article about inclusive education

Inclusive education: Global priority, collective responsibility

• Published: 20 November 2020
• Volume 49 , pages 97–101, ( 2020 )

Cite this article

• Yao Ydo 1  

16k Accesses

11 Citations

15 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Just over ten years ago, a special issue of Prospects was dedicated to the theme of inclusive education. It appeared right after the 48th session of the International Conference on Education (ICE), with its theme “Inclusive Education: The Way of the Future”. This conference, which took place in Geneva in 2008, and was organized by UNESCO International Bureau of Education (IBE), focused on ways of providing education to the hundreds of millions of people around the world with little or no access to learning opportunities. The long-term objective was to support UNESCO Member States in providing the social and political conditions which every person needs in order to exercise their human right to access, take an active part in and learn from educational opportunities.

During the conference, ministers, government officials, and representatives of non-governmental organizations discussed the importance of broadening the concept of inclusion to reach all children, under the assumption that every learner matters equally and has the right to receive effective educational opportunities (Opertti et al. 2014 ). In this way, greater clarity was achieved regarding the idea of inclusive education.

Inclusion and equity

In many countries, inclusive education is still thought of as an approach to serving children with disabilities within general education settings. Following the lead provided by the IBE conference in 2008, however, it is increasingly seen more broadly as a principle that supports and welcomes diversity among all learners. This means that the aim is to eliminate the exclusion that is a consequence of attitudes and responses to diversity in race, social class, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, migrant status, and ability. As such, it starts from the belief that education is a basic human right and the foundation for a more just society—hence the more recent emphasis on equity, which implies a concern with fairness.

Moving forward, 2016 was a particularly important year in relation to the inclusion agenda. Building on the Incheon Declaration agreed at the World Forum on Education in May 2015, it saw the publication by UNESCO of the Education 2030 Framework for Action (UNESCO 2015 ). This emphasizes inclusion and equity as laying the foundations for quality education. It also stresses the need to address all forms of exclusion and marginalization, disparities and inequalities in access, participation, and learning processes and outcomes.

The importance of including children with disabilities is an essential strand within this international policy agenda. This was stressed in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (United Nations 2006 ), which states: “The right to inclusive education encompasses a transformation in culture, policy and practice in all educational environments to accommodate the differing requirements and identities of individual students, together with a commitment to remove the barriers that impede that possibility” (General Comment 4). Inclusion also implies greater emphasis on the medium of instruction, as promoting mother tongue-based multilingual education is key to quality lifelong learning opportunities for all. Equally important, inclusion implies the need to close the “digital divide”, by improving digital access and help all students develop digital and media literacy. Inclusion commits to ending segregation within educational settings by ensuring inclusive classroom teaching in accessible learning environments with appropriate support. This means that education systems must provide a personalized educational response rather than expecting the student to fit the system.

A renewed commitment reinforcing inclusion and equity in education was expressed at an International Forum, co-organized by UNESCO and the Colombian ministry of education in September 2019, to mark the 25th anniversary of the Salamanca World Conference on Special Needs Education. As underlined by the theme “Every learner matters”, the Forum was an opportunity to revive the broadened notion of inclusion as a general guiding principle to strengthen equal access to quality learning opportunities for all learners.

Setting the agenda

In this special issue of Prospects , scholars from around the world examine progress in implementing this thinking in various contexts. More specifically, they analyze these experiences in relation to the three justifications for inclusive education outlined in a recently published UNESCO report, “Towards Inclusion and Equity in Education: Status, Trends, and Challenges” (UNESCO 2020b ), which states that there is:

An educational justification : The requirement for schools to educate all children together means that they have to develop ways of teaching that respond to individual differences and that therefore benefit all children.

A social justification : Inclusive schools are intended to change attitudes to difference by educating all children together, and form the basis for a just and non-discriminatory society.

An economic justification : It is likely to be less costly to establish and maintain schools that educate all children together than to set up a complex system of different types of school specializing in particular groups of children.

The articles in this special issue address one overall question: What evidence is there to support these arguments? They do this in the context of a diverse range of countries and regions. At the same time, they focus on a wide range of children and young people who are seen to be vulnerable to marginalization, exclusion, and low achievement. Together, the articles throw light on positive developments that can inform thinking, policy, and practice in the field, as well as the challenges that exist in implementing these ideas.

This special issue

Like all major policy changes, progress in relation to inclusion and equity requires an effective strategy for implementation. In particular, it requires new thinking that focuses attention on the removal of barriers experienced by some children that lead them to become marginalized as a result of contextual factors. The implication is that overcoming such barriers is an important means of development forms of education that are effective for all children. In this way, an emphasis on inclusion and equity becomes a way of achieving the overall improvement of education systems, as signaled by the OECD ( 2012 , p. 14):

The evidence is conclusive: equity in education pays off. The highest performing education systems across OECD countries are those that combine high quality and equity. In such education systems, the vast majority of students can attain high level skills and knowledge that depend on their ability and drive, more than on their socio-economic background.

With this theme in mind, I am grateful to Professor Mel Ainscow for guest editing this special issue of Prospects . For the past 30 years or so, he has played an important role in the efforts of UNESCO to promote the idea of inclusive education globally, linking this to the overall improvement of education systems. He was closely involved in the design of three major events: (1) the Salamanca Conference on Special Needs Education in 1994; (2) the 48th session of the IBE International Conference on Education in 2008; and, more recently, (3) the International Forum co-organized by UNESCO and the Colombian ministry of education in September 2019, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Salamanca Declaration.

During the 1990s, Mel led the development of the teacher-training materials “Special Needs in the Classroom” on behalf of UNESCO, which involved initiatives in over 80 countries (UNESCO 1993 ). And, more recently, he led the production of the UNESCO publication A Guide for Ensuring Inclusion and Equity in Education (UNESCO 2017 ), which offers practical support to member states to help review how well equity and inclusion currently figure in existing policies, decide what actions need to be taken to improve policies, and monitor progress as actions are taken. Related to this guide, Mel also coordinated the production for the IBE of Reaching Out to All Learners (UNESCO IBE 2016 ), a set of resource materials intended to influence and support inclusive thinking and practices at all levels of an education system.

A global priority

The agenda of this special issue has become an even greater global priority as the world responds to the massive challenges that have emerged as a result of the pandemic crisis. This has thrown new light on the urgent need to develop education systems that are designed to include all of our children and young people. In this sense, the task is not about returning to normality. Rather, it is an opportunity to create a “new normal”, fueled by lessons learned during this period of global crisis. As argued by Nóvoa and Alvim ( 2020 , p. 6), “Many educators and families were already aware of the need to change the school model, but the pandemic revealed the urgency and the possibility of this transformation”.

Insights into the existing global situation in relation to the need for transformation are provided in the recent Global Education Monitoring Report (UNESCO 2020a ), a summary of which is provided in this special issue. The report assesses progress towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, as well as other related education targets in the SDG agenda. In particular, it examines progress in relation to inclusion in education, drawing attention to all those excluded because of their background or personal characteristics.

The GEM 2020 report is informed by the explicit reference to inclusion in the 2015 Incheon Declaration and the call to ensure an inclusive and equitable quality education in the formulation of SDG 4, the global goal for education. It reminds us that, no matter what argument may be built to the contrary, we have a moral imperative to ensure that every child has a right to an appropriate education of high quality. In so doing, it argues that “debating the benefits of inclusive education can be seen as tantamount to debating the benefits of the abolition of slavery, or indeed of apartheid” (UNESCO 2020a , p. v).

The GEM 2020 report also explores the challenges holding us back from achieving this vision and provides concrete policy examples from countries managing to tackle them with success. Echoing themes that are addressed in this special edition of Prospects , these challenges include:

differing understandings of the word inclusion;

lack of teacher support;

absence of data on those excluded from education;

inappropriate infrastructure;

persistence of parallel systems and special schools;

lack of political will and community support;

untargeted finance;

uncoordinated governance;

multiple but inconsistent laws;

policies that are not being followed through.

Collective responsibility

In her introduction to the GEM 2020 report (UNESCO 2020a ), Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, emphasizes the urgent need to address these challenges:

It has never been more crucial to make education a universal right, and a reality for all. Our rapidly-changing world faces constant major challenges—from technological disruption to climate change, conflict, the forced movement of people, intolerance and hate—which further widen inequalities and exert an impact for decades to come. The Covid-19 pandemic has further exposed and deepened these inequalities and the fragility of our societies.

She goes on to conclude that, more than ever, we have a collective responsibility to support the most vulnerable and disadvantaged learners. I hope that the articles in this special issue of Prospects will provide encouragement and inspiration to researchers, policy makers, and practitioners in moving this agenda forward.

Nóvoa, A., & Alvim, Y. (2020). Nothing is new, but everything has changed: A viewpoint on the future school. Prospects . https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-020-09487 .

Article   Google Scholar  

Opertti, R., Walker, Z., & Zhang, Y. (2014). Inclusive education: From targeting groups and schools to achieving quality education as the core of EFA. In L. Florian (Ed.), The Sage handbook of special education (2nd revised ed., pp. 149–170). London: Sage.

Chapter   Google Scholar  

OECD (2012). Equity and quality in education: Supporting disadvantaged students and schools . Paris: OECD. https://www.oecd.org/education/school/50293148.pdf .

UNESCO (1993). Special needs in the classroom: A teacher education guide . Paris: UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000135116 .

UNESCO (2015). Incheon declaration and framework for action for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 4 . Paris: UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000245656 .

UNESCO IBE [International Bureau of Education] (2016). Reaching out to all learners: A resource pack for supporting inclusive education, training tools for curriculum development . Geneva: UNESCO IBE. http://www.ibe.unesco.org/sites/default/files/resources/ibe-crp-inclusiveeducation-2016_eng.pdf .

UNESCO (2017). A guide for ensuring inclusion and equity in education . Paris: UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000248254 .

UNESCO (2020a). Inclusion and education: All means all . Global monitoring report. Paris: UNESCO. https://en.unesco.org/gem-report/report/2020/inclusion .

UNESCO (2020b). Towards inclusion in education: Status, trends and challenges. The UNESCO Salamanca Statement 25 years on . Paris: UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000374246 .

United Nations (2006). Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities . New York, NY: United Nations. https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities.html .

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

UNESCO International Bureau of Education, P.O. Box 199, 1211, Geneva 20, Switzerland

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yao Ydo .

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

About this article

Ydo, Y. Inclusive education: Global priority, collective responsibility. Prospects 49 , 97–101 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-020-09520-y

Download citation

Accepted : 27 October 2020

Published : 20 November 2020

Issue Date : November 2020

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-020-09520-y

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

Inclusive education: an imperative for advancing human rights and sustainable development

• Download event
• Add to google
• Add to Outlook
• Add to Office365

Inclusion in education is not a slogan. It is a necessity for persons with physical, emotional, developmental, and intellectual disabilities.

Learners with disabilities are at high risk of segregation or exclusion from education. Worldwide, laws emphasize segregation in 25% of countries, partial segregation in 48%, integration in 10% and inclusion in 17%. Even inclusive policies do not guarantee proper and effective implementation. When learners with disabilities are in schools, they often do not receive the support they need.

Live webcast

The event will be webcast live on UN TV  13 June from 11:30 am to 12:45 pm (EDT). Sign language interpretation and captioning will be provided on UN TV.

