Inclusion (education)

Overview

Inclusion in education refers to classrooms in which all students, regardless of their abilities and backgrounds, receive equal opportunities. A fully inclusive classroom includes students with special needs as well as those without them. Inclusion also refers to diversity; it may include students with different cognitive abilities, backgrounds, and cultures.

Inclusion differs from “mainstreaming,” which requires students with disabilities as well as those with exceptional abilities to complete the same assignments as other students in a general classroom. Inclusion, on the other hand, refers to diverse classrooms that include students of varying cognitive abilities, races, and socio-economic backgrounds but modifies their assignments as needed and offers assistance from special education teachers and teacher aides.

Although children with disabilities are frequently addressed when discussing classroom inclusivity, educational inclusion dates to the 1954 landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education. In Brown, the US Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to separate children of different races in public schools. That unanimous decision ultimately laid the groundwork for the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, also known as Public Law 94-142 of EHA, which was signed into law in 1975. In 1990, the EHA was renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and amendments to the act were added. In 2022, 67 percent of American children with disabilities spent at least 80 percent of their school day in general education classrooms.

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), signed by President Barack Obama in 2015, supports educational access to all children regardless of socio-economic status, race, cognitive ability, language, or other historically marginalized marker. As classrooms become more diverse, specifically in the United States, debates have begun as to what extent inclusive public education should extend to non-English speakers. Teaching English as a second language (ESL) requires funding for additional resources and training in classrooms. Some school districts dealing with decreased budgets, however, have opted to fully immerse ESL students in classrooms with English-speaking students, thereby negating the need of a separate ESL teacher or additional ESL classes. However, some question if including non-fluent English speakers in traditionally paced classes is truly providing an equal education to all, especially at the high school level when content areas are more specialized.

Applications

US public schools have a long history of segregation and non-inclusivity. Segregation continued in the South after the end of the Civil War (1861–1865) with the passage of Jim Crow Laws. These laws allowed schools to maintain policies of discrimination and segregation. Students with disabilities also faced similar treatment. Those with serious disabilities were often not permitted to attend schools and were instead institutionalized in facilities that provided them only with food and shelter. Those with mild disabilities were educated in public schools but were separated from the general school population. They were often taught by special education teachers in a separate area of the school or even in another building. Legislation was passed in the United States in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to attempt to end segregation and non-inclusivity.

The Brown v. Board of Education (1954) Supreme Court decision changed the face of public schools and upset the 1896 Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson that called for “separate but equal” public facilities. According to Brown v. Board of Education, separate but equal opportunities were unconstitutional, and not truly equal for those involved. The landmark Supreme Court case involved five cases that dealt with public school segregation: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Briggs v. Elliot, Davis v. Board of Education of Prince Edward County (Va.), Bolling v. Sharpe,and Gebhart v. Ethel (The Road to Brown). The most well-known case, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, was initiated by Oliver Brown after his daughter, Linda, was not allowed to attend one of Topeka’s all-white elementary schools. Brown argued that the schools for Black children were not equal to the schools for White children. The U.S. District Court in Kansas agreed that public school segregation had a “detrimental effect” on Black children. However, it upheld the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling of “separate but equal.”

Thurgood Marshall, a civil rights attorney who later became the Supreme Court’s first African-American justice, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund handled the Topeka case, as well as the four others that led to Brown v. Board of Education. After the US District Court in Kansas upheld the separate but equal ruling, Marshall appealed the five cases to the Supreme Court, where they were consolidated. On May 14, 1954, the justices, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, unanimously gave the opinion that separate but equal was unconstitutional. On May 31, 1955, more than one year later, the justices announced a plan to desegregate public schools in the United States. Desegregation, however, was not immediate. Other actions, including Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, as well as demonstrations by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which truly began the desegregation process.

Although Brown v. Board of Education focused on race, scholars credit it with laying the foundation for future laws regarding disability. The US Supreme Court ruled that “separate but equal” was inherently unequal, opening doors for other marginalized groups to fight for inclusive educational opportunities. In 1965, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed into law the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). ESEA’s purpose was to close the achievement gap between children from low-income households who attended urban or rural public schools and middle-class children who attended suburban public schools. The law was part of Johnson’s War on Poverty and focused on math, reading, and writing as a means to break away from the cyclical nature of poverty. In 1966 and in 1967, amendments were made to ESEA to include “Aid to Handicapped Children” and “Bilingual Education Programs,” respectively.

