OVER the past few years international interest in inclusive education for pupils with special educational needs (SEN) has grown enormously. Increasingly, pupils with SEN have been offered placements in mainstream schools with varying degrees of support. To match these developments there is a growing number of publications on the effects of inclusive education for pupils with disabilities, their peers, their parents and teachers. Despite these initiatives recent evidence in the UK suggests that mainstream schools are becoming more and more hostile to the inclusion or re-integration of certain groups of pupils with SEN, in particular those with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD). Indeed there appears to be a trend to refer increasing numbers of these pupils to special schools and/or to exclude them from school altogether. In order to explore this area further this article presents the findings of a nationwide survey into the extent to which EBD schools and units in the UK re-integrate their pupils into mainstream schools and on the problems they have encountered. The results indicate that very few of these pupils ever return to mainstream school. The implications of the study are considered in the light of the UK Government's current moves to tackle social exclusion.
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