Share on social media #InclusionInEducation @UNESCO @UN @Education2030

Attend in person

If you are attending the event in person, please register by Thursday 8 June, 4pm EDT.

At the margins of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN-CRPD) the "Inclusive Education: an imperative for advancing human rights and sustainable development" event will take place on 13 June (at UN HQ and live on UN TV ).

It is a follow up to the UN Transforming Education Summit. Convened in 2022 by the UN Secretary-General in response to the global crisis in education. A crisis of equity and inclusion, quality and relevance. The Summit called for National Commitments. 87% of these  National Commitments to Transform Education  recognized “the importance of ensuring more inclusive education systems to cater for the needs of the most vulnerable learners and communities.” 

The event precedes two major events: the 30th Anniversary of the  Salamanca Declaration  and the 2023 Sustainable Development Goals Summit.

It also echoes the  Call to Action of September 2022 “Disability Inclusive Education: A Call to Action to Ensure Inclusive and Equitable Quality Education .”

The objectives of the event are to:

• Discuss the challenges of learners with disabilities;
• Share innovative and effective policies and practices to move towards inclusion in education;
• Share experiences of persons with intellectual disabilities; and
• Review progress and barriers to inclusive education.  

The co-hosts of this event are: UNESCO, Inclusion International, and the Permanent Missions of Colombia and Portugal to the United Nations. The co-sponsors are: the World Bank, the UN Partnership on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNPRPD), the International Disability Alliance, the International Disability and Development Consortium’s Inclusive Education Task Group, the Global Action on Disability (GLAD) Network Inclusive Education working Group, and Perkins School of the Blind.

A thematic area of this year's CoSP is “reaching the under-represented groups of persons with disabilities." 

Related items

• Sharing knowledge
• Inclusive education
• Country page: United States of America
• SDG: SDG 4 - Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
• See more add

This article is related to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals .

More on this subject

Other recent events

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• My Account Login
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• Open access
• Published: 02 June 2023

The concept of inclusive education from the point of view of academics specialising in special education at Saudi universities

• Abdullah Madhesh   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7820-1820 1  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  10 , Article number:  278 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

7794 Accesses

2 Citations

281 Altmetric

Metrics details

• Health humanities

Inclusive education is one modern trend that many countries seek to adopt as an innovative concept and pursue to practice as an application in conjunction with scientific progress, the education of people with disabilities, and in order to fulfil and abide by the relevant international conventions. As a result, this study aims to discover what inclusive education means among Saudi universities and academics specialising in special education. To achieve the goal of the study, qualitative research was used by employing semi-structured interviews as the single elementary tool for data collection by interviewing the study sample, which consisted of 12 faculty members specialising in special education. Through complete analysis, the study reached a set of general results, which is the presence of ambiguity in the concept of inclusive education among the participants, with confusion between the concept of inclusive education and some other concepts such as “integration,” “mainstreaming,” and “placement.” In addition, there is a belief that there is a correlation between the concept of inclusive education and special education. Finally, the study concluded with some recommendations on the topic of research.

Similar content being viewed by others

Inclusive education of refugee students with disabilities in higher education: a comparative case study

Maha Al-Hendawi & Ali M. Alodat

Thai Menschenbild: A Study of Chinese, Thai, and International Students in a Private Thai University as measured by the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE)

Tony Waters & Michael James Day

Developing social and civic competence in secondary education through the implementation and evaluation of teaching units and educational environments

Concepcion Fuentes-Moreno, Marta Sabariego-Puig & Alba Ambros-Pallarés

Introduction

Inclusive education is one of the recent trends that many international organisations interested in educating people with disabilities seek to promote in various educational systems around the world. Therefore, many relevant international organisations have urged the need to adopt this concept as a cornerstone in any educational system that seeks to be an integral part of the global education system and other related human rights, such as the right to citizenship and the right to belonging. For example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 stated that education is a human right for everyone (Munongi, 2022 ). Specifically, with regard to inclusive education, in 1994, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) organised its international conference in Salamanca, Spain, under the title “The International Conference on Education for People with Special Needs: Access and Quality,” which resulted in the 1994 Salamanca statement and framework. This statement was signed by 92 countries and 25 international organisations. The main objective of this statement was to promote and develop inclusive education systems globally (Ainscow et al. 2019 ).

Historically, there is no specific starting point for the concept of inclusive education agreed upon by scholars and specialists in this field, and several factors contributed to the emergence of this concept. Factors include questions about special education practices, medical and psychological practices towards people with disabilities, the emergence of some social theories, such as critical and social theory, and the rise of disability studies (Slee, 2011 ). However, many scholars agree that the Salamanca statement and framework of 1994 played a critical role in inclusive education and was a strong milestone for the concept of inclusive education globally. (Magnússon, 2019 ).

Subsequently, many successful efforts contributed to the promotion of inclusive education. One of which was the invitation of UNESCO in 2000 to the concept of education for all and the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by the United Nations (UNCRPD) (Rieser, 2012 ). Another was the adoption of procedural evidence for the enactment of laws and legislation for inclusive education in 2009 by UNESCO. Finally, the adoption of the World Education Forum included several goals: (a) the right to education, (b) equality in education, (c) inclusive education, (d) quality education, and (e) lifelong learning (Madhesh, 2019 ).

Inclusive education in Saudi Arabia

Despite Saudi Arabia’s signing of the Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education (UNESCO, 1994 ), inclusive education still faces a great deal of uncertainty in the Saudi context at both a theoretical and practical level. Madhesh ( 2019 ) confirmed that the Regulations of Special Education Programs and Institutes (RSEPI) in Saudi Arabia did not adopt the concept of inclusive education, nor did it provide a clear stipulation, but it does promote special education and its concepts in all theoretical and practical aspects. Indeed, many practices of exclusion in Saudi education are labelled as inclusive, riding the wave of the global trend toward inclusive education (Madhesh, 2019 ). However, some efforts are currently seeking to promote the concept and practices of Inclusive education in the correct manner compatible with relevant global philosophies, including the current study.

Definition of inclusive education

Inclusive education does not have a single, universally agreed-upon definition, as explained by Roger Slee in his famous book The irregular school: Exclusion, schooling, and inclusive education (Slee, 2011 ). Bates et al. ( 2015 , p. 1929) argue that “there is, as yet, no consensus about what inclusive education is or how it should be implemented in schools.” The absence of a unified definition of inclusive education was attributed to several reasons. These reasons varied based on the diversity of each research school that touched on this aspect. For example, Loreman et al. ( 2014 ) attributed this absence to a fundamental reason, including the lack of a unified definition of inclusive education approved by relevant international organisations. On the other hand, Jahnukainen ( 2015 ) emphasised that the lack of a unified definition of inclusive education is due to the overlap and confusion in the use of various and multiple terms such as “integration,” “mainstreaming,” and “placement” as well as the variation in terms from one country to another and one educational system to another.

In addition, the lack of agreement on a unified definition of inclusive education may be attributed to the divergence of view. This perspective has caused several debates regarding the concept of inclusive education itself in terms of acknowledgment of its importance or opposition to its generalisation and adoption by specialists in the field. However, various factors and efforts have contributed to the emergence of many definitions of inclusive education that share some of their general concepts. They all aim to reach a concept that is applied and practiced rather than theorised.

One of the most important factors that contributed to the clear vision of the concept of inclusive education, the diversity, and the multiplicity of its definitions is the diversity of international institutions and research schools. Each sought to create a definition commensurate with its orientations towards this concept. In these limited subsequent lines, I will review some definitions to reach a concept that contains the basics that must be present for this practice to be called inclusive education. To begin, one important definition, which was introduced at the Salamanca Conference in 1994, concluded with the definition of inclusive education as a process of solving and responding to the different needs of all students. Society as a whole focuses more on teaching and learning processes while also accepting different cultures and societies so that people are perceived to be less excluded from the education system and society in general. The process includes changes and treatments of content, curriculum, structure, and strategy. This process holds a common vision that includes all children of the same age with the sole and complete belief that the regular education system is responsible for educating all children while meeting their diversity and educational needs (Ainscow et al. 2013 ).

In 2009, the International Conference on Education included an additional definition of inclusive education. It was introduced as a process in which regular schools and all early-year environments are transformed and adapted so that all children and students are supported to meet their expectations and academic and social needs. This includes the removal of all barriers in diverse environments, communication, and interaction, curricula, teaching, socialisation, and assessment at all levels (Forlin, 2013 ). One of the important definitions in this field, although it may be seen as more general than others, is what Loreman and Deppeler ( 2002 ) tended to, that inclusive education is a right of all students with disabilities and including these students in order to obtain the same educational services provided to non-disabled students in the same classrooms with celebration and acceptance of difference and diversity. Ainscow et al. ( 2006 ) define inclusive education as the reduction of barriers to learning, the full participation of all students, and an increase in the school’s ability to accommodate all students regardless of their differences. This is an effort to treat them in ways that reflect that they are of equal value and status.

Indeed, the definitions, as mentioned earlier, are many and varied, but I must conclude with points mentioned by Loreman ( 2009 ) as characteristics that distinguish inclusive education as a distinctive practice from others. These factors can be summarised in the following:

All children can enrol at the closest school to their home.

All schools have a “zero-rejection policy” when it comes to enrolling and educating children at the school closest to their homes. All students are welcome and appreciated.

All children learn in regular and heterogeneous classrooms with peers of the same age.

All children follow substantially similar study programmes, with curricula that can be adapted and modified if necessary and teaching methods varied to respond to all needs without discrimination.

All children participate fully in regular educational activities and events in schools and classrooms with a celebration and appreciation of diversity in these classrooms.

All children are supported to make friends and achieve social success with their peers.

Adequate resources and training shall be provided to all specialists and stakeholders within the school, classroom, and educational district to support the proper implementation of inclusive education.

This study implements the above definition as a valid concept of inclusive education that is used as a criterion for studying and analysing the responses of the participants in this study along with the theoretical framework of this study (as discussed below). A condition for achieving an accurate practice of inclusive education, in addition to this definition, is the availability of two methodologies, including the following: The flexible curriculum strategy, as the definition above clarifies. The need to implement the differentiation strategy, which entails planning and developing a variety of inclusionary teaching methods in an interactive manner by attending to the needs of every student, as well as assessing each student’s performance according to their study plan and abilities, but there are no universal assessment standards for all students.

Indeed, many people who specialise in or are interested in disability studies have an issue with the idea of inclusive education since it can be ambiguous or confused with other ideas. These misunderstandings may have a significant impact on this concept in several ways. This includes the existence of a clear and approved definition, advocacy of the importance of activating it, seeking to enhance its practices and monitoring, and evaluating these practices in accordance with the scientific research practices they are based on. As a result, this study aims to eliminate the confusion and overlap surrounding the idea of inclusive education while also attempting to provide clear images and practices that have been developed and clarified by numerous scholars and specialists in this field worldwide. This is because the foundation for the validity of any practice in educational systems is the presence of a clear and accurate definition of such practice. Slee and Tait ( 2022 ) asserted that inclusive education is a global movement that has no rigid definition and is “contingent-changing” with the demands of specific aspects such as the country, politics, economy, time, and culture, despite the fact that this study is only focused on a Saudi setting. However, despite the dedication of many nations to inclusive education and the countless academic studies that have been done in this field since the Salamanca statement (1994), inclusive education still encounters the same problems and obstacles in many nations throughout the world.

Consequently, this study was guided by the following research question: what does Inclusive Education mean among Saudi university academics specialising in special education?