In 1975, President Gerald Ford signed into law the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (Public Law 94-142 or AHA). The Act followed the same premise as the US Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision and ensured children with disabilities a place in public school systems in the least restrictive environment possible. In 1990, the act was reauthorized (Public Law 110-476) by President Bill Clinton and its name changed to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Autism and traumatic brain injuries were also added to the disability category, and changes were made to the requirements for students’ individualized education programs (IEPs). In 1997, the reauthorization of IDEA (Public Law 105-17) placed a greater emphasis on inclusion and access to general education classes and curriculum “to the maximum extent possible."

President George W. Bush passed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 200l. NCLB became the primary law overseeing kindergarten through twelfth grades in public schools and worked in tandem with IDEA. The law held schools accountable for meeting certain standards. If those standards were not met repeatedly, parents had the option to transfer their children to another school. NCLB was controversial for a variety of reasons. Opponents argued that it required teachers to only teach the skills required to pass standardized tests and penalized already cash-strapped districts that had to find money to fund tutoring programs or hire learning assistants. Opponents also said it was not good for students with disabilities who were in general education classes but unable to score as proficient as the benchmarks indicated. This sentiment further fueled the argument made by those who were against inclusion. Although NCLB was supposed to provide more opportunities to marginalized students, opponents, including a number of teachers, disagreed.

By the mid-2000s, the requirements of NCLB became increasingly problematic for school districts. In 2015, NCLB was replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), signed by President Barack Obama on December 10 of that year. ESSA reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 and took full effect in the 2017–2018 school year. ESSA provides educational protection for those who are part of disadvantaged and/or marginalized groups. The act includes subgroups for evaluating and assessing students. These include race and ethnicity, students with disabilities, students from low-income families, and English learners.

Further Insights

Creating inclusive educational environments are not without debate. Opponents argue that inclusion creates a further divide between the haves and have-nots and students who are not from the marginalized groups may be held back by those who have a disability or do not have English as their first language. Similarly, others question if students who need additional support are best served in environments where their unique challenges are not dealt with first and foremost. However, proponents of inclusion in education maintain that it does not mean forgetting those challenges. From a disability perspective, inclusion deals not only with an equal education, but also an equitable one.

Although the terms equality and equity are often used interchangeably, they do not have the same meaning. “Equality” refers to providing the same opportunities for everyone, while equity involves providing the necessary supports and accommodations so that the outcome, as opposed to the process, is more likely to be equal. In the case of creating an inclusive environment for students with disabilities, it is not enough to simply place the student in a classroom that favors students without disabilities. Instead, the student should be placed in a classroom that is prepared to welcome students with varying abilities and help them succeed. Universal design is one way to encourage this. This is not only a proactive approach to dealing with disabilities, but also a way to include and involve everyone. Aspects of universal design include equitable use, flexibility, intuitive use, low physical effort, perceptible information, size and space for approach and use, and tolerance for error. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is similar to universal design in that it provides opportunities to reach as many students as possible through a variety of teaching techniques. It encourages learning motivation and various ways for students to express knowledge, as well as unique ways for educators to present information. Inclusive education places all students together in the same classrooms with the necessary accommodations or modifications needed to help them succeed. This creates not only an equal education environment, but a more equitable one.

Inclusive classrooms are not exclusive to students with disabilities. Those students who speak a language other than English may be placed in an inclusive classroom. The effectiveness of taking an immersive approach with English learners (ELs) has been debated. Some studies show that ELs will learn English more quickly when they are engaged in specialized language programs, while others state that languages are learned best through complete immersion. Opponents also question if teachers must slow down their curriculum instruction to increase the potential of ELs learning the material. California is one of the states that has chosen to take a full inclusion approach to public education. The approach provides ELs with $10 million for Effective Language Acquisition Programs (ELAP) grants or language acquisition services; however, all class instruction is conducted only in English. Student fluency is not considered.

Issues

The United States is not alone in navigating how to effectively provide inclusive education to its students. UNICEF, originally named the United Nations International Emergency Children’s Fund, considers inclusive education “the most effective way to give all children a fair chance to go to school, learn, