The article explores the notions of children's intellectual 'ab/normality' that were conceptualised in the context of emerging special educational measures at the turn of the twentieth century and the concomitant notions of child development. From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, the medical classification of 'idiocy' provided the framework for…

Ireland's system of special education has undergone unprecedented change over the last three decades. Following major policy developments in the mid-2000s which emphasised inclusive education, there have been changes to special education school personnel and funding structures which seek to include greater numbers of students with disabilities in…

The European Agency Statistics on Inclusive Education (EASIE) work focuses upon the collection and analysis of longitudinal, comparative national data related to inclusive education systems and learners with officially recognised special educational needs (SEN) among its 31 member countries. In this article, the EASIE work is discussed in relation…

The main objective of this article is to explore and compare research data on pull-out and push-out phenomena within inclusive school systems, discussing if and how they represent a risk for inclusion. The terms pull-out and push-out refer to situations in which some groups of students in regular schools learn in settings apart from their peers.…

The aim of this article is to describe the human rights obligations a State bears in educational matters with concerns to the current influx of refugees. The right to education is a fundamental human right guaranteed by many international treaties. As a result, the impression may arise that everyone, not only legal citizens but also all those…

Dublin Institute of Technology offers students a number of different routes into engineering, allowing many non-standard entrants the opportunity to study the discipline provided they fulfil certain criteria. The final aim of many of these students is to achieve an Honours Degree in Engineering, which takes a minimum of 4 years. Apart from the…

This article analyses and welcomes the decision of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights which held that the use of special schools for Roma pupils was contrary to the right to an education coupled with the prohibition on discrimination. The decision has wide ramifications for the education of minority, particularly Roma, pupils…

This article discusses the extent to which former special needs students--now in their late 20s--achieve economic independence. The emphasis is on class placement--that is, whether being educated in special or regular classes in upper secondary school contributes to favourable occupational outcomes. The empirical evidence is based on interviews of…

The relationships among verbal skills of primary school students with learning disabilities and a typically developing comparison group were studied and compared with written tasks carried out in Estonian classrooms. Word defining, categorising/justifying, guessing, and memorising tasks were used. The participants were 251 students in Grades 2-4;…

The terrain of inclusion studies in discussed in this paper from the perspective of policy discourses and teachers' constructions on student diversity. We start by discussing the concept of inclusion from normative and analystic perspectives. We then look at the kinds of discourses that can be found in the Finnish and Norwegian curricula, as well…

This study evaluated characteristics of 4 special language units serving 15 7-year-old children with specific language impairments within mainstream schools in England. The study compared curricular opportunities (e.g., individualization and social contexts) and standard assessment tasks under the National Curriculum for these children and 15…

The study examined motives and decisions of 74 German parents of handicapped children in choosing different preschool settings. Results indicated that choice of an integrated or segregated preschool is largely determined by family background and information seeking behavior and reflects specific family needs. (DB)

The employment status and social adjustment of hearing-impaired young adults (N=38) of whom 10 had graduated from residential schools for the deaf in New Zealand and 28 from special classes in regular schools was reviewed. There was some evidence that residential school graduates experienced more difficulty in coping following graduation. (DB)

In 1994 a comprehensive reform of upper secondary education was introduced in Norway, giving all 16-year-olds--including SEN students--a statutory right to enter upper secondary. In a longitudinal study following a representative group of SEN students through upper secondary from 1994 until 1999, the main findings were: (1) SEN students in special…

This article reports the results of a formative evaluation of an all boys pull-out gifted program in China. Twenty-six seventh-grade gifted students were placed in regular classes but were successfully taught a differentiated curriculum in science, mathematics, and computer science in special pull-out classes. (CR)