The theoretical framework of this study

This study uses Roger Slee’s inclusive education theory (Slee, 2011 , 2018b ) as a conceptual and philosophical framework. This framework had an impact on this study in a number of ways, including how it defined the problem, developed the main question, analysed the data, and then interpreted and connected it to a related literature review. This theory highlights a number of ideas, including the idea that every person has the right to receive appropriate and adequate educational services in public classrooms at the closest school to their house, regardless of their needs or ability. This concept also resists all forms of segregation and discrimination in educational organisations. One of the ideas in this theory is the ambiguity in the definition of inclusive education and how it overlaps with other ideas like “integration,” “placement,” and “accommodation.” Through this process, some special education practices are coloured and made to feel more like inclusive education, leading to practices that are carried out under the name of inclusive education but do not actually fit into it. Another concept that was adopted by this study is that inclusive education and special education are opposites to each other, and their practices are inversely related and not, as some portray it, as part of a whole.

Methodology

The method used in this study is the qualitative approach. This approach was employed due to the researcher’s quest to reach a deeper understanding of the concepts of inclusive education among the participants. Denzin and Lincoln ( 2017 ) emphasised that qualitative research has the greatest potential to provide a deep understanding of the issues surrounding the topic of research. Moreover, qualitative research allows the researcher to hear directly from participants’ experiences and perceptions about their personal experiences without going through other data collection methods (Merriam and Tisdell, 2015 ). Finally, this study seeks to allow hearing from the participants directly and to give them the opportunity to express all of their opinions without directing or determining their responses or being influenced by the limited responses, as sometimes happens in questionnaires.

Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data in this study for several reasons. The researcher will summarise the discussion here on the most important reasons. First lies in the interview feature as a tool that provides a deep knowledge of the investigated phenomenon that goes beyond the researcher’s current assumptions about this phenomenon (Josselson, 2013 ). Second, because different people have different perspectives and backgrounds, conducting interviews is a highly effective method that can be used to collect a lot of information that is interesting, useful, and pertinent to the research phenomenon. As a result, the information gathered through the interviews contributes to the researcher’s knowledge and insight. Third, it supports understanding alternative perspectives on this phenomenon (Brennen, 2021 ).

To carry out the interviews, the researcher followed specific steps. First, the participants determined the time of the interview. All interviews were conducted remotely using the Google Meet application. The researcher recorded the interviews after notifying the participants of this intention and also took notes during the interview. Each interview took between 45 and 60 min. The main interview questions focused on the following:

How do you define inclusive education?

Can you give me some examples of inclusive education practices?

Is there a difference between inclusive education and special education?

Do you think there are inclusive education practices in the Saudi context? Can you mention some examples?

Study sample (participants)

This study used a purposive sampling strategy to select the participants. This strategy allows the selection of a participant who can provide the required data that adds the required quality, credibility, and rationality to the study (Padgett, 2016 ). As a result, there was a set of inclusion criteria for selecting participants, namely: (a) to have a doctorate, (b) to be a specialist in the education of people with disabilities, (c) to be a facility member in the special education department at any Saudi governmental university. The number of participants reached was 12 facility members from 7 universities. The variation in years of experience and discipline among the participants did not affect the responses. The collected data showed no variation that might be attributed to this diversity.

Table 1 shows some demographic information about the participants in this study so that the following coding (FM: Faculty Member) was used in the sense of a faculty member in order to preserve the privacy and confidentiality of the participants and in line with the ethics of the research:

Data analysis

The thematic analysis (ta) procedures and validation.

The researcher employed the deductive approach in dealing with the collected data using the Thematic Analysis (TA) six-phased method (Braun and Clarke, 2006 ). The researcher read all transcripts severally to familiarise himself with the data while simultaneously evoking the theory and definition that the researcher adopted in this study, Roger Slee’s inclusive education theory (Slee, 2011 , 2018b ). Loreman ( 2009 ) definition, in addition to the availability of the two strategies, is a flexible approach and differentiation in assessment. In this regard, Braun and Clarke ( 2012 , p. 58) argued that a deductive approach to data coding and analysis is a top-down approach, where the researcher brings to the data a series of concepts, ideas, or topics that they use to code and interpret the data.

During the reading circle phase, the researcher highlighted and coded all the meanings of inclusive education, whether explicitly or implicitly mentioned. After that, the researcher classified the highlighted codes, generated three experiential themes, and named them: identical definition, the ambiguity of definition, and relationship conception. Wiltshire and Ronkainen ( 2021 ) pointed out that experiential themes are created by describing participants’ viewpoints and beliefs about the phenomena being studied.

For validation, the three experiential themes were sent to three academics and seven participants for their opinions (Scharp and Sanders, 2019 ). After collecting their feedback, the first theme was changed by adding the word “close” to become ‘identical or close definition.’ They argued that some definitions do not fully coincide with the concept of inclusive education but are close to it.

After applying the procedures for analysing the collected data according to what was explained above, the study reached a set of results that will be presented according to the previously classified themes:

Identical or close definition

By analysing the manuscript of all interviews (12 interviews), the participants did not appear to have a concept of inclusive education completely identical to the definition adopted in this study, but there were only two responses that were reasonably close to this definition. FM8 emphasised that inclusive education “is the inclusion of the child with disabilities in the general classification with his normal peers of the same age, with the necessity of having an individual plan for his education while providing all the capabilities he needs, and that this classroom is close to the child’s home” (FM8, line 9–10). On the other hand, FM10 stated that inclusive education “means integrating the student in the regular classroom in the neighbourhood school with students of the same age and providing all the services needed to participate effectively” (FM10, line 6).

Through the analysis of the two definitions above, it is clear that the concept of inclusive education among the participants (FM8 and FM10) is somewhat close, with the absence of mentioning some specifications and requirements to fully conform to the inclusive education concept, such as the following: applying the flexible curriculum, promoting the full participation of all students, affirming that every student is valued, celebrating difference and diversity while using differentiation in student assessment.

Ambiguity of definition

It became clear through the analysis of the collected data that there is ambiguity and confusion in the definition of inclusive education among 10 out of 12 participants, i.e., 83%. This ambiguity appeared through the response of the participants, as it was represented in two basic forms. The first is the lack of clarity on the concept of inclusive education among some participants. For example, FM7 stated that inclusive education is “giving an opportunity to all students that they have the right to education and to overcome all difficulties for their academic success in the least restrictive environment that the student can fit in” (FM7, line 5–7). In addition, both (FM3) and (FM6) emphasised that inclusive education means the least restrictive environment. Through these responses, it became clear that there is ambiguity in the concept of inclusive education among some of the participants in this study.

On the other hand, it became clear that there is great confusion between inclusion and integration among the participants, as this was evident in the responses of 6 participants, they are (FM2, FM 4, FM5, FM9, FM11, FM12). Here are some examples of these responses: FM2 mentioned that inclusive education “is the integrating of students with disabilities into the regular classroom, taking into account the capabilities of the student before this integrating in terms of the degree of his/her disability, whether it allows him/her or not” (PM2, line 5–7). In addition, FM4 defined inclusive education as “integrating students with disabilities whose abilities allow them to be with ordinary students so that they are closer to the education of ordinary students” (FM4, line 3–4). Participant FM5 stated that the concept of inclusive education “is placing people with disabilities in the regular classroom, in short” (FM5, line 3). The previous examples are sufficient in this study to illustrate a situation that is widespread among some specialists in special education departments, which is the confusion between some concepts such as “inclusion,” “integration,” “mainstreaming,” and “placement.”

Relationship conception

Analysing all the participants’ responses about the nature of the relationship between inclusive and special education, it became clear that most participants (11 out of 12 participants) confirmed the existence of a relationship between these two concepts. For example, 7 participants emphasised that inclusive education is a part of special education, as this was evident in the responses of each of them (FM1, FM2, FM3, FM5, FM6, FM9, and FM12). On the other hand, FM4, FM7, FM10, and FM11 confirmed the exact opposite. They believe special education is part of inclusive education and falls under its umbrella. The necessity of the presence of a special education teacher in inclusive classrooms justified this. Indeed, only one participant (FM8) confirmed that these two concepts are contradictory in the philosophical and practical aspects.

As previously mentioned, this study aimed to answer the main research question: what does Inclusive Education mean among Saudi university academics specialising in special education? As a result, this study adopts Loreman’s ( 2009 ) definition of inclusive education in addition to Roger Slee’s (Slee, 2011 , 2018a ) inclusive education theory as a lens and philosophical framework through which the results are analysed and discussed. By analysing the above results, they will be discussed according to the main themes that the researcher classified the participants’ responses.

First, regarding the identical or close definition of inclusive education, the results indicated a complete congruence between the adapted definition and concept of inclusive education in this study. Throughout the participants’ responses, it became clear that no single response matches the definition and concept of inclusive education in all its required aspects and characteristics. This absence of congruence indicates and is attributed to the absence of a unified, approved, and comprehensive definition in the Saudi field for inclusive education. This is in complete agreement with what Florian ( 2014 ) stated; there is no agreement on a unified definition of inclusive education, and there is a need for studies seeking to find a solution to this. Although there is no formal and internationally approved definition of inclusive education (Loreman et al. 2014 ; Slee, 2011 ), the various definitions have common concepts and characteristics. All of them agree in rejecting any practices of exclusion for students with disabilities, whether from the general classroom, curriculum, teaching methods, or evaluation.

On the other hand, there was a closeness between what the two participants mentioned about the concept of inclusive education with the adopted definition in this study, which is Loreman’s definition (2009). Where some important characteristics emerged in these two responses that characterise inclusive education. These characteristics were represented in the child’s presence in the general class, in the closest school to their home, and with same-age peers while providing all the required services to enhance participation in full effectiveness. This reflects that there are individual attempts to seek a correct definition of inclusive education that produces a correct practice of this concept. However, these individual attempts do not dispense the need for organised work by all relevant authorities to adopt a unified and operational definition of inclusive education (Qvortrup and Qvortrup, 2018 ). Nor do they present all existing and future practices to this concept in order to judge each practice clearly and impartially. In short, Ainscow ( 2020 ) emphasised that unless there is a unified and shared understanding of inclusive education, progress in the correct practices of this concept will be difficult and challenging. So, there is a need to work towards unifying this definition.

Second, by analysing the above results, it became clear that there is an ambiguity in the definition of inclusive education among some faculty members in Saudi universities. For instance, two participants linked inclusive education to the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE). Indeed, inclusive education is a broader and more comprehensive concept than LRE and linking it to this theory reduces it to mere accommodation or placement only (Maciver et al. 2018 ). In this context, Skilton-Sylvester and Slesaransky-Poe ( 2009 ) emphasised that a Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) is based primarily on the principle of placement as a priority differs from inclusive education as a broader and more complex concept.

Furthermore, there is confusion between inclusive education and the concept of integration, which was evident in the responses of 50% of the participants. The confusion between these two terms is a worldwide phenomenon among those concerned, including specialists and others, in the field of inclusive education. Loreman et al. ( 2014 ) assert that there is confusion and overlap in the use of many terms such as “integration,” “mainstreaming,” and “inclusion” as synonymous with one practice meaning inclusive education. Such confusion was a consequence of some reasons, such as the use of the two terms “inclusion” and “integration,” as synonymous in many studies related to inclusive education (Hassanein, 2015 ). Indeed, there is a difference and disparity between these two concepts in many respects.

