Inclusive Education

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TITLE: Inclusive Education
AUTHOR: Suzanne R. Kirschner
IN: W. George Scarlett (Ed.) Sage Encyclopedia of Classroom Management (Sage,
2015).
Inclusive education is an approach to schooling in which students with many different
kinds of disabilities and learning needs are educated in classes with non-disabled and
typically developing students. In an inclusive arrangement, students who need additional
supports and services spend most of their time with their non-disabled peers rather than in
separate classrooms or schools. This article begins with a brief consideration of the ways
inclusive education has been defined and an exploration of inclusion’s roots in broader
movements for civil rights in democratic societies. This is followed by a discussion of
the challenges of managing an inclusive classroom, along with several strategies that can
help teachers address these challenges through the creation of a “culture of inclusion.”
What is inclusive education?
There is no universally accepted definition of inclusion and no consensus on a
standardized set of procedures that must be followed in order to practice it. One way to
distinguish inclusion from another non-segregationist approach called mainstreaming is
that in an inclusive classroom, there is a strong emphasis on trying to meet the diverse
learning needs of all students without removing them from the classroom. By contrast,
when children with special needs are mainstreamed, it usually means (at least in

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principle) that everyone in the class is expected to follow one standard curriculum
regardless of their differences, or that particular children are taken out of the class for a
large proportion of the day to receive their lessons and services.
The term “inclusive education” is most often used to mean the inclusion of
persons with physical and mental impairments, such as sensory or mobility limitations,
intellectual disabilities, learning disabilities, language disorders, behavior disorders and
autism spectrum disorders. Some educators and theorists also use “inclusion” in a
broader sense, to refer to an educational system designed to ensure access for all groups
that have been marginalized in society and in schools. Thus, inclusion is sometimes
envisioned as the deliberate and self-conscious structuring of whole-school and
classroom environments so that they are accessible and congenial not only to students
with impairments, but also to those who can face exclusion or disempowerment due to
their ethnicity, social class, gender, culture, religion, immigration history or other
attributes. Because inclusion also has this broader meaning, it is sometimes endorsed as a
means of achieving a more comprehensive form of social justice.
Advocates of inclusion argue that it is a form of schooling that puts the values of a
democratic society into practice. Although there are multiple theories of democracy and
numerous perspectives on how to achieve social justice, it is generally accepted that
contemporary democratic societies are founded on the premise that all human beings
have equal worth and should have equal rights, including the right of access to education.
Proponents of inclusion emphasize an additional democratic moral imperative, which is a
responsibility to respect and respond to human diversity, including people’s limitations or

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impairments. They contend that in order to ensure truly universal access to education, a
principle of equity must be followed. Inclusion is grounded in the view that such equity
or fairness is best achieved by designing an educational system in which physical and
social environments, curricula, teaching methods and learning materials recognize and
support students’ diverse capabilities and needs.
Inclusion in the Context of Historical and Legal Trends
Inclusive education is an outgrowth of several social and political movements that have
emerged since the middle of the 20th century. In the United States, the Civil Rights
movement of the 1950s and 1960s intensified awareness that even in liberal democratic
societies, many individuals were still being excluded from social institutions, including
schools. By the late 1960s and 1970s, movements such as second-wave feminism, gay
rights, and disability rights arose in order to also combat other forms of exclusion such as
those due to gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or disability. One significant outcome
of these movements, both in the United States and in many other countries, was the
passage and implementation of laws and policies designed to ensure citizenship rights
and opportunities of all kinds, including access to education. In the United States, federal
and state laws were passed, mandating that children with disabilities were entitled to
public education and that the government and its schools must actively facilitate these
opportunities. The first such federal law was the Education for Handicapped Children Act
(EHA) in 1975. Legal theorist Martha Minow has pointed out that until the 1970s, many
children with disabilities did not have access to formal education, and the majority of

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those who did attend school were educated in separate classrooms or even segregated in
special schools During the 1970s and 1980s, owing to the passage of the EHA as well as
a number of state laws, a larger percentage of children with disabilities were provided
with educational opportunities and support. Much of this support continued to take the
form of special education classes or schools.
In 1990, the EHA was replaced by another federal law, the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The IDEA reflected and extended three already
existing trends. First, there was a growing insistence that communities be responsible for
educating children in their neighborhood schools, rather than segregating them in
separate schools or even in separate classrooms. Second, there was a related demand to
educate children in the “least restrictive environment.” Third, there was a move towards
more individualized assessment of children, in order to devise education plans that could
accommodate each child’s distinctive needs. The IDEA has undergone several revisions
and expansions in the years since it was first passed.
Many countries around the world have passed laws and instituted policies
implementing inclusion. Inclusive education has been also mandated by international and
non-governmental organizations. For example, the Salamanca statement of the United
Nations (1994) and the UNESCO Dakar “World Declaration on Education for All”
(2000) note the importance of inclusive schooling, both as a means of ensuring access to
educational opportunities for all children, and as a way to combat discriminatory attitudes
and to socialize rising generations to be more accepting of all kinds of diversity.

