Globally, inclusion has been touted as best practice for working with students with disabilities. Despite the universal acceptance of inclusion, educators have identified several challenges in using inclusive practices. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of general and special educators from the United States and St. Lucia on…

A new special education strategy was launched in Finland by the Ministry of Education in 2007. The new Basic Act was enacted in 2010 and the new national core curriculum concerning three-tiered support for pupils in 2011. Since the 1990s, teachers across Finland have participated in developing Finnish basic education towards greater inclusion. The…

The present article covers the Ukrainian experience in one of the most complicated aspects of growing a child with the development disorder pertaining to such child's growing in the maternal family. It provides definition of the notion "maternal family", contains contemporary statistical data on the number of such families in Ukraine. It…

The research experience is based on outputs from the international project ["Human resources in poverty and disability: family perspective" (Moldova and Ukraine): 348-2011-7346 [2012-2014], funded by the Vetenskapsrådet, Sweden. During the last 20 years, Moldavian and Ukrainian societies have been developing inclusive infrastructures,…

China has developed a three-tier special education service delivery system consisting of an array of placement options of special schools, special classes and learning in regular classrooms (LRC) (with the LRC as the major initiative) to serve students with disabilities after 1980s responding to the international trend of inclusive education…

The Coalition Government's "Green Paper" (DfE 2011) proposes a systemic overhaul of services for pupils with special educational needs in England, with increased parental choice of provision and "sharper accountability" (p. 67) in schools. Deadlines for various stages of this reform have not been met, and its final nature…

This paper describes the development of education of students with special needs in vocational education. The paper is based on a case study research conducted in 2001-2005 in Jyvaskyla Municipal Federation of Vocational Education in Central Finland. The study consisted of two parts: firstly of the historical analysis of special educational…

The need for reflection is widely written about and positioned as a key aspect of continuing professional development. This paper examines the manner in which practitioners are encouraged to be reflective within the English system and the barriers they face. It questions whether such a complex, reaffirming system can allow for genuine critical…

In November 2003, the Scottish Executive Education Department (SEED) commissioned the SCRE Centre at the University of Glasgow to evaluate the impact of Section 15 of the "Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Act 2000". The evaluation took place between January 2004 and August 2005. A major strand of the research was the impact of the…

This special edition of the journal focuses on what is, arguably, the biggest challenge facing education systems, that of developing practices that will reach out to those learners who are failed by existing arrangements. Specifically, the papers look at ways of using the views of stakeholders in order to move schools and other centres of learning…

Using "visual narrative" theoretically and practically, this paper explores issues of inclusive education, during a period of curriculum reform and renewal in Australia. In Australia, the middle years of schooling, Years 5 to 9, are well researched and known as a period when students disengage with learning and participation in…

This paper reports on an Appreciative Inquiry project called "Growing Talent for Inclusion" which has been running since 2002. The project grew out the authors' work in a Local Authority Support Service assisting schools to meet the needs of pupils with a range of additional educational needs. Faced with a large number of individual referrals,…

In the past decade Ireland has witnessed substantial changes in policy and provision for children with general learning difficulties as government policies and legislation increasingly underpin the move towards more inclusive provision. Despite this series of policy initiatives parents of children who experience Down syndrome and general learning…

This study compared survey responses of teachers from a reform-based programme focused on promoting inclusion-based classrooms, namely Project WINS (Winning Ideas Network for Schools) schools, with teachers from non-Project WINS schools with regard to their attitude about inclusion in the classroom. Surprisingly, the results of this study revealed…

The issue of inclusion is high on the educational reform agenda in many countries. Set within the context of the United Nations organisation's push for "Education for All", the aim is to find ways of increasing the participation and learning of pupils who are vulnerable to marginalisation within existing educational arrangements (World…