First, integration comes from outside the school, so the focus is on the student and their abilities to include him/her in the Least Restrictive Environment, whether in the general classrooms or self-contained classes (Dash, 2006 ). Meanwhile, inclusion comes from inside the school in terms of creating all needed environments from all sides to be suitable for welcoming and valuing all students with disabilities (Nunez and Rosales, 2021 ). Second, “integration” considers the school as a partner in the accommodation and placement process. At the same time, the full responsibility for the success of this practice lies on the student with the disability (Frederickson and Cline, 2015 ). While the concept of “inclusion” views the school as an essential and important part of the preparation and initialisation process to implement inclusive education practices. This means it bears the responsibility to adapt curricula, teaching methods, and services that must be prepared to include students with disabilities (Madhesh, 2019 ) successfully. Third, “integration” does not mean restructuring school environments to accommodate students with disabilities. On the contrary, “inclusion” means restructuring these environments to suit the needs of all students regardless of their diversity (Obrusnikova and Block, 2020 ).

Additionally, with regard to the analysis of the results that clarify the relationship conception between inclusive education and special education from the point of view of the faculty members in Saudi universities, it was evident that the majority affirms the existence of a correlation between these two concepts (11 out of 12 participants) so that 7 participants confirmed that inclusive education is part of special education. On the contrary, 4 participants confirmed that special education is part of inclusive education. Indeed, only one participant emphasised that this relationship is inverse and that inclusive education is the opposite of the concept and practice of special education. This is accurate, so many relevant studies agree that inclusive education is a philosophy and practice that is completely opposite to special education.

For example, special education stems from the ontological stance of the medical model of disability, which believes that disability is a pathological structure in the individual that must be treated and reformed to suit the surrounding environments (Dirth and Branscombe, 2017 ; Slee, 2011 ). At the same time, inclusive education stems from the ontological concept of the social model of disability, which affirms that disability is a product of the obstacles and barriers that exist in society and the surrounding environments, which causes the individual with a disability to be hindered from exercising his life appropriately and naturally (Barnes, 2019 ; Oliver, 2013 ).

Moreover, the concept of special education is based on the classification and labelling of each individual with a disability in order to distinguish them. In contrast, inclusive education seeks to resist any practices of classification or labelling that result in discrimination between individuals (Kauffman and Hornby, 2020 ). Additionally, one of the key distinctions between these two ideas is that special education frequently offers educational services to students with disabilities in their available educational settings, such as private institutions, separate classrooms affixed to public schools, or partially in general classrooms. These function with the reliance on the student’s ability as a criterion to choose the appropriate educational placement (Madhesh, 2019 ). On the contrary, the concept of inclusive education resists all forms of segregation and the practices of providing educational services in isolated and private environments and believes only in the option of the general classroom in the nearest school to the student’s home, which supports active and full participation (Dovigo, 2017 ).

Conclusion and recommendations

This study concluded several vital outcomes. First, there is no approved and unified definition of inclusive education in the Saudi context to be adopted or referred to by specialists in this field. Second, there is confusion and ambiguity about the concept of inclusive education among Saudi university faculty members specialising in special education, in addition to great confusion and overlapping between the concept of inclusive education and other concepts such as “integration”, “mainstreaming” and “placement”. Third, there is a deep-rooted understanding of an interrelated relationship between inclusive education and special education among these faculty members. This is contrary to reality as each concept carries an agenda and practices that are completely opposite to the other. From the foregoing, this study leads to some recommendations:

The necessity to seek, by the authorities related to the education of people with disabilities in the Saudi context, to adopt a comprehensive and unified definition of inclusive education. Then apply and evaluate all related practices in line with it to avoid ambiguity and discrepancy in practice.

Promoting correct concepts about inclusive education among academics and stakeholders through seminars, conferences, and various scientific and social events.

Supporting scientific studies that examine the reasons for this conceptual and applied shortcoming about inclusive education among Saudi university faculty members specialising in special education and the consequences thereof.

Enact laws and legislation that are based on the correct concept of inclusive education and strive to implement them.

Evaluate current practices according to the correct and previously approved definition of inclusive education.

Data availability

The collected data of this study is interview transcripts in Arabic language and is not possible to share publicly for participants’ confidentiality.

Ainscow M (2020) Promoting inclusion and equity in education: lessons from international experiences. Nord J Stud Educ Policy 6(1):7–16

Article   Google Scholar  

Ainscow M, Booth T, Dyson A (2006) Inclusion and the standards agenda: negotiating policy pressures in England. Int J Incl Educ 10(4–5):295–308

Ainscow M, Dyson A, Weiner S (2013) From exclusion to inclusion: ways of responding in schools to students with special educational needs. ERIC, UK

Google Scholar  

Ainscow M, Slee R, Best M (2019) The Salamanca Statement: 25 years on. Int J Incl Educ 23(7-8):671–676

Barnes C (2019) Understanding the social model of disability: past, present and future. Routledge, USA

Book   Google Scholar  

Bates H, McCafferty A, Quayle E, McKenzie K (2015) Typically-developing students’ views and experiences of inclusive education. Disabil Rehab 37(21):1929–1939

Braun V, Clarke V (2006) Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qual Res Psychol 3(2):77–101

Braun V, Clarke V (2012) Thematic analysis. In: Cooper H, Camic PM, Long DL, Panter AT, Rindskopf D, Sher KJ (ed) APA handbook of research methods in psychology, 2nd edn. American Psychological Association, USA, p 57–71

Brennen BS (2021) Qualitative research methods for media studies. Routledge, London

Dash N (2006) Inclusive education for children with special needs. Atlantic Publishers & Dist, Bloomsbury

Denzin NK, Lincoln YS (2017) The SAGE handbook of qualitative research. SAGE, Washington DC

Dirth TP, Branscombe NR (2017) Disability models affect disability policy support through awareness of structural discrimination. J Soc Issues 73(2):413–442

Dovigo F (2017) Special educational needs and inclusive practices: an international perspective. Springer, New York

Florian L (2014) What counts as evidence of inclusive education? Euro J Spec Needs Educ 29(3):286–294

Forlin C (2013) Changing paradigms and future directions for implementing inclusive education in developing countries. Asian J Incl Educ 1(2):19–31

Frederickson N, Cline T (2015) Special educational needs, inclusion and diversity. McGraw-Hill Education, UK

Hassanein EEA (2015) Inclusion, disability and culture. Sense Publishers, Rotterdam

Jahnukainen M (2015) Inclusion, integration, or what? A comparative study of the school principals’ perceptions of inclusive and special education in Finland and in Alberta, Canada. Disabil Soc 30(1):59–72

Josselson R (2013) Interviewing for qualitative inquiry: a relational approach. Guilford Press, New York

Kauffman JM, Hornby G (2020) Inclusive vision versus special education reality. Educ Sci 10(9):1–13

Loreman T (2009) Straight talk about inclusive education. CASS Connect 6(4):43–47

Loreman T, Deppeler J (2002) Working towards full inclusion in education. Access: Natl Issues J People Disabil 3(6):5–8

Loreman T, Forlin C, Chambers D, Sharma U, Deppeler J (2014) Conceptualising and measuring inclusive education. Emerald Group Publishing Limited, UK

Maciver D, Hunter C, Adamson A, Grayson Z, Forsyth K, McLeod I (2018) Supporting successful inclusive practices for learners with disabilities in high schools: a multisite, mixed method collective case study. Disabil Rehabil 40(14):1708–1717

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Madhesh A (2019) Inclusion of Deaf Students in Saudi Primary Schools. Dissertation, Victoria University, Australia

Magnússon G (2019) An amalgam of ideals–images of inclusion in the Salamanca Statement. Int J Incl Educ 23(7-8):677–690

Merriam SB, Tisdell EJ (2015) Qualitative research: a guide to design and implementation. John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey

Munongi L (2022) Townships’high school learners’ views on the implementation of the right to education: a social justice perspective. Athens J Educ 1(10):153–172

Nunez R, Rosales S (2021) Inclusive education: perceptions and attitudes among filipino high school teachers. Asian ESP 17(6.1):151–172

Obrusnikova I, Block ME (2020) Historical context and definition of inclusion. In: Haegele J, Hodge S, Shapiro D (ed) Routledge handbook of adapted physical education., 1st rd. Routledge, London, p 65–80

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Oliver M (2013) The social model of disability: thirty years on. Disabil Soc 28(7):1024–1026

Padgett DK (2016) Qualitative methods in social work research. Sage publications, Washington DC

Qvortrup A, Qvortrup L (2018) Inclusion: dimensions of inclusion in education. Int J Incl Educ 22(7):803–817

Article   MATH   Google Scholar  

Rieser R, Secretariat C (2012) Implementing Inclusive Education: A Commonwealth Guide to Implementing Article 24 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Commonwealth Secretariat, London. https://books.google.com.sa/books?id=14wxPDD-v5MC

Scharp KM, Sanders ML (2019) What is a theme? Teaching thematic analysis in qualitative communication research methods. Commun Teacher 33(2):117–121

Skilton-Sylvester E, Slesaransky-Poe G (2009) More than a least restrictive environment: living up to the civil covenant in building inclusive schools. Penn GSE perspectives on. Urban Education 6(1):32–37

Slee R (2011) The irregular school: exclusion, schooling and inclusive education. Routledge, London

Slee R (2018a) Defining the scope of inclusive education. Paper commissioned for the 2020 global education monitoring report, inclusion and education, UNESCO, Paris, France

Slee R (2018b) Inclusive education isn’t dead, it just smells funny. Routledge, London

Slee R, & Tait G (2022) Ethics and Inclusive Education: Disability Schooling and Justice (Vol. 6). Springer Nature, London, UK

UNESCO (1994) The salamanca statement and framework for action on special needs education. Paper presented at access and quality conference, Salamanca, Spain, 7–10 June 1994

Wiltshire G, Ronkainen N (2021) A realist approach to thematic analysis: making sense of qualitative data through experiential, inferential and dispositional themes. J Crit Realism 20(2):159–180

Download references

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the Deanship of Scientific Research at Shaqra University for supporting this work.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Special Education Department, Shaqra University, Shaqra, Saudi Arabia

Abdullah Madhesh

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Abdullah Madhesh .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

The authors declare no Competing interests.

Ethical approval

This study was conducted in accordance with the Shaqra University Research Ethics Committee. The ethical approval of this study (No: ERC_SU_20220099) was obtained from this committee before collecting the data from participants as a prerequisite for conducting this study and all committee requirements have been fulfilled.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to their participation in interviews.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Rights and permissions.

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Madhesh, A. The concept of inclusive education from the point of view of academics specialising in special education at Saudi universities. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 10 , 278 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01802-y

Download citation

Received : 08 January 2023

Accepted : 25 May 2023

Published : 02 June 2023

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01802-y

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• J Pharm Bioallied Sci
• v.15(1); Jan-Mar 2023
• PMC10259741

Inclusive Education and its Fundamental Characteristics: A Reflection on the Evidence-Based Approach

Elisabeta kafia.

1 Department of Psychology, Albanian University, Tirana, Albania

Silva Ibrahimi

Ervin ibrahimi.

2 Medical Health Director, Area Vasta 2, Cooss Marche, Italy

Introduction:

Political appeal and social pressure, combined with law ambiguity and lack of resources, to avoid the hard decisions, often have brought to a simplified model of inclusive education and to an apparently simplistic solution: opting for the location of education for children with special educational needs and dis¬abilities instead of tackling the routes of the problem.