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In addition to these social, political and legal developments, there is another
factor contributing to the recent emphasis on inclusive education. This is an increase in
the number of children diagnosed with disabilities, specifically neurological and
psychiatric disorders. It is possible that there are more children with autism, ADHD and
other neurological impairments than there were in the past. However, the rise in such
diagnoses appears also to result from the increased focus on assessment and early
detection, along with an expansion in the number of diagnostic categories, the
development of new assessment technologies, and a lowering of diagnostic thresholds.
For all these reasons, there are currently many students in the United States who are
receiving services and are eligible for accommodations and modifications in educational
settings.
Management in the Inclusive Classroom: Challenges and Strategies
Teachers want to create environments in which all students can accomplish their best
learning. This can be especially daunting when the goal is a fully inclusive classroom.
Students often have widely disparate capabilities, learning styles, ways of expressing
themselves and modes of interacting with their physical and social environments. They
can diverge significantly in their abilities to focus and pay attention, sit still, make sense
of and respond to social cues, and regulate themselves in response to stimulation.
Sometimes, a student’s limitations and needs only become evident in the context of
particular classroom activities and interactions.

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Three types of challenges or dilemmas associated with inclusive education are
especially relevant to classroom management. First, there is the challenge of how to
create and maintain the order, structure, and safety that are necessary for a successful
learning environment. Classrooms, like all other social situations, involve routinized
activities and patterns of interaction. Teachers seek ways to include all their students in
the social rituals through which learning and community building take place; they also
strive to find creative, constructive ways to handle potential disruptions. Effective
management thus is not only about accommodating students’ learning needs, but also
about helping them regulate their behavior. Second, there is the challenge of how to
meet the learning, social and developmental needs of all students, both those who are
typically developing and those with special needs and impairments. Here, the goal is to
devise and implement academic and social curricula that can reach every child while also
maximizing each individual’s potential. Third, there is the challenge of how to confront
the ever-present risk of stigmatizing those who are perceived as “different.” In other
words, there is a need to recognize and to try to lessen the many forms of literal and
symbolic exclusion that may emerge, even in a setting that is devised to minimize these
problems.
Creating a culture of inclusion
There is no perfect answer to these dilemmas, no solutions that will work for all children,
and no standardized set of procedures that will fit all schools, grade levels, and situations.
However, all three of these concerns can be addressed through the creation of a “culture

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of inclusion.” Forging this kind of inclusive classroom culture is not simply a matter of
instituting particular practices, activities or lessons. Rather, many different practices and
other elements work together in mutually reinforcing and synergistic ways. Another
feature of effective inclusion is that teachers and other adults associated with the school
are able to collaborate, both inside and outside of the classroom. Over time, the adults
working in the classroom can become like the members of a well-functioning sports
team: each teacher is tacitly aware of what the others are doing at a given moment, and is
able to reflexively respond to situations in which additional support might be needed. In a
study of effective inclusive schools, researchers and policy specialists Thomas Hehir and
Lauren Katzman found that this collaborative mentality also pervades other aspects of the
school’s organization: teachers, administrators, service providers and parents are able to
work together to discern and address particular needs that students might have and
challenges that various stakeholders might face. They also point out that effective
inclusion is facilitated by a strong administrative leader who is able to inspire and
mobilize teachers, students, parents and service providers to work together. This leader
can encourage all stakeholders to bring a creative and open-minded approach to tackling
challenges, and can support teachers by providing the material and human resources they
need.
Three strategies for effective inclusion
Three ways to address these challenges are highlighted below. They are: (1) a flexible
approach to giving students the support they need; (2) an integration of universal design

