Inclusive Education
- LAST REVIEWED: 28 September 2016
- LAST MODIFIED: 28 September 2016
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0162
- LAST REVIEWED: 28 September 2016
- LAST MODIFIED: 28 September 2016
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0162
Introduction
Inclusive education has become an international concept, implemented in various formal schooling systems in nations in the southern and northern hemispheres. As appropriations of inclusive education appear across the globe so do multiple meanings. In particular, cultural, historical constructions of disabilities guide context-specific implementation and policy formation of inclusive education in different countries. Disabilities seen solely as intra-individual traits lead to lowered expectations, thus constraining opportunities to learn. However when caregivers, educators, family members, and other providers understand dis/abilities as an intersection of social, cultural, historical, environmental, and intra-individual abilities, more equitable forms of education emerge for all students. Shifts in understanding the locus of disability guide the development of national policies and laws to support inclusive education implementation. Research has also surfaced the complexities, challenges, and innovative practices that must be considered in order to install inclusive education as a normative practice. To support inclusive education, educators need to have both the capacity to provide learning opportunities to all students in their classrooms as well as the vision that all students, regardless of race, language, religion, gender, and ability should be given the opportunity to receive an excellent education. Educators need institutional contexts that are designed to accommodate inclusive practices, and school leaders who understand the complexities of the work and can provide the feedback, support, and leadership necessary for sustaining inclusive practices across generations of students and their teachers. This article outlines the history of inclusive education and provides insight into its multiple meanings. In particular, citations are included that address the ways in which disability has been constructed. From there, entries examine research in inclusive education as well as the policies that support its implementation. We draw on articles that specifically review policy development in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and various countries in Asia. A separate section looks at the impact of new political economies on the design and spread of inclusive education. A final section examines inclusive education outcomes, including school and classroom-level implementation and implications for inclusive teacher education.
General Overviews
Inclusive education appeared initially in the research literature in the late 1980s. Framed as an alternative to special education, inclusive education expanded the responsibilities of schools and school systems to increase access, participation, and opportunities to learn for marginalized populations of students. Using a cultural lens to frame educational practice, inclusive education can be seen as a collaborative, mutually constitutive, responsive interaction between learners and teachers (Skrtic, et al. 1996). In a digital age, foregrounding the interactive, interpretive nature of teaching offers the potential for self-determined learning that is transparent and engages democratic community building. Fully realized, inclusive education operates on critically grounded assumptions about the construction of ability and disability (Peters 2004). Inclusive education offers the possibility of disrupting dominant notions of race, language, ability, gender, and religion (Slee 2001). However, as national education systems appropriate the terminology of inclusive education, it is becoming, in many contexts, suspiciously like special education, a way of sorting and separating students who are viewed as not fitting the model student profile (Slee 2001). Ainscow 2005 suggests that inclusive education requires organizing schools as communities of practice in which sets of tools structure participation and privilege particular kinds of practices. Rather, inclusive education comprises an agenda that transcends categorization of teachers and students (Ferguson 2008). It is an agenda designed to advance learning as a constant companion throughout individual and collective lives. Understanding how communities draw on history, current practice, and a shared language to negotiate experience can generate transformative methods. In a similar vein, when teachers are conscious of the impact of their daily practice (i.e., learning in practice), they will create new approaches that will help them transcend the structural boundaries that maintain current divisions between special and inclusive education (Florian 2008). Shogren and Wehmeyer 2014 notes that inclusive education is in its third generation. It has moved from a rights perspective to a person-centered perspective. Now, a third set of principles are necessary to ensure that it emerges as the common standard of practice for all students: (1) empowerment, (2) capacity building as well as prevention, and (3) notions of productivity and contribution.
Ainscow, Mel. 2005. Developing inclusive education systems: What are the levers for change? Journal of Educational Change 6.2: 109–124.
DOI: 10.1007/s10833-005-1298-4
Ainscow draws on work with the Inclusion Index to identify levers to transform local contexts through disrupting educators’ historical views of understanding difference. Through local inquiry and discourse, practitioners can reframe their systematic practices that serve to isolate and separate students with disabilities from other learners.
Ferguson, Dianne L. 2008. International trends in inclusive education: The continuing challenge to teach each one and everyone. European Journal of Special Needs Education 23.2: 109–120.
DOI: 10.1080/08856250801946236
Ferguson describes key shifts needed for inclusive education. She calls for moving the focus of teachers from how to teach to how to support and facilitate student learning, providing learner supports rather than creating a fixed menu of services, shifting professional practices from individual to collective acts, and creating networks with families to renew and improve outcomes.
