Developing inclusion in schools has been an objective for many countries in recent decades, giving rise to a variety of definitions, policy-making activities and school practices. This paper focuses on the attempts made towards inclusion of students with disabilities in Turkey. We start by introducing inclusive education and its parameters, and…

This article argues that the progressive education policies introduced into New Zealand special education (SE) services during the late 1980s were sabotaged by neoliberal policies. The vision of inclusive education for students with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities was swept up in a wave of successive ideological policies and…

This meta-analysis examines current North American research on the work of school principals in the special education milieu. More specifically, it considers how elementary and secondary principals envision and act in ways that foster inclusion within a school community. Three core special education-oriented domains arose in the 19 studies…

Within a tradition of a dual regular and special education system in Japan, the Government is promoting education reform that encourages an inclusive approach to education. This research investigates whether teachers are being trained for successful inclusion in Japan by reviewing the perceptions of all pre-service teachers in one university…

Investigations into the lives and transition from compulsory schooling of young adults with a disability, including a learning difficulty (LD), are increasing. The emerging consensus is one which points to this group of young people experiencing greater difficulties and poorer outcomes compared to the general population. How these investigations…

The purpose of this study is to investigate school district administrators' perspectives concerning the professional activities and influence of special educators in Norway (n?=?266) and Sweden (n?=?290). We examine three themes drawn from a survey of practices and policies in each country: (a) the organisational arrangements in which special…

This study examined teaching efficacy for inclusive practice in a pre-post matched-sample of 737 teachers in Hong Kong taking a basic university-level course in inclusive education. The results demonstrate that regardless of demographic variables such a course is effective in improving teacher efficacy for inclusive practice, with female teachers…

This article reflects on changes in the disability-related educational approach of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), specifically investigating the context UNESCO's Special Needs Education unit was embedded in while following up the "World Conference on Special Needs Education" that was held…

Standards-based accountability approaches in education are increasingly being adopted in many industrialised countries. This tends to involve the scrutiny of student performance in national academic tests and then holding schools accountable for subsequent progress. International assessments such as Programme for International Student Assessment…

This study investigated how parents' views on important aspects of integration correlate with parents' actual experiences concerning the integration into mainstream education of their child with special education needs. It was assumed that the degree of discrepancy between perceived importance and corresponding actual experience…

This paper reviews the history of the continuum of services in intellectual disability programmes. The emergence of public school special education in the USA in the first two decades of the twentieth century is used as a case study of this history by focusing on events and personalities connected to the St Louis Public Schools. Using Annual…

This article draws on an important distinction between abstract and concrete forms of utopia advanced by the Marxist philosopher of hope, Ernst Bloch, to examine participation and disability in education. Bloch's view of concrete hope, attuned to reason, engaged with social reality and inseparable from human responsibility, is drawn upon to…

As education systems worldwide embrace inclusive education in some form, pre-service teachers need to be prepared to be pedagogically responsive to diverse students and learning needs. While much learning for inclusion takes place in course work in higher education institutions, field experiences, including practicum placements, can complement…

In 1994, Brunei Darussalam adopted an inclusive educational policy and began a number of educational reforms to support the implementation of inclusion within the regular mainstream education system. These reforms include teacher education, which has witnessed the establishment and expansion of training and education opportunities for teachers to…

As a worldwide movement, some forms or stages of inclusive education have been experimented and/or mandated in various countries since the mid-1970s. Integration was piloted in Hong Kong in 1997 and remains the official rhetoric and policy. Three developmental phases of inclusive education, namely, integration, integration in transition to…