Dear Amirta Kaur,

In my opinion inclusive education is possible. Normal again, all depends on the competence and motivation of teachers, who must give a lot of effort organization of lectures.

Could you recommend a book: Frank Coffield, Sheila Edward (2008) Improving Learning,Skills and Inclusion, Routledge.

Please find enclosed an interesting article

I hope it will help.

Best regards,

Andrija

Dear Andrija ,

I really appreciate your reply. Thanks for the article. 

Dear Amrita,

In my opinion the effect of inclusive educaton - even the odds of effectiveness - depends on the national policy and regulation next to the teachers' abilities as mentioned above. The question is what the system provides teachers and the handicaped pupils. For example: is there any support in school AND beyond the school?

Recently I found this book interesting: Amanda Ajodhia-Andrews (2016): Voices and Visions from Ethnoculturally Diverse Young People with Disabilities. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada.

For an extensive literature on inclusion vs segregation, go to http://www.include.com.au/resources/ where you can download it for free.

Dear Amrita,

Inclusion/Integration are very possible to do, Universal Design , Differentiated Instruction, Small Class Size, Professional Development & Parent Involvement.. However, Inclusion is a Social Construct that does not belong to special education... It is a social value and is the society committed to inclusion in terms of policy and resources?

Best,

Mark

There is no question that inclusive education is possible. Here in Canada and in other places as well, some school districts are fully inclusive. This means all school-age children in the district are included and there are no special education classes. Our son who is medically fragile and has severe and multiple disabilities attended regular classes in his local schools from preschool through high school. He then attended a local university. So, inclusive education exists and since it exists, it must be possible.

Absolutely it is possible.  I've seen it first hand as teacher and a researcher.  Success requires support and training.  I strongly suggest using the Universal Design for Learning framework as a starting point to help you create learning environments inclusive of everyone.  

I think it is important to make a distinction between special educational methods and special educational placements. Many (but not all the methods) developed as part of special education have proven effective and can be used in inclusive classrooms with a wide variety of learners. Special educational placements (segregating students with special needs into "special classes" has never been shown to be effective. In fact studies going back to teh 1960s that were set up to demonstrate that special ed placements actually improved educational achievement actually found that putting students in special classrooms resulted in worse educational outcomes than leaving them in regular classes.

inclusive education must be an indicator of quality. I agree with Mark Alter in this broad conception that implies recognizing diversity in all its dimensions as Don Douglas points. Even disability is now conceptualized as functional diversity. 

AS i read the excellent responses i wonder if we would be talking about  special education and inclusion if  general education was willing ,able to and committed to educating all children regardless of race, language, disability, socio economic status...

YES

You might find these references worth looking at ,as they illustrate examples of alignment between inclusive theory and pedagogy.

Alton-Lee, A., Rietveld, C.M., Klenner, L., Dalton, N., Diggins, C., & Town, S. (2000). Inclusive Practice within the Lived Cultures of School communities: Research Case Studies in Teaching, Learning and Inclusion. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 4(3), 179-210.

Rietveld, C.M. (2008).  Contextual factors affecting inclusion during children’s transitions from preschool to school.  Australian Journal of Early Childhood, 33(3), 1-9.

Rietveld, C.M. (2012) "Facilitative inclusion" in early childhood and new entrant classrooms: Lived realities for children with Down Syndrome. In B. Kaur (Ed.), Understanding Teaching and Learning: Classroom research revisited: 201-212. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Inclusive education is possible, but it carries a lot of unintentional mistakes during its implementation. I described it in my publications, the content of which I send. Bibliographic data of the article: Konarska J., (2013) Reflection of Inclusion in Education of Children with Visual Disability. (Uncontrolled Paradoxes of Inclusion) (in:) Lecht V., Kudláčová B. (Eds.) Reflection of Inclusive Education of the 21st Century in correlative Scientific Fields. Peter Lang International Academic Publishers. Frankfurt am Main, pp. 131-137 ISBN 978-3-631-64835-3

Thanks everyone on this thread for the inputs, sp  Rietveld and Konarska for sharing resources. 

Amrita