Florian, Lani. 2008. Special or inclusive education: Future trends. British Journal of Special Education 35.4: 202–208.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8578.2008.00402.x
Florian affirms that differences among learners are to be expected. Select pedagogies based on content demands and learner needs. Specialist support can make teachers’ practice more effective for diverse learners when teachers have the professional tools to frame the challenges that learners face and make use of specialist knowledge in designing powerful learning experiences.
Peters, Susan J. 2004. Inclusive education: An EFA strategy for all children. Washington, DC: World Bank, Human Development Network.
Peters recommends a series of actions based on a policy analysis of agreements made by governments on behalf of children and individuals with disabilities. While much implementation continues to be uneven, the weight of policy documents pushes forward the inclusive education agenda. Key is the relationship between policy and activity at the national, state, and local education levels.
Shogren, Karrie A., and Michael L. Wehmeyer. 2014. Using the core concepts framework to understand three generations of inclusive practices. Inclusion 2.3: 237–247.
DOI: 10.1352/2326-6988-2.3.237
From a focus on where students with disabilities are educated to how they learn to what they should learn encapsulates the inclusive education movement. Further, reframing disability as an interaction between local contexts and individual constraints and affordances shifts the work of teachers and caregivers to environmental and learning designers.
Skrtic, Thomas M., Wayne Sailor, and Kathleen Gee. 1996. Voice, collaboration, and inclusion democratic themes in educational and social reform initiatives. Remedial and Special Education 17.3: 142–157.
DOI: 10.1177/074193259601700304
Inclusive education is a response to the need for interdisciplinary, locally negotiated policies and practices that acknowledge growing heterogeneity and differentiation in human needs. Excellence in education systems must be predicated on equity and counter-marginalization reforms.
Slee, Roger. 2001. Social justice and the changing directions in educational research: The case of inclusive education. International Journal of Inclusive Education 5.2–3: 167–177.
DOI: 10.1080/13603110010035832
Appropriation of inclusive education by special education means that a separate system is inevitable unless the inclusive education movement is decoupled from notions of categorization, remediation, and parallel educational systems, one for students identified as disabled and the other for all others.
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Article
- Academic Achievement
- Academic Audit for Universities
- Academic Freedom and Tenure in the United States
- Action Research in Education
- Adjuncts in Higher Education in the United States
- Administrator Preparation
- Adolescence
- Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate Courses
- Advocacy and Activism in Early Childhood
- African American Racial Identity and Learning
- Alaska Native Education
- Alternative Certification Programs for Educators
- Alternative Schools
- American Indian Education
- Animals in Environmental Education
- Art Education
- Artificial Intelligence and Learning
- Assessing School Leader Effectiveness
- Assessment, Behavioral
- Assessment, Educational
- Assessment in Early Childhood Education
- Assistive Technology
- Augmented Reality in Education
- Beginning-Teacher Induction
- Bilingual Education and Bilingualism
- Black Undergraduate Women: Critical Race and Gender Perspe...
- Black Women in Academia
- Blended Learning
- Bullying
- Case Study in Education Research
- Changing Professional and Academic Identities
- Character Education
- Children’s and Young Adult Literature
- Children's Beliefs about Intelligence
- Children's Rights in Early Childhood Education
- Citizenship Education
- Civic and Social Engagement of Higher Education
- Classroom Learning Environments: Assessing and Investigati...
- Classroom Management
- Coherent Instructional Systems at the School and School Sy...
- College Admissions in the United States
- College Athletics in the United States
- Community Relations
- Comparative Education
- Computer-Assisted Language Learning
- Computer-Based Testing
- Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Evaluating Improvement Net...
- Continuous Improvement and "High Leverage" Educational Pro...
- Counseling in Schools
- Creativity
- Critical Approaches to Gender in Higher Education
- Critical Perspectives on Educational Innovation and Improv...
- Critical Race Theory
- Crossborder and Transnational Higher Education
- Cross-National Research on Continuous Improvement
- Cross-Sector Research on Continuous Learning and Improveme...
- Cultural Diversity in Early Childhood Education
- Culturally Responsive Leadership
- Culturally Responsive Pedagogies
- Culturally Responsive Teacher Education in the United Stat...
- Curriculum Design
- Data Collection in Educational Research
- Data-driven Decision Making in the United States
- Deaf Education
- Desegregation and Integration
- Design Thinking and the Learning Sciences: Theoretical, Pr...
