Few studies have addressed the daily practice of applied teacher strategies aimed at facilitating the social participation of students with social-emotional problems or behavioural difficulties (SEBD). In this paper, we present two interlinked studies that address this topic. The main study reports on the development of the Teacher Strategy…

Inclusive education of students with disabilities in general education contexts has been a global movement for at least 30 years. We completed a systematic review of articles published in English- and Spanish-language peer-reviewed journals to obtain an international perspective on the status of inclusive education research and practice regarding…

There is a global trend towards including children with special needs in mainstream schools instead of placing them in special schools. However, the numbers of students in special schools varies greatly among regions due to variations in educational systems, funding arrangements -- and the incentives that are associated with these arrangements --…

Teaching students with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD) is a challenge for many teachers in inclusive education. Much research has been done to find out what differentiates expert teachers from their less skilled colleagues. Recent evidence points to personality as an underlying core factor influencing teacher performance. In this…

Boys show a stronger preference for digital entertainment games than girls. For this reason, it may be that game-based learning is more acceptable to boys than to girls. Yet game-based learning might improve the performance of both boys and girls, depending upon the instructional design. In a quasi-experimental study with a secret-trail game,…

The Erasmus Mundus MA/Mgr in Special Education Needs (EM SEN) was created as a Masters Course funded by the European Commission's Erasmus Mundus Programme (EMP) to challenge and educate students in inclusive policy and practice in education. Yet, it is debatable the extent to which this programme embodies the values of an inclusive approach,…

Young gifted children perform in the top 10% in assessments of cognitive, social, expressive or other abilities. The study first considers why, and how, cognitively gifted pupils in particular may face enforced underachievement as early as in preschool. A longitudinal multilevel model is developed to represent various types of interaction between…

This paper presents the results of a study on students' appreciation of information and communication technology (ICT) applications in schools for general secondary education. We investigate to what extent students from different gender and ethnic backgrounds appreciate various characteristics of ICT tools. The research question is, "How are…

At least one-third of the 72 million children currently missing out on primary education are estimated to be disabled. With just five years remaining to achieve the Millennium Development and Education for All (EFA) goals, global efforts to ensure all children complete a full cycle of primary education by 2015 will fail if bilateral and…

In the Netherlands and the USA, the assessment process is changing for children who present learning and behavioural challenges in school. Evaluations for eligibility determinations and support planning are shifting along with disability models and tensions over the provision of inclusive schooling. Legislative edicts influence the assessment…

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…

Children with emotional and behavioural disorders (EBD) vary in many respects. In school, specific conditions have to be fulfilled in order to deal adequately with EBD. This study addresses the question how mainstream primary schools design different instructional situations to support pupils with EBD in practice, and how this design could be…

Study careers of minority students in Dutch higher education are still less successful compared with the careers of majority students. Minority students still seem to experience more difficulties than majority students. Vincent Tinto's twin concepts of academic and social integration are used here to explore the experiences of minority and…

In the evaluation of an experimental, full inclusion model in the Netherlands, data on participating pupils with special needs were collected. The evaluation focused on social/emotional functioning, pupil behaviour and the quality of education. Independent assessors were invited to study the files of 24 pupils and evaluate their development and…