What, Where, and How? Special Education in the Climate of Full Inclusion

Response-to-intervention (RTI) as a model to facilitate inclusion for students with learning and behaviour problems

“…RTI is a strong action plan for implementation of inclusion While the EU clearly defines the goal of inclusion, and state parties pledged to ensure an inclusive educational system at all levels (European Union 2011), it remains unclear with what strategies, models and methods this goal can be and shall be reached (Zigmond, Kloo, and Volonino 2009). One way of implementing inclusion is the model of full inclusion.…”

Pre-service Secondary Teachers’ Attitudes Towards Inclusive Education

“…The practice in this period became known as integration, with a focus on the geographical location of where the education was provided rather than a focus on providing an inclusive education for all children (Thomazet, 2009). Another change that developed throughout this period was a growing interest towards the possibility of educating children with special needs in mainstream classrooms (Zigmond, Kloo, & Volonino, 2009). A significant policy change occurred with the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act (Commonwealth Government, 1992) which made it illegal for Australian schools to refuse admission to any child on the basis of disability excepting where unjustifiable hardship could be demonstrated by the school.…”

Flexible Grouping as a Means for Classroom Management in a Heterogeneous Classroom

“…In the European educational context, however, the cultural background of pupils has not been a significant issue, unlike in the United States, where minority pupils have been highly overrepresented in special education programmes over the decades (Artiles & Trent, 1994;Hosp & Reschly, 2004). In the 1960s, however, serious doubts began to be raised about the rationale for separate special education (see, for example, Dunn, 1968), and this debate has continued ever since (see, for example, Fuchs & Fuchs, 1995;Mastropieri & Scruggs, 1997;Espin et al, 1998;Powell, 2009;Zigmond et al, 2009). In their review of distinctive pedagogies based on discreet categories of educational needs, Norwich & Lewis (2001) came to the conclusion that such pedagogies may not even exist.…”