- Development, Moral
- Dialogic Pedagogy
- Digital Age Teacher, The
- Digital Citizenship
- Digital Divides
- Disabilities
- Distance Learning
- Distributed Leadership
- Doctoral Education and Training
- Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in Denmark
- Early Childhood Education and Development in Mexico
- Early Childhood Education in Aotearoa New Zealand
- Early Childhood Education in Australia
- Early Childhood Education in China
- Early Childhood Education in Europe
- Early Childhood Education in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Early Childhood Education in Sweden
- Early Childhood Education Pedagogy
- Early Childhood Education Policy
- Early Childhood Education, The Arts in
- Early Childhood Mathematics
- Early Childhood Science
- Early Childhood Teacher Education
- Early Childhood Teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand
- Early Years Professionalism and Professionalization Polici...
- Economics of Education
- Education For Children with Autism
- Education for Sustainable Development
- Education Leadership, Empirical Perspectives in
- Education of Native Hawaiian Students
- Education Reform and School Change
- Educational Research Approaches: A Comparison
- Educational Statistics for Longitudinal Research
- Educator Partnerships with Parents and Families with a Foc...
- Emotional and Affective Issues in Environmental and Sustai...
- Emotional and Behavioral Disorders
- English as an International Language for Academic Publishi...
- Environmental and Science Education: Overlaps and Issues
- Environmental Education
- Environmental Education in Brazil
- Epistemic Beliefs
- Equity and Improvement: Engaging Communities in Educationa...
- Equity, Ethnicity, Diversity, and Excellence in Education
- Ethical Research with Young Children
- Ethics and Education
- Ethics of Teaching
- Ethnic Studies
- Europe, History of Education in
- Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention
- Family and Community Partnerships in Education
- Family Day Care
- Federal Government Programs and Issues
- Feminization of Labor in Academia
- Finance, Education
- Financial Aid
- Formative Assessment
- Future-Focused Education
- Gender and Achievement
- Gender and Alternative Education
- Gender, Power and Politics in the Academy
- Gender-Based Violence on University Campuses
- Gifted Education
- Girls' Education in the Developing World
- Global Mindedness and Global Citizenship Education
- Global University Rankings
- Governance, Education
- Grounded Theory
- Growth of Effective Mental Health Services in Schools in t...
- Higher Education and Globalization
- Higher Education and the Developing World
- Higher Education Faculty Characteristics and Trends in the...
- Higher Education Finance
- Higher Education Governance
- Higher Education Graduate Outcomes and Destinations
- Higher Education in Africa
- Higher Education in China
- Higher Education in Latin America
- Higher Education in the United States, Historical Evolutio...
- Higher Education, International Issues in
- Higher Education Management
- Higher Education Policy
- Higher Education Research
- Higher Education Student Assessment
- High-stakes Testing
- History of Early Childhood Education in the United States
- History of Education in the United States
- History of Technology Integration in Education
- Homeschooling
- Inclusion in Early Childhood: Difference, Disability, and ...
- Inclusive Education
- Indigenous Education in a Global Context
- Indigenous Learning Environments
- Indigenous Students in Higher Education in the United Stat...
- Infant and Toddler Pedagogy
- Inservice Teacher Education
- Integrating Art across the Curriculum
- Intelligence
- Intensive Interventions for Children and Adolescents with ...
- International Perspectives on Academic Freedom
- Intersectionality and Education
- Knowledge Development in Early Childhood
- Leadership Development, Coaching and Feedback for
- Leadership in Early Childhood Education
- Leadership Training with an Emphasis on the United States
- Learning Analytics in Higher Education
- Learning Difficulties
- Learning, Lifelong
- Learning, Multimedia
- Learning Strategies
- Legal Matters and Education Law
- LGBT Youth in Schools
- Linguistic Diversity
- Linguistically Inclusive Pedagogy
- Literacy
- Literacy Development and Language Acquisition
- Literature Reviews
- Mathematics Identity
- Mathematics Instruction and Interventions for Students wit...
- Mathematics Teacher Education
- Measurement for Improvement in Education
- Measurement in Education in the United States
- Meta-Analysis and Research Synthesis in Education
- Methodological Approaches for Impact Evaluation in Educati...
- Methodologies for Conducting Education Research
- Mindfulness, Learning, and Education
- Mixed Methods Research
- Motherscholars
- Motivation
- Multiliteracies in Early Childhood Education
- Multiple Documents Literacy: Theory, Research, and Applica...
