The inclusion agenda has influenced education systems around the world, resulting in better access to mainstream education for pupils with special educational needs (SEN). While numerous studies have compared outcomes of pupils with SEN in mainstream and special educational settings, research on the specific characteristics of these settings…

The purpose of the present study is to examine what the concept of inclusion means and how it relates to children who are deaf. The paper begins with a background to deaf education, followed by specific reference to how inclusion is perceived in Northern Ireland and in Sweden. It investigates the experiences and opinions of deaf pupils in Schools…

Education for newly arrived students in Sweden is commonly organised in introductory classes, providing a basis for transition to the mainstream system. Focusing on the hitherto underinvestigated question of how newly arrived students experience the time in and transition between introductory and regular classes, we analyse the social and…

A case study of what appears to be an inclusive classroom in Sweden is reported. The group of children in the class studied was very heterogeneous: five of the 15 children had a disability diagnosis at the time of the study. One aim of the study was to develop a methodology which can be used in order to investigate in what sense classrooms are…

The aim of this article is to present findings from a study (Alexandersson, 2007) about how one student--called Sofia--with intellectual disability interacts and communicates with her classmates and her teachers in an inclusive setting. Furthermore, the aim is also to analyse in what way the interaction contributes to Sofia's social participation…

Due to the fact that the outcomes of education for most school leavers who are deaf in Northern Ireland are weak literacy skills and below average reading ages, a study was undertaken to investigate this situation. The views and experiences of teachers of children who are deaf, and of young people who are deaf in Northern Ireland, where oral and…

One important goal of Swedish educational policies is to integrate all pupils within regular education, irrespective of disability or difficulties in school, and to adjust education to individual needs. The aim of this paper was to explore how schools "socially construct", i.e. identify and support, pupils with special educational needs.…

With an aim to investigate inclusion across borders, quantitative and qualitative data were examined that came from 18 countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Cyprus, Finland, France, Iceland, India, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and the USA. Four themes emerged in this study: (1) concerns…