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and differentiated instruction; and (3) the “normalization” of the reality of human
differences.
A flexible approach to providing support
In an effectively inclusive environment, teachers and staff are open to finding creative
ways of helping a child function in the class. The goal is to provide all children with what
they need in order to accomplish their best learning and to become members of the
classroom community. As mentioned above, a school day is made up of a series of social
rituals, in the sense that students and teachers engage in routinized interactions that are
repeated every day. In preschool and early elementary grades, these rituals can include
“dropoff,” “circle time,” “choice time,” “snack,” “rest time,” and “outdoor time.” In order
to participate in these rituals, some students require individualized forms of support. For
example, some young children need additional sensory input in order to sit quietly or pay
attention. During circle time in an inclusive class, one might observe children sitting in
several different kinds of seats, depending on what has been found (often through trial-
and-error) to work best for each particular child. These seats can include rocking chairs,
“beanbag” chairs, floor cushions, benches or (in a preschool class) even assistant
teachers’ laps. Other material supports that can help young children over the course of
the school day include weighted vests and “bear hugs” (a weighted blanket in which a
child can enfold himself) and indoor swings to aid with sensory integration. Some
children who need additional tactile or oral sensory input can also use objects such as
“fidget toys” and “chewies” (gum). Or they may need to take frequent breaks from

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focused or organized activities; often, a child can be taught to develop greater self-
awareness so that he becomes able to discern when an assistive object or break is needed.
As teachers get to know their students’ individual limitations and sensitivities,
they often can anticipate situations that are likely to prove especially difficult or overly
stimulating. They can take preemptive steps to minimize a student’s discomfort and
thereby help to preserve the harmony of the group. If the class is going on a field trip,
teachers and parents can prepare the child beforehand, explaining what to expect and
rehearsing what the class will be doing. If they think a special assembly or performance
might be overstimulating to a child, they can also try to arrange for a parent, caregiver or
other adult to be with her. For example, when a music performance took place at an early
elementary school, the teachers asked a relative of a very young child diagnosed with
sensory integration dysfunction to be there with her. This enabled the child to attend the
performance, because there was also a provision for her leave the room unobtrusively if
she began to show signs of distress.
In more advanced grades, where academic instruction takes up much of the day,
many different kinds of accommodations enable students to overcome limitations that
might interfere with their learning or their ability to demonstrate what they know. For
example, students who have fine motor impairments can use slanted writing boards, a
student who is unable to write her name can use a stamp, and a non-verbal student may
be able to communicate effectively using a text-to-sound (Kurzweil) machine. A visually
impaired student, who cannot see the board or screen from a distance, can be permitted to
get up from his chair and go to the front of the room to read what is written or displayed.

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All of these examples underscore a few basic themes: attentiveness to children’s
individual needs, flexibility and openness to trying new strategies, and a collaborative
attitude.
Integration of universal design and differentiated instruction
There are many ways to adapt pedagogical techniques, curricula and other aspects of
teaching and learning to the varied needs and abilities of students. Universal design and
differentiated instruction are two types of strategies that can make schooling accessible to
a wide range of learners. Much has been written about both strategies, sometimes
emphasizing the differences between them. In practice, however, they intersect and can
complement each other.
The term “universal design” refers to the construction of environments intended
to be accessible to everyone. Although often associated with the need to make physical
spaces accessible to those with motor or sensory impairments, the principle of universal
design is also relevant to other aspects of education. It can be applied to the way material
objects are used, as well as to how teachers plan and execute curricula. For example, in
many early elementary classes, children “sign in” when they arrive in the morning. This
is not only a technique for teaching children to spell their own names and read the names
of others, but also a ritual that helps them make the transition to starting the school day.

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In addition, adding one’s name to the list of one’s classmates fosters a sense of belonging
to the group. Recognizing how important it is for all children to engage in this ritual, a
kindergarten teacher, who had several children in her class who were unable to write their
names due to fine motor impairments, arranged for all her students to sign in by spelling
their names with magnetized letters they placed on a board.
Universal design can also involve building an individualized approach into the
way the curriculum is constructed and lessons are taught. There is an extensive literature
offering guidelines on how lessons and activities can be designed so that they provide
multiple ways for students with disabilities or different learning styles to access the
material and to show what they have learned. This type of curricular planning and
presentation is analogous to designing an elevator so that people can enter it using
walkers and wheelchairs as well as by walking unassisted, and so that the floor numbers
are perceptible not only visually, but also through touch (braille) and hearing (recorded
announcements).
While “universal design” denotes techniques that help make academic and social
aspects of school accessible to all learners, the concept of “differentiated instruction”
highlights the importance of tailoring what is taught, and how it is taught, to individual
students’ learning styles and differences. Differentiation can involve teaching the same
concepts in several different ways, so that there are multiple points of entry into the same
or similar material. But it can also involve teaching substantially different material to
different students. One debate within the field of inclusive education pits the view that
most students can be taught essentially the same things (albeit through adapted means)