- Multivariate Research Methodology
- Museums, Education, and Curriculum
- Music Education
- Narrative Research in Education
- Native American Studies
- Nonformal and Informal Environmental Education
- Note-Taking
- Numeracy Education
- One-to-One Technology in the K-12 Classroom
- Online Education
- Open Education
- Organizing for Continuous Improvement in Education
- Organizing Schools for the Inclusion of Students with Disa...
- Outdoor Play and Learning
- Outdoor Play and Learning in Early Childhood Education
- Pedagogical Leadership
- Pedagogy of Teacher Education, A
- Performance Objectives and Measurement
- Performance-based Research Assessment in Higher Education
- Performance-based Research Funding
- Phenomenology in Educational Research
- Philosophy of Education
- Physical Education
- Play
- Podcasts in Education
- Policy
- Policy Context of United States Educational Innovation and...
- Politics of Education
- Portable Technology Use in Special Education Programs and ...
- Post-humanism and Environmental Education
- Pre-Service Teacher Education
- Problem Solving
- Productivity and Higher Education
- Professional Development
- Professional Learning Communities
- Program Evaluation
- Programs and Services for Students with Emotional or Behav...
- Psychology Learning and Teaching
- Psychometric Issues in the Assessment of English Language ...
- Qualitative Data Analysis Techniques
- Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Research Samp...
- Qualitative Research Design
- Quantitative Research Designs in Educational Research
- Queering the English Language Arts (ELA) Writing Classroom
- Race and Affirmative Action in Higher Education
- Reading Education
- Refugee and New Immigrant Learners
- Relational and Developmental Trauma and Schools
- Relational Pedagogies in Early Childhood Education
- Reliability in Educational Assessments
- Religion in Elementary and Secondary Education in the Unit...
- Researcher Development and Skills Training within the Cont...
- Research-Practice Partnerships in Education within the Uni...
- Response to Intervention
- Restorative Practices
- Risky Play in Early Childhood Education
- Role of Gender Equity Work on University Campuses through ...
- Scale and Sustainability of Education Innovation and Impro...
- Scaling Up Research-based Educational Practices
- School Accreditation
- School Choice
- School Culture
- School District Budgeting and Financial Management in the ...
- School Improvement through Inclusive Education
- School Reform
- Schools, Private and Independent
- School-Wide Positive Behavior Support
- Science Education
- Secondary to Postsecondary Transition Issues
- Self-Regulated Learning
- Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices
- Service-Learning
- Severe Disabilities
- Single Salary Schedule
- Single-sex Education
- Single-Subject Research Design
- Social Context of Education
- Social Justice
- Social Network Analysis
- Social Pedagogy
- Social Science and Education Research
- Social Studies Education
- Sociology of Education
- Standards-Based Education
- Statistical Assumptions
- STEM-related Education, Indigenous Science Education and
- Student Access, Equity, and Diversity in Higher Education
- Student Assignment Policy
- Student Engagement in Tertiary Education
- Student Learning, Development, Engagement, and Motivation ...
- Student Participation
- Student Voice in Teacher Development
- Sustainability Education in Early Childhood Education
- Sustainability in Early Childhood Education
- Sustainability in Higher Education
- Teacher Beliefs and Epistemologies
- Teacher Collaboration in School Improvement
- Teacher Evaluation and Teacher Effectiveness
- Teacher Preparation
- Teacher Training and Development
- Teacher Unions and Associations
- Teacher-Student Relationships
- Teaching Critical Thinking
- Technologies, Teaching, and Learning in Higher Education
- Technology Education in Early Childhood
- Technology, Educational
- Technology-based Assessment
- The Bologna Process
- The Regulation of Standards in Higher Education
- Theories of Educational Leadership
- Three Conceptions of Literacy: Media, Narrative, and Gamin...
- Tracking and Detracking
- Traditions of Quality Improvement in Education
- Transformative Learning
- Transitions in Early Childhood Education
- Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities in the Unite...
- Understanding the Psycho-Social Dimensions of Schools and ...
- University Faculty Roles and Responsibilities in the Unite...
- Using Ethnography in Educational Research
- Value of Higher Education for Students and Other Stakehold...
- Virtual Learning Environments
- Vocational and Technical Education
- Wellness and Well-Being in Education
- Women's and Gender Studies
- Young Children and Spirituality
- Young Children's Learning Dispositions
- Young Children's Working Theories