Within this context, the current research aims to explore the fundamental characteristics of inclusive education, highlighting the bio-psycho-social evidence-based approach in education.

The method applied in the present work is explorative-reflective research on what can be regarded as inclusive education, education for all, and social capital psychoeducation as benchmarks for an integrative society.

Findings and Conclusions:

This research concludes that the inclusive education is not an emergency-adaptive pedagogy but has to be conceived as a medical psycho-pedagogy of raising awareness in healthy personalities and social inclusion, not shunning differences but observing them and seeking to offer to everyone the best opportunities for personal and community growth. Compared to the traditional concept of inclusion, the theoretical perspective of evidence-based approach has a much broader scope and it embraces the fact that inclusive education carries intrinsically also a risk of exclusion that must be actively prevented, and at the same time affirms the importance of involving all actors in creating a truly welcoming community, which must become sensitive to the full range of differences present in children’s life.

I NTRODUCTION

The conceptualizations of inclusion based on its fundamental characteristics are the most widespread, in which we try to identify the common elements found in “ordinary” life spaces, aimed at highlighting those phenomena that would lead to greater inclusion. Inclusive education is defined as a process useful for increasing student participation in the traditional school community and the study curriculum,[ 1 ] decreasing their exclusion, also on a practical and political level; although this agreement is struggling to take off,[ 2 , 3 ] many projects promote its realization. Many voices here highlighted how the full realization of the Inclusive Education System does not consist in giving a place in the school even to those who represent some diversity, but in transforming the school system into a suitable organization for education taking charge of the different Special Educational Needs that all pupils may encounter. The concept of Special Educational Need (or Special Educational Need) refers to any developmental difficulty, in the educational and learning fields, expressed in a problematic functioning also for the subject, in terms of damage, obstacle, or social stigma, regardless of the etiology, and that requires individualized special education .[ 4 , 5 ] The concept of Special Educational Needs appears in official documents of The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1997, in the legislation of the United Kingdom in 2001 (Special Educational Needs and Disability Act),[ 6 ] and in documents of the European Agency for Development and Education for Special Needs in 2003, as a tendency to consider subjects with SEN also other people of developmental age who show learning and behavioral difficulties other than disabili ty[ 7 ] (pp. 19). Special Educational Need has become an “umbrella” concept that contains within it macro-categories and subcategories. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development defines 6. Special Education Needs (SEN) as divided into three macro-categories, divided as follows:

• Category of “disability” (A): Refers to problems of the individual based on obvious biological bases require the commitment of resources; the situations traditionally considered as a disability (mental, physical, and sensory).
• Category of “difficulties” (B): The differences in learning and behavior do not seem to be due to a clear organic basis or to a social disadvantage, and need resources; are those situations of deficit in specific clinically significant learning (dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, etc.).
• Category of the “disadvantages” (C): Problematic aspects of social and/or linguistic background are the subject of further educational resources; are the set of all the other situations of psychological problems.

To understand, therefore, an SEN, clinical diagnoses are not necessarily needed, but observation and evaluation of the real interactions between International Classification Factors (ICF) factors, to understand if that specific functioning is problematic for that subject, and if this subject is in a problematic situation, based on a comparison concerning three objective criteria:

• Damage : Experienced by the student and expressed by others (students, parents, and teachers). A functioning situation is problematic for a child if it harms him directly or harms others[ 8 ] (pp. 42).
• Obstacle: The difficulty puts him at a disadvantage for his future cognitive, affective, relational, and social development. The situation in which the damage is not directly observable.
• Social stigma : A case in which “ there is no demonstrable damage or obstacle to the child or to others due to his poor educational-learning functioning ”[ 9 ] (pp. 43) and which worsens his social image.

Definitions are valid exemplifications aimed at conceptualization when they tend to assume that educational practice is subject to a series of common elements that are static in time and place, but this is not the case with inclusion which, applying itself in very heterogeneous differs in its application techniques and consequently in its theoretical conceptualization. What is hoped for in the perspective of contemporary inclusive education is a broadening of the perspective, allowed by the relocation of the needs of the individual in the broader framework of the plurality of differences in the school context, which would allow each student to be thought of as having deserving educational needs of inclusion, and to get out of any form of categorization.

Best practices for a medical and psychosocial education

The descriptions that the sector literature has offered of the concept of didactic practice are manifold, the definition on which a large part of the scientific community has found a common ground is that which makes didactic practice coincide with a set of actions and choices made in intentionally and which have an educational project as their objective ,[ 10 ] therefore, unlike experience which can be casual, a practice is a set of acts, routines, choices, carried out intentionally, about a project. The concept of practice includes both the explicit and the tacit, what is said and what is not said, what is represented, and what is hypothesized. Again, it includes language, tools, documents, images, symbols, well-defined roles, specific criteria, codified procedures, internal regulations, and contracts that the various practices make explicit for a whole series of purposes. Practice is both the foundation of learning processes and the “construction schemas” and “structuring” reference point of a social community, but above all, the “social production of meaning.”[ 11 ] Praxis designates “the specifically human intention to action resulting from a reasonable choice, designed for the particular case, recognized as shared by the community as such, realized as it should be”;[ 12 ] (pp. 298). The definition highlights the strong link between the knowledge of action and the responsibility of acting, becoming knowledge-in-action.[ 12 , 13 ] In the medical pedagogy field, the concept of practice has a dual value, not opposed to each other but an integral part of the other like two sides of the same coin. If on the one hand, it is configured as “the complex of intentional actions of teaching (learning)” on the other, it designates “the procedures for implementing these actions to a healthy population”[ 12 ] (pp. 299). This double value derived from the fact that in the medical pedagogical and didactic field the practice is not reducible to the sum of the observable, performed actions or the reactions to them,[ 15 ] but it is something more complex that leads to a categorization of the practices that refer to the situated professional activity. The following types of practice can be distinguished[ 12 ] (pp. 300):

• The medical didactic practice: “the result of a search among the many possibilities (procedures, strategies, itineraries) that can be chosen to optimize the action of teaching (learning)” for the intellectual disability.[ 14 - ]
• Educational practice and e-health: “coherent and complex form of socially and historically established cooperative human activity, which takes place in a social and healthy context characterized by the educational commitment carried out by competent professionals, to promote development.”[ 17 - ]
• Work practice: Knowing how to do in a situation related to the realization of a project that weaves relationships between people, objects, languages, technologies, institutions, and standards.[ 21 ]
• Reflective practice: Dialectical “movement” of reflected practice, i.e., a reflection on “doing professional” generating new knowledge whose validity is governed and limited by the situations in which it is generated and finds utility;[ 22 ]
• Magisterial practice: It is exemplary practice, the result of the best orchestration of the variables of the teaching action. Educational practice is therefore a process involving multiple interacting and constantly evolving systems, due to the incessant restructuring of premises, interactions, inferences, expectations, cognitive strategies, and representations of relationships.[ 23 , 24 ] It is therefore not reducible to the set of observable acts, actions, and reactions; but it is made up of facts that exist independently of the teachers, the multidimensional team, and of behaviors, procedures, processes, and meanings, the nature of which is by no means explicit.

Multidimensional approaches

The possible devices for analyzing practices are many and different, all deriving from multiple and different approaches. These numerous approaches are classified, especially in the French-speaking area,[ 25 - ] into two subsets based on the methodological options[ 29 ] (p. 6): discourses on practices, which include investigations that stimulate health service professionals to produce texts following the actions they perform in their classroom and school work; observations of the practices, which can, in turn, be distinguished between (a) those conducted directly in the context and (b) those which take up classroom operations with various technologies and examine them afterward by interacting with the teacher-actor. This distinction, albeit relevant, would not allow us to highlight the heterogeneous panorama of approaches developed in different contexts and multiple directions about the theoretical paradigm of reference. A valid classification was made by studies[ 26 ] (p. 17) that offered an organic, albeit not exhaustive, review of the main approaches used for the analysis of teaching and educational practices.

According to this classification, it is possible to distinguish ten different ways of approaching teaching practices: the pragmatic approach: the constitutive objective of the analysis of practices is the solicitation of reflection on the action itself. It can be traced back to the Anglo-American works of a pragmatist matrix of different authors[ 30 - ] according to which the object of knowledge is inherent in the action itself, which is both an event and a representation of the cognitive event itself. The pragmatist perspective[ 31 ] suggests looking at one’s own experiences through a metacognitive and introspective attitude; the investigation of learning must on the one hand make individuals aware of the experience accomplished and on the other hand, it must induce them to reflect on what has been implemented. In this way, they present themselves as subjects who reflect, with a critical distance, on their actions and the repercussions of these, as already underlined in the studies conducted by others.[ 33 , 34 ] Both authors highlight how the reflexive rationality in the action, which they place as the central moment of the action itself, represents a moment of evolution of thought “in” and “about” the action.

• The ergonomic approach : Analyzes the “real” task, i.e., the gestures made by the teacher in carrying out his profession. In this approach, the profession appears as an activity and is studied as a job; in this view, gestures are not standardized from the outside but depend on the one hand on style and orientation of each one,[ 35 , 36 ] on the other hand, on the comparison between peers and from self-comparison with the self and the use of the professional self.[ 37 , 38 ]
• The cognitive approach : Places its attention on the implementation of concepts and methodologies to study practice.[ 21 , 31 , 39 , 40 ] Researchers using this approach transfer their interest from cognitions to procedures using mainly two models: one based on the inference of direct investigation[ 41 ] or of the observation of neural simulations conducted in the laboratory for psychologists and a psychosocial approach[ 42 ] built on the analysis of teachers’ a posteriori verbal production.[ 43 , 44 ] This establishes that such research can determine an evaluation of the teaching process in its entirety, i.e., within all the phases before, during, and after[ 45 , 46 ] only in the planning phases[ 47 ] or only in retrospect through situation presentations that allow the researcher to study a typical teaching situation.[ 42 ] Within this theoretical framework, various internal currents emerged: psychological-cognitive psychology that considers daily action and thinking crossed by dimensions such as conscious/unconscious, normality/abnormality; another starting from the 80s develops from the notion of “everyday” aimed at identifying all the forms of mental functioning characterizing the subject when he thinks, feels and acts: Everyday Reasoning,[ 48 ] Everyday Cognition,[ 49 ] Everyday Thinking;[ 50 ] finally, the studies that aim to analyze the dependence of the forms of teaching on the context or the situation, called situated knowledge [ 51 ] and distributed knowledge [ 52 ] approaches, based on the idea that cognitive processes are culturally and socially rooted.
• The clinical approach : Focuses its reflection on experiential and intersubjective medical education training. It considers observable educational events as signs to be analyzed concerning established theoretical knowledge and frameworks. This approach is divided into two main strands: the psychoanalytic direction , which places its attention primarily on individual attitudes[ 15 , 22 – 53 ] and the psychosociological orientation , which locates its research in a multi-referential vision aimed at the multiple elements of the social and of the interaction with other subjects.[ 54 ]
• The ethnomethodological approach : Sets out to analyze practices by presenting the observable phenomenon through rules and routines, treating them as elements of empirical investigation, social practices used by subjects to give meaning to reality. Starting from the vision of its founder,[ 55 ] who studies the curious rationality of everyday life, it tries to explain daily practice by making as its object of observation not so much the daily elements, but rather the extraordinary occurrences as events distant from the reliable ones. In this approach, the “everyday activities” take on centrality, understood on the one hand as tacit rules, which are those signals that the teacher conveys at a paralinguistic verbal level, that the learner must have learned to participate in the interaction; and on the other hand as routine, i.e., that set of actions both in terms of their functions and the fact of being transformed into systematic, structured and predictable sequences and due to their constancy, systematicity, and repetition, do not become mechanical executions, but rather useful itineraries for understanding a healthy didactic action,[ 51 , 56 , 57 ] which assume didactic and pedagogical value. The ethnomethodological approach stems from the belief that it is not the social order that determines the action, but that it is the result of the interpretations that the actors provide to behaviors in the specific context in which they take place.[ 58 , 59 ] In this vision, the explanation consists in identifying a rational and observable order within the context.
• The evidence-based research approach (EBE) is based on “evidence of facts” through scientifically accurate experimental investigations, the critical evaluation of which allows intervention decisions to be made.[ 60 - ] The evidence in this approach represents proof that through careful observation and the use of information from experimental investigations, it comes to producing priorities for improvement interventions. In the context of this approach to the analysis of practices, there have been numerous international studies[ 60 ] that support the utility of the analysis in a dimensional view. The EBE model finds the maximum fulfillment in its use with medical and special pedagogy because, on the one hand, of the fundamental principles from which the model develops and from which it is generated, on the other hand. Employing this model can develop new processes and actions to be undertaken for structural medical pedagogy in education. The model answers significant questions about the effectiveness of interventions ( what works? and when does it work? ) implementation, and systematic monitoring ( is it working? and how can we make it work? ) and on the other, it can develop the generation of new processes and actions to be undertaken for the development of a medical pedagogy in education.

