From that physical sense it came to mean the dominant current of a society or culture, the body of ideas, habits and people that the majority accepts as normal. The verb takes that sense one step further. To mainstream something is to bring it from the margins into that central current, so the word describes the act of integrating people or groups who had been kept apart, most often disabled pupils placed in ordinary classrooms or minority communities drawn into the wider social and economic life of a country. The "-ing" ending is the ordinary English marker that turns the verb into a participle or gerund, which is why the word can name both the process and the activity.

Synonyms: integrating, inclusivity

Antonyms: segregation