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against the view that some students will require significantly different curricula and
learning goals.
“Normalizing” the reality of human differences
Inclusive educational practices do not deny or disavow the existence of differences,
including ability differences. Rather, a key element of effective inclusion is that it makes
differentiated needs and supports seem less strange or disturbing, by teaching children to
regard them as a routine fact of life. Thus, inclusive education is not only about
improving access and opportunity for those whose impairments might otherwise limit
them. It is also about making impairments less central to the way a child is viewed by
others, as well as to the way she sees herself.
With younger children, one way to make ability differences and needs seem more
ordinary is to allow all children in the class to become familiar with the devices and
services used by children with special needs. This is a strategy employed at the Eliot-
Pearson Children’s School, the early elementary laboratory school of Tufts University in
Massachusetts. Initially, objects designed for children with impairments or disorders (for
example, different types of seats, as well as chewies and writing boards) are made
available to all of the children to explore or even to try. One reason for this is that when
children are first getting to know each other, it is helpful not to have a child’s identity
strongly associated with his use of a particular type of assistive device. But the aim of
this strategy is not to induce dependency in children who do not need such adaptations.
Rather, it is just the beginning of a longer process whereby, over the course of weeks,

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only those children who really require accommodations “for their best learning” come to
use them. The point is not to make everything available to everyone, or to deny that
impairments and special needs exist. It is to routinize and normalize the fact that such
differences exist, including differences in the type and amount of support students need.
This is also the rationale behind another strategy used at this school, a strategy related to
how children receive services (e.g., occupational, physical and speech therapy). Instead
of taking a child out of the classroom, service providers often work with their clients
inside the classroom. And, whether they remain in the classroom or not, a child can ask a
friend (who is not necessarily receiving services) to accompany him when he works with
a service provider.
Inclusive education is also facilitated by lessons and activities that encourage
students (as well as adults) to reflect on the fact that everyone has strengths, as well as
limitations and areas they can try to improve. It is also helpful to offer formal and
informal lessons that promote empathy and perspective-taking. These dimensions of
inclusive education are important because effectively managing an inclusive classroom
has as much to do with influencing all students’ sense of self and relationships, as it does
with developing teaching techniques that are accessible to, and maximize the potential of,
all students.
Concluding Reflections
Inclusive education has many strong proponents but has also drawn criticism. A
number of different concerns have been raised, both by educators and by parents, only

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three of which will be noted here. First, while some advocates insist that all children can
be successfully educated in this way, others raise questions about the limits of inclusion
and its ability to work well for everyone, particularly as some children get into later
elementary school and beyond. A second concern, which is a perennial challenge for all
democratic institutions that strive for equality and fairness, is how to balance needs of
those who require extra attention and resources against the needs of typically developing
children. A third concern has to do with the need for resources. In order for inclusive
education to be viable, teachers and schools need to be given sufficient financial and
material resources, training and other forms of support.
Author: Suzanne R. Kirschner, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA
Cross-references: Autistic children: Including in classrooms; Children with hearing
impairments; Deaf students; Differentiated instruction; Disability and Classroom
Management

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Further Readings
Florian, L. (2008). Special or inclusive education: Future trends. British Journal of
Special Education, 35, 202-208.
Enslin, P & Hedge, N. (2010). Inclusion and diversity. In R. Bailey, R. Barrow, D. Carr
& C. McCarthy (Eds.), The Sage handbook of philosophy of education (Ch. 26, pp. 385-
400). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Hall, T., Strangman, N. & Meyer, A. (2009) Differentiated instruction and implications
for UDL implementation. Retrieved July 10, 2013 from
http://aim.cast.org/sites/aim.cast.org/files/DI_UDL.1.14.11.pdf
Hehir, T. & Katzman, L.I. (2012). Effective inclusive schools: Designing successful
schoolwide programs. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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Hick, P. & Thomas, G. (Eds.) (2008). Inclusion and diversity in education: Mapping the
field. London: Sage.
Kirschner, S.R. (2012). How not to other the other: Scenes from a psychoanalytic clinic
and an inclusive classroom. Journal of theoretical and philosophical psychology, 32,
214-229.
McLeskey, J. & Waldron, N.L. (2000). Inclusive schools in action: Making differences
Ordinary. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Minow, M. (1991). Making all the difference: Inclusion, exclusion and American law.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Minow, M., Shweder, R. & Markus, H. (Eds.). (2008). Just schools: Pursuing equality
in societies of difference (pp. 254-290). New York: Russell Sage.
Shakespeare, T. (2006). Disability rights and wrongs. New York: Routledge.
Tomlinson, C.A (1999). The differentiated classroom: Responding to the needs of all
learners. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Tomlinson, C.A. & Imbeau, M. (2010). Leading and managing in a differentiated
classroom. Alexandria, VA: Association for supervision and curriculum development.

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