Concluding remarks

Inclusion, as underlined in this paper addresses “ the ability of the school system to transform itself to guarantee the participation, mental-health well-being, and academic success of all students in regular contexts, as people and not because they belong to specific groups ”[ 61 ] (p. 215). The dimension of inclusion indicated here is not that of an emergency pedagogy that is born addressed to an ideal pupil and then adapts to the real pupil by branching off into personalized paths, but is conceived as a medical psychopedagogy of raising awareness in healthy personalities and social inclusion in which planning looks at all students from the beginning, not avoiding the differences but observing them, looking at the promotion of each one to offer each one the best opportunities for personal and community growth. Compared to the traditional concept of inclusion, the theoretical perspective of evidence based, adopted in this work does not refer to disabilities or students who are identified with Special Educational Needs but has a much broader scope. The notion of inclusion recognizes that there is a risk of exclusion that must be actively prevented, and at the same time affirms the importance of involving all actors in creating a truly welcoming community, which must become sensitive to the full range of differences present in children’s life. The school must be aware of its goals and responsibilities. Clinicians must be aware of their role in the integration of the organization of the structure and the needs of the child. The challenge that the school must face is, therefore, overcoming the physical barriers, cultural and value-based by accepting and adopting the regulatory precepts, and developing and strengthening them through their application. The analysis carried out by teachers and the multidimensional team starts from the “facts” demonstrated through the “evidence” methods, lines of research, and practices suitable for promoting children with special needs inclusion. To encourage the development of inclusive actions, in the field of medicine, psychology, education, and didactic, the need for research applied to the context is evident, which must closely monitor the psychological teaching practice. The orientation of the evidence-based education and the medical pedagogy practices described in the present paper are placed in the following line: the first is based on the assumption that in infant medicine, psychological, and educational research. It is necessary to make value statements, methodologies, and explicit criteria for the evaluation of practices; the second line argues that to produce a knowledge of action it is necessary to formalize the know-how of doing through making practices available. It is necessary to rethink inclusion in a more mature vision, based on the analysis of the contexts, therefore identifying health providers, psychologists, and other professionals within the educational institution’s barriers and potential for learning and participation as key elements for healthy knowledge and development.

Financial support and sponsorship

This work was supported by the “Albanian University” research funding program.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.

R EFERENCES

New center aims to help people with an intellectual disability get college degrees in Minnesota

Updated: April 4, 10:40 a.m. | Posted: April 3, 4 a.m.

In 2018, Jean Hauff knew she wanted to pursue a career in mass media and that would require college studies.

Her top criteria in a college search: far enough from her Twin Cities home, on-campus housing, employment opportunities, and a 3- or 4-year program with support services for students with an intellectual disability. 

“I wanted to be able to take classes like other college students,” said Hauff, who has Down syndrome. 

But no Minnesota school met her criteria. Only four Minnesota colleges offer higher education programs for students with an intellectual disability — but none of those offer certificates specific to her interest area, journalism.

Create a More Connected Minnesota

MPR News is your trusted resource for the news you need. With your support, MPR News brings accessible, courageous journalism and authentic conversation to everyone - free of paywalls and barriers. Your gift makes a difference.

“I’ve been an advocate for inclusive education since Jean was born,” said Mary Hauff, Jean’s mother. “And she’s been included all the way through high school in general education, along with her classmates with and without disabilities and so we were looking for that to be part of her college experience.”

As a result, in 2019, Mary Hauff and other parents of people with an intellectual disability formed the Minnesota Inclusive Higher Education Consortium. The group united a broad coalition of disability advocates and successfully lobbied state officials for support for students like Jean.

In 2023, the Minnesota Legislature allocated $2 million over two years for inclusive higher education , defined as equal access to higher education for students with an intellectual disability who need special education services.

Inclusive higher education calls for students with an intellectual disability to have “the same rights, privileges, experiences and outcomes” as nondisabled students, for an experience “resulting in a meaningful credential.” That means access to the same fields of study, degree programs, housing options and campus activities.

Most of that money will go to colleges to fund new ways to boost enrollment for students with an intellectual disability. Some of the money — $500,000 — funds a technical assistance center operated by the consortium out of the University of Minnesota .

Julia Page is the former public policy director for The Arc Minnesota, an advocacy organization for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She helped push for the bill’s passage. 

“It’s definitely more of a long-term investment, so knowing that we’re not going to immediately see all those benefits, but I cannot wait to see how it grows year after year in our progress for inclusion in higher ed,” Page said. 

‘I finally get to go to school and get to be accepted’

There are nearly 200 colleges and universities in Minnesota. But of the four institutions with specific programs for students with an intellectual disability, only three are designated as Comprehensive and Postsecondary Transition Programs by the U.S. Department of Education. That status allows students with an intellectual disability to access federal financial aid.

Those schools have a combined enrollment capacity of 90 spots, according to a 2023 report by the Minnesota Office of Higher Education .

Intellectual disability “starts any time before a child turns 18 and is characterized by problems with both intellectual functioning or intelligence — which includes the ability to learn, reason, problem-solve and other skills — and adaptive behavior, which includes everyday social and life skills,” according to the Institute on Community Integration.

Studies show students with an intellectual disability who enroll in college are more than twice as likely to be employed than those who don't . They’re also more likely to have higher wages, live independently and rely less on social services.

Dupree Edwards, 34, said he has intellectual and developmental disabilities. He works at the Institute on Community Integration on a systems change project for the Minnesota Department of Human Services.

Edwards tried attending a technical college several years ago, and quit after feeling he didn’t have the right support.

“I got mad because I felt like they didn’t really know I was capable of doing the work,” he said. “And so I just, you know, gave up on it.” 

He said he is successful when he receives accessible reading materials as well as help with organization and structure. It also helps to have someone slow down the learning material, to help him process information. 

“I kind of have a lot of things going on, and I just want a college director or professor to understand what my pace is,” Edwards said.

Edwards testified on behalf of the legislation investing in inclusive higher education, and said “it was like heaven” hearing the bill had passed. He looks forward to formal studies in performing arts in the future.

“I finally get to go to school and get to be accepted and get the accommodations that I need,” he said. 

Minnesota joins other states investing in inclusive higher education

The Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 laid the framework for improving college access across the country for students with an intellectual disability , among other things creating a national technical assistance center and a federal grant program to help colleges and universities increase their offerings.

A growing number of states have invested in inclusive higher education in the last decade. Kentucky passed legislation in 2020 establishing a similar center to Minnesota’s at the University of Kentucky.

The state has since doubled the number of programs from three to six . There are now over 300 postsecondary programs for students with an intellectual disability nationwide .

In Minnesota, the new technical assistance center at the U of M is the home where government, students, school leaders, and other stakeholders in Minnesota can find expertise on best practices on providing postsecondary education for students with an intellectual disability.

The Minnesota Inclusive Higher Education Consortium operates the center out of U of M’s Institute on Community Integration, which lives in a modern building off the U’s campus in Minneapolis.

“We’re in the midst of a workforce shortage, and what better way to address some of that is to help individuals with disabilities who want to go to college, that want to work, to be able to earn those credentials, so that they can help fill some of those employment opportunities that are out there and help the business and ultimately the state economy,” said Mary Hauff, who is now the director of the consortium.

The technical assistance center is informed by an advisory committee where 50 percent of members are students with an intellectual disability. 

In May, Minnesota colleges will be able to apply for money to make higher education more accessible. They can receive up to $200,000 per year for four years.

The Minnesota Inclusive Higher Education Consortium is holding sessions to prepare colleges and universities to apply for the state grants , as well as the federal designation for financial aid.

Grants can go towards any qualifying public or private institution to develop or improve their capacity to enroll and support students with an intellectual disability, according to the Minnesota Office of Higher Education .

For many students, it’s long overdue. 

Because there were no suitable options in Minnesota, Jean Hauff had ended up choosing Duquesne University in Pennsylvania, which was piloting a program offering four-year certificates for people with an intellectual disability.

She enjoyed her experience on campus but after her first two years, the university decided to pivot and focus only on students in the Pittsburgh area. She took a gap year, building experience with internships and a public policy class, before landed at Augustana University in South Dakota. The credits did not transfer, however — she’s back at square one.

“Some people do not believe individuals with an intellectual disability can learn or go to college. Some people believe students with an intellectual disability are going to be a problem in a class or on campus. They are wrong,” Jean said.

“College is possible. Students with an intellectual disability are ready and want to go to college. They can contribute to the campus community and pursue a career of their choice.”

• Minnesota high schools rank last for computer science course offerings
• Meet the Minnesota researchers working to prevent another mass shooting
• Michigan school shooter’s parents sentenced to at least 10 years in prison

share this!

April 5, 2024

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

fact-checked

Touchibo, a robot that fosters inclusion in education through touch

by Associate Laboratory of Robotics and Engineering Systems (LARSyS)

A team of researchers from the University of Lisbon and Cornell University has presented a touch-based robot that is capable of fostering inclusion in schools, giving equal opportunities to children with and without visual impairment to participate in a group activity with the robot. Their most recent study showed improved individual and group participation perception, which contributes to creating more inclusive learning environments.

The robot is called Touchibo and has been developed to improve group interactions between children with and without visual impairment , exploring the power of tactile interactions. "Touchibo aims to bridge the gap between children with diverse visual needs, promoting participation, empathy, and social engagement," said Isabel Neto, a researcher at the Gaips Lab at INESC-ID and the Interactive Technologies Institute.

The study involved 107 children, including 37 with visual impairments, who participated in a series of storytelling activities facilitated by Touchibo and an audio-only storyteller. Researchers analyzed the children's responses, touch behaviors, and group dynamics to evaluate the impact of touch-based interactions on social engagement and inclusivity.

