The lack of clear language in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which is the federal law that governs the provision of special education and related services to children with disabilities in the USA, has led to inconsistencies in school districts' decisions regarding the least restrictive environment (LRE). This uncertainty…

Since the UNESCO conference in 1994, inclusion has been a major denominator in the educational debates of most OECD countries, focusing on how to facilitate education and social interaction for the diversity of pupils. By international standards, the Norwegian education system is regarded as inclusive, but the ongoing debate and political pressure…

Martin Buber offers an account of a tendency towards polarisation in responses to the perplexing question of inclusion in education. On the one hand, the educator can be identified as one who includes what is present and becoming within individual young people in isolation from the world. On the other hand, the educator can be recognised as one…

Today, when trying to find a way to an unfamiliar destination, many rely on global positioning systems, or GPS technology. "Recalibrating" and "Whenever possible make a legal U-turn" are now ubiquitous phrases in the audio backdrop to many car trips. One can think about modern-day inclusive education in similar terms. The…

A new "inclusive" curriculum has been introduced in Papua New Guinea, with significant levels of support from a bilateral development agency. The curriculum is inclusive in the sense that it is designed to meet the diverse, complex, and ever-changing needs of students. Research indicates the curriculum has been shaped by various…

Students with disabilities are increasingly included in general education science classrooms and are expected to demonstrate academic proficiency on standardized assessments. Teacher preparation and attitudes have been cited as major factors contributing to either the success or failure of students with disabilities in science. In order to assess…

Universal design in the education setting is a framework of instruction that aims to be inclusive of different learners to reduce barriers for all students, including those with disabilities. We used the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL focuses on the learner) and Universal Design for Instruction (UDI focuses on instruction) as the…

As schools develop inclusive practices to maximize student placement in their least restrictive environment (Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, 2004), students with problem behavior are increasingly educated in general education settings. As a result, general and special education teachers must be prepared to work with students with…

The social needs of children with autism are complex, and their inclusion in mainstream schools necessitates a consideration of the nature of a child's participation in peer culture and how it is received by others. The case study reported here sought to investigate the social engagement of a child with autism and his peers using naturalistic…

This paper considers how engaging with the principles of inclusive research can enhance research studies that set out to understand the experiences of student teachers on initial teacher education programmes. It does so by describing the methodological development of an on-going study of student teachers' perspectives on working with diverse…

The present paper discusses issues related to inclusive education and curricula development based on the principles of universal design for learning (UDL), and it reports on the results of a qualitative content analysis of the new national curriculum (NNC) developed for the public Greek-Cypriot schools in Cyprus. According to the findings, the NNC…

In this paper, inclusive classrooms in Turkey are described in terms of the characteristics of both classroom teachers and students with special needs. Participants of this study consisted of 54 teachers working in inclusive classrooms and 54 students with mild intellectual disabilities in those classrooms in Turkey. Data for this study were…

This study examines the concept of inclusion and the degree to which it is being practiced in Swedish municipality schools and tries to draw some conclusions about the nature of pedagogy practiced in Sweden. This is a qualitative case study where primary data are collected from only five facilitators of children of special needs in one school in…

Children's judgments about inclusion and exclusion of children with disabilities were investigated in a Swiss sample of 6-, 9-, and 12-year-old children from inclusive and noninclusive classrooms (N = 422). Overall, the majority of children judged it as morally wrong to exclude children with disabilities. Yet, participants were less likely to…

Inclusive education has become a practice that has been adopted by many schools across the globe and most usually in first-world countries. As a whole-school system, it occurs less frequently in developing countries including South Africa which unlike many developing countries has a sound infrastructure and many excellent schools in both the state…