"We have used a combination of video recordings, questionnaires, and observational data to capture the nuances of interpersonal touch behaviors, story comprehension, and group dynamics ," added Isabel Neto.

Children who engaged with Touchibo exhibited a significantly increased perception of individual and group engagement compared to the interactions with the audio-only storyteller. "Touchibo not only promoted touch-based interactions between children but also enhanced the children's perception of the storyteller's likability and helpfulness, highlighting the robot's potential to enrich social interactions in classrooms with children with mixed-visual abilities."

Furthermore, the study shed light on the importance of touch in promoting inclusion and engagement among children with diverse visual abilities. By creating a multisensory storytelling environment, Touchibo facilitated meaningful interactions, fostering a sense of belongingness and mutual understanding among the participants and promoting inclusion and mutual understanding among children with diverse visual needs.

The findings of this research pave the way for innovative approaches to creating inclusive learning environments for children with mixed visual abilities by demonstrating the power of touch-based robots in promoting social interactions and inclusion. This study was presented this March and published as part of the Proceedings of the 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction .

Provided by Associate Laboratory of Robotics and Engineering Systems (LARSyS)

Explore further

Feedback to editors

Using CO₂ and biomass, researchers find path to more environmentally friendly recyclable plastics

9 hours ago

Precision agriculture research identifies gene that controls production of flowers and fruits in pea plants

Long-term forest study shows tornado's effects linger 25 years later

A new coating method in mRNA engineering points the way to advanced therapies

ATLAS provides first measurement of the W-boson width at the LHC

10 hours ago

Smart vest turns fish into underwater spies, providing a glimpse into aquatic life like never before

11 hours ago

Ants in Colorado are on the move due to climate change

Caterpillar 'noses' are surprisingly sophisticated, researchers find

Building footprints could help identify neighborhood sociodemographic traits

12 hours ago

Fossilized dinosaur eggshells can preserve amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, over millions of years

13 hours ago

Relevant PhysicsForums posts

Motivating high school physics students with popcorn physics.

Apr 3, 2024

How is Physics taught without Calculus?

Mar 29, 2024

Why are Physicists so informal with mathematics?

Mar 24, 2024

The changing physics curriculum in 1961

Suggestions for using math puzzles to stimulate my math students.

Mar 21, 2024

The New California Math Framework: Another Step Backwards?

Mar 14, 2024

More from STEM Educators and Teaching

Related Stories

Developing a robot that will help blind children chat with sighted friends

Mar 30, 2023

An immersive tactile book for blind children

Jun 6, 2023

Using gazes for effective tutoring with social robots

Nov 9, 2020

Children born or raised during lockdown are developing language skills at a slower rate

Dec 13, 2023

Robot gestures lead to better learning performance in children learning a second language

Jan 20, 2022

Meet Orbit, the interactive robot that looks to help children with autism spectrum disorders develop social skills

Sep 23, 2022

Recommended for you

Earth, the sun and a bike wheel: Why your high-school textbook was wrong about the shape of Earth's orbit

Apr 8, 2024

More than money, family and community bonds prep teens for college success: Study

Apr 5, 2024

Research reveals significant effects of onscreen instructors during video classes in aiding student learning

Mar 25, 2024

Prestigious journals make it hard for scientists who don't speak English to get published, study finds

Mar 23, 2024

Using Twitter/X to promote research findings found to have little impact on number of citations

Mar 22, 2024

Gender and racial discrimination uncovered in leadership positions at Australia's leading universities

Mar 15, 2024

Let us know if there is a problem with our content

Use this form if you have come across a typo, inaccuracy or would like to send an edit request for the content on this page. For general inquiries, please use our contact form . For general feedback, use the public comments section below (please adhere to guidelines ).

Please select the most appropriate category to facilitate processing of your request

Thank you for taking time to provide your feedback to the editors.

Your feedback is important to us. However, we do not guarantee individual replies due to the high volume of messages.

E-mail the story

Your email address is used only to let the recipient know who sent the email. Neither your address nor the recipient's address will be used for any other purpose. The information you enter will appear in your e-mail message and is not retained by Phys.org in any form.

Newsletter sign up

Get weekly and/or daily updates delivered to your inbox. You can unsubscribe at any time and we'll never share your details to third parties.

More information Privacy policy

Donate and enjoy an ad-free experience

We keep our content available to everyone. Consider supporting Science X's mission by getting a premium account.

E-mail newsletter

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

This article is part of the research topic.

Advancing inclusive education for students with special educational needs: Rethinking policy and practice

Inclusive education in the Dominican Republic: teachers' perceptions of and practices towards students with diverse learning needs Provisionally Accepted

• 1 University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Students with diverse learning needs, particularly those with disabilities or identified as overaged, face significant challenges within the Dominican Republic’s education system, characterized by high repetition and dropout rates, as well as low learning levels. Despite efforts by the Ministry of Education to promote inclusion, these learners often have limited access to quality pedagogical support. This is further confounded by the fact that there is a paucity of research examining how teachers perceive and interact with these learners. This ethnographic study investigated teachers’ perceptions of inclusion in two public schools and how these perceptions shaped their pedagogical practices. The authors draw on observations and interviews to illuminate how teachers’ perceptions of their students, their schools, and their classroom environments influence their commitment to facilitating student learning, irrespective of student age or ability. The findings contribute valuable insights to inform strategies for enhancing inclusive education in the Dominican Republic.

Keywords: Inclusive education, Latin America and the Caribbean, Teachers' perceptions, pedagogy, ethnography

Received: 16 Feb 2024; Accepted: 09 Apr 2024.

Copyright: © 2024 D'Angelo and Singal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Mx. Nidhi Singal, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 1TN, England, United Kingdom

People also looked at

• Skip to Content
• Skip to Main Navigation
• Skip to Search

Indiana University Indiana University IU

• Current Issue
• Issues and Articles Archive
• Issues archive
• All articles
• Featured Stories
• Taking Note
• Food for Thought
• How to Tech
• On the Lighter Side
• Catching Up

The Connected Professor A fresh look at teaching and learning with technology at IU

Considering the two Es: Experience and Environment

The evolution of IU's Mosaic Active Learning Initiative and its Faculty Fellows program

• 2024 Spring
• Considering the two Es, experience and environment

The Mosaic Initiative leads university-wide conversations around active learning and the evolving needs of IU's learning environments. The Mosaic Faculty Fellows program inspires many of these conversations through opportunities for faculty to explore active learning approaches, to reflect on how these approaches work and change in different learning environments, and to influence course design and technology selection at IU.

This year, the Mosaic Faculty Fellows program is moving away from its usual single, campus-specific cohort of fellows to three cross-campus cohorts of fellows, with expanded focuses on engaging students everywhere they learn and placing more emphasis on inclusion. Each cohort is exploring active learning in a particular area—hybrid learning environments, online learning environments, and inclusive and accessible learning environments.

Miranda Rodak, hybrid lead, reflects on Mosaic's evolution

Whatever the modality, I think everything begins with the two E's: experience and environment. It can be overwhelming to think in terms of all the technology and tools available to us. Instead, I encourage faculty to start by asking "What kind of learning experience do I want my students to have?" "What kind of learning experience supports my students' needs and goals, and drives my learning outcomes?"

In this issue

• A letter from the editor about this issue
• From Speed Dating to Teach, Play, Learn
• Anatomy of an effective active learning exercise
• Rethinking how we assign classrooms
• Active learning resource roundup
• Create meaningful engagement
• ICYMI: In Case You Missed It

From there, it becomes much easier to then take up the question of learning environment. With a clear vision of the experience in mind, you can then think creatively and practically about what kind of environment best serves that experience. Alternately, if you don't have a lot of control over the environment, then having that vision equips you to analyze your environment—whether it's online, in-person, or blended—and determine how both the affordances and limitations will impact the delivery of your intended experience.

IU has incredible resources—not just technologies and tools but people and support programs—to help faculty think through this relationship of experience and environment. Mosaic is powerful because it provides a hub where faculty can come together to learn from each other, collaboratively produce new ideas, models, and knowledge, and get plugged into IU's rich resources to empower active, engaged, inclusive learning experiences for students.

Introducing the new Fellows cohorts

Active learning in hybrid learning environments

A few words from cohort lead Miranda Rodak, Director of Undergraduate Teaching and Clinical Associate Professor, Department of English, IU Bloomington:

I'm inspired by the way Mosaic is shifting—moving away from a framework of "learning space" toward thinking more expansively about "learning environment." This shift will keep IU at the leading edge of active learning in higher education. It's especially important as we embrace a post-pandemic landscape that requires adopting more multimodal and multi-experiential ways of learning, thinking, and doing. I'm excited to lead the first cohort explicitly investigating hybrid learning and teaching. " Hybrid " means many things to many people, including hyflex , bichronous , and more.

As I lead this cohort, I want to empower faculty not to think they are supposed to have all the right answers but, rather, that they need to be asking the right questions—of themselves, their students, and their learning and institutional context—in order to leverage the right resources and create the most effective course designs. This includes understanding that any (and every!) version of "hybrid" comes with affordances and constraints. Flexibility is the key, but it carries costs—on faculty labor, on faculty and students' cognitive load, on technological resources and infrastructure, etc. Part of our work, then, is to think carefully about these affordances and constraints and to design our learning experiences with them in mind.

Fellows’ perspectives and introduction to the hybrid cohort

Weejeong Jeong, Lecturer in East Asian Languages and Cultures at IU Bloomington, relates this opportunity to the needs of students, noting that: " Gen Z students thrive in learning environments that involve hands-on experiences, often incorporating technology, proceeding at their own pace, and engaging in bite-size learning. In response, I am eager to delve into various hybrid learning and teaching environments, exploring modalities applicable to hybrid settings, and discovering effective approaches to active learning. "

A'ame Joslin, Clinical Assistant Professor of Education Policy Studies at IU Columbus, also hopes to collaborate on teaching and learning practices with colleagues across IU and across disciplines: " I'm eager to see how we can use the current technology (or update our options!) to create inclusive, welcoming, and accessible environments for students learning in person and those who are learning online. I hope to redesign a course using the new Science of Reading curriculum to meet the needs of our hybrid learners. "

Here are the eight Fellows in the hybrid cohort:

• Carly Bennett , Assistant Clinical Professor, School of Health and Human Sciences, IU Fort Wayne
• Hong Chen , Assistant Professor, Informatics, School of Business and Economics, IU East
• Ann Huntoon , Senior Lecturer, School of Public Health, Department of Kinesiology, IU Bloomington
• Weejeong Jeong , Lecturer, Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, IU Bloomington
• A'ame Joslin , Clinical Assistant Professor, Education Policy Studies, Division of Education, IU Columbus
• Brian Krohn , Associate Professor, School of Health and Human Sciences, Department of Tourism, Event & Sport Management, IU Indianapolis
• Lee Little , Research and Instruction Librarian & Adjunct Lecturer in Law, Ruth Lilly Law Library, Robert H. McKinney School of Law, IU Indianapolis
• Carrie Rector , Lecturer, Media Arts and Science, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, IU Indianapolis

Active learning in online learning environments

A few words from cohort lead Anna Greene, Group Manager, eLearning Design, University Information Technology Services (UITS), Indiana University:

As instructional designers who increasingly focus on the online space, it's a real privilege to facilitate these faculty conversations. The fellows are the experts in the room—each of them has something to offer as part of the cohort, whether it's a skill, a mindset, or a commitment. We provide context and resources, as needed, organizing the cohort's six sessions around things instructors often struggle with in online spaces (especially when focused on active learning): community building, learning experiences, discussions, engagement, group work, motivation. Much like online classes, these sessions model how to adapt to varying dynamics, like creating continuity between different facilitators and holding makeup sessions if people can't attend.

Session facilitators: Adam Bunnell, Karri Hamlett-Bedan, Carrie Hansel, Kim Murday, Renee Petrina, Jessica Rebstock, Maggie Ricci, Missy Ritchie, Kim Seeber, Maria Tobar (guest), Meg Zurlage

Fellows’ perspectives and introduction to the online cohort

Myesha Price, Associate Professor in Counseling and Educational Psychology at IU Bloomington, speaks for many of the fellows in saying " The vast majority of my experience in engaging students in active learning has been with in-person teaching. However, as we begin to adopt more online teaching modalities, as ways to make learning and the education experience more accessible to a variety of students, I would also like to adopt more active learning approaches. This is particularly difficult in asynchronous courses. I am hoping to learn how to better engage students with the material in hopes that the online courses I teach allow all students to thrive. "

Senior Mosaic Fellow Subir Bandyopadhyay, Professor of Marketing at IU Northwest, would like to work with the other fellows and facilitators to " perform a thorough survey of the different active learning methods used in different online learning environments and evaluate their effectiveness. Based on the survey findings, I will develop a template for effective active learning techniques suitable for the online environment. This template will help faculty members in choosing the right active learning methods for their classes. "

Here are the 16 Fellows in the online cohort:

• Jared Allsop , Clinical Assistant Professor, School of Public Health, Department of Health & Wellness Design, IU Bloomington
• Subir Bandyopadhyay , Professor, School of Business and Economics, IU Northwest
• Jaclyn Barkow , Clinical Assistant Professor of Accounting, School of Business and Economics, IU Northwest
• Kimberly Carballo , Senior Lecturer, Jacobs School of Music, Department of Chamber and Collaborative Music, IU Bloomington
• Jokima Hiller , Assistant Professor, School of Business and Economics, IU Northwest
• Stephanie Baranko Lincoln , Clinical Assistant Professor, School of Nursing, IU Northwest
• Yan Liu , Assistant Professor, Management, School of Business & Economics, IU East
• Jacob Miller , Lecturer, College of Arts + Sciences, Department of Sociology, IU Bloomington
• Peter Nemes , Senior Lecturer, Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, Department of International Studies, IU Bloomington
• Sandra Ortiz , Senior Lecturer, College of Arts + Sciences, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, IU Bloomington
• Myeshia Price , Associate Professor, School of Education, Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology, IU Bloomington
• Eric Sader , Lecturer, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Law & Ethics, IU Bloomington
• Lamia Sherzinger , Senior Lecturer, School of Health & Human Sciences, Department of Kinesiology, IU Indianapolis
• Kevin Slates , Clinical Associate Professor, School of Public Health, Department of Applied Health Science, IU Bloomington
• Megan Young , Lecturer, Digital Art, Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design, IU Bloomington
• Louie Zhu , Senior Lecturer, Informatics, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, IU Indianapolis

Active learning in inclusive and accessible learning environments

A few words from cohort lead Michael Mace, Manager, UITS Assistive Technology and Accessibility Centers, Indiana University:

I am so proud and happy that Mosaic wanted to add a cohort on inclusion in the active learning space. We (as instructors) frequently forget that we bring our whole selves into the classroom, and so do our students. With those whole selves come all the learned behaviors, unconscious biases, fears, disabilities, backgrounds, and beliefs. This creates so many filters of perception between the student and the faculty member, it's a wonder that we can communicate and learn at all. It's important to acknowledge and recognize those filters and the potential barriers when designing active learning experiences for our students so that we can ensure we move all learners forward.

Fellows' perspectives and introduction to the inclusive and accessible cohort

Kimberly Arnold, Lecturer in Chemistry at IU Bloomington, centers a concern echoed by several Mosaic Fellows in the 2024 cohorts: Lowering DFW rates, or the percentage of students who finish a course with a D or F grade, or who Withdraw from the course entirely (some instructors also expand this to DFWI, including students who finish with an Incomplete). These numbers often include high numbers for students from minoritized groups, especially for large-enrollment preparatory courses.

Lin Zheng, Clinical Professor of Accounting at IU Indianapolis, notes that " students learn more effectively and efficiently when their diversity is considered in learning activities… My goal as a Mosaic Fellow this year is to continue learning and exploring strategies to accommodate learning diversity as brought by students' background, abilities, and needs. I would implement learning activities in my courses to leverage such diversity for individual learning and for the whole class. "

Here are the 13 Fellows in the inclusive and accessible cohort:

• Benjamin Ale-Ebrahim , Lecturer, Kelley School of Business, Department of Communication, Professional, and Computer Skills, IU Bloomington
• Kimberly Arnold , Lecturer, College of Arts + Sciences, Department of Chemistry, IU Bloomington
• Xin Chen , Lecturer, Kelley School of Business, Department of Communication, Professional, and Computer Skills, IU Bloomington
• Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick , Professor of English, Division of Liberal Arts, IU Columbus
• Heaven Hollender , Clinical Assistant Professor, School of Health & Human Sciences, Department of Health Sciences, IU Indianapolis
• Jennifer Lale , Lecturer, College of Arts + Sciences, Department of Theatre, Drama, and Contemporary Dance, IU Bloomington
• Pamela Laucella , Associate Professor, School of Liberal Arts, Department of Journalism and Public Relations, IU Indianapolis
• Hassnaa Mohammed , Assistant Professor, Interior Design, Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design, IU Bloomington
• Joe Packowski , Lecturer, Kelley School of Business, Department of Communication, Professional, and Computer Skills, IU Bloomington
• Logan Paul , Senior Lecturer, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, IU Bloomington
• Carolyn Runge , Visiting Lecturer, Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health, Department of Community and Global Health, IU Indianapolis
• Todd Shelton , Lecturer, Media Arts and Science, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, IU Indianapolis
• Lin Zheng , Clinical Professor of Accounting, Kelley School of Business, IU Indianapolis

The Connected Professor A fresh look at teaching and learning with technology at IU resources and social media channels

Additional links and resources.

This is an official publication of Indiana University and is produced by UITS Learning Technologies (LT). Subscription is automatic for IU instructors of record and members of the extended LT team. Please email comments and questions to [email protected] .

Visit Mosaic Initiative , Teaching.IU , Teaching for Student Success , Digital Gardener Initiative , IT Training , IU Knowledge Base —not to mention your campus teaching and learning center —for more on topics related to this issue.

• Publications

INFORMATION FOR

• Residents & Fellows
• Researchers

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Update (April 2024)

The April showers continue. . .

Recruitment

Our forty-person delegation trip to the Annual Medical Education Conference 2024 last month was a phenomenal success. We had the privilege of interacting with thousands of URiM medical students and showing them who we are at Yale, what we value, and what we aspire to. Our Yale trainees across various programs and departments did an excellent job showcasing our inclusive climate and outstanding training opportunities. There, in partnership with the Deputy Dean and Chief Diversity Officer for Yale School of Medicine (YSM), Darin Latimore, MD , we held a successful mixer for medical students. In addition, the Yale delegation had a celebratory dinner in honor of Doctors Day on March 28; we celebrated and thanked our trainees for the excellent care they deliver to our patients and their contribution to our learning climate at Yale.

Next on our recruitment agenda and map is the National Medical Association (NMA) Conference in New York from August 4 - 7. The NMA is a professional organization for Black or African American physicians. There, our focus will be on faculty opportunities and open positions across all our clinical departments. We will also showcase graduate and undergraduate medical education training opportunities at Yale. At the NMA conference, Dean Nancy J. Brown, MD, will hold a Black Yale Alumni reception. Our exhibition at the NMA conference is a partnership between the YSM Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Internal Medicine (ODEIM), and the YSM and Yale New Haven Hospital Graduate Medical Education DEI Office.

Our Department of Medicine Inclusion Climate Survey is still open. Thanks to all who have completed the survey. If you have not yet completed the survey, please do so via this secure and confidential link via this link hosted by The Barthwell Group (a management consulting firm administering the survey). It is extremely important that we hear from everyone on issues related to inclusivity within our department. The Barthwell Group ( [email protected] ) will continue to send weekly reminders; please check your junk mail if you do not see them in your inbox. We will be transparent with the results and will share them by July 2024.

The Department of Medicine Mentorship and Sponsorship retreat is set for Wednesday, June 12. The audience will be senior faculty and section chiefs. We hope to enhance and standardize faculty mentorship experience, which incorporates the FDAQ process, and cultivate a culture of career sponsorship within the department. We will send out a survey to section chiefs seeking input on FDAQ-related mentoring within sections to inform the conversation at the retreat.

ODEIM Tools

On March 25, Aba Black, MD, MHS , and I presented our DEI Productivity Calculator at the Association of American Medical Colleges Group on Diversity and Inclusion National Professional Development Conference in Philadelphia. Our project garnered much interest from DEI champions and leaders from various academic medical centers. We were able to recruit many people for our study geared at calibrating the DEI activity impact score generated by the DEI Productivity Calculator. As our study continues, we will generate DEI-related activity metrics and benchmarks to enhance the promotion evaluation processes at academic centers nationwide. We are excited about this and hope to obtain buy-in from the Association of American Medical Colleges and DEI leaders at academic medical centers nationwide. At YSM, I will present a faculty development workshop titled Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Activities and the Academic Review Process. This is a part of the YSM Office of Academic & Professional Development seminar series.

Upcoming Talks

Don’t miss our next Equity Begins with Everyone (EBE) gathering on Monday, April 15 at noon in Fitkin Auditorium and on Zoom. This time, we will have a guest speaker, Alejandra Olvia , a genetic counselor at Yale, who will give a talk titled “Beyond the Binary: Current Recommendations for Gender Inclusive Practices in Medicine." We will continue our theme of sourcing food from different parts of the world.

Below are the secular and religious events during April:

• World Autism Awareness Day is commemorated on April 2.
• Muslims observe their holiest night of the year on April 6 with Laylat al-Qadr .
• Ramadan, a holy month for those who practice Islam, ends on April 9 with a three-celebration called Eid al-Fitr.
• Observers of the Jewish faith celebrate Passover from April 22 to April 30.
• April 22 also marks the 54th celebration of Earth Day .

If you haven’t participated in our monthly column, “Voices of DEI,” please consider doing so. These columns are featured on the Internal Medicine website and social media channels. If you wish to be a featured voice of DEI, please complete the survey at this link .

I am committed to supporting and expanding DEI efforts within the Department of Internal Medicine; please join me. Equity begins with everyone. Together, we strive. Together, we rise. Together, we shine.

Respectfully Yours,

Benjamin Mba, MBBS, MRCP (UK), CHCQM, FACP

Vice Chair, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for the Department of Internal Medicine

Graduate Medical Education Director for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion & Associate Designated Institutional Official for Yale New Haven Hospital and Yale School of Medicine.

Pronouns: He/Him/His

• Diversity and Inclusion

Featured in this article

• Benjamin Mba, MBBS Professor of Medicine (General Medicine); Vice Chair, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Department of Internal Medicine; Graduate Medical Education Director for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion & Associate Designated Institutional Official, Yale New Haven Hospital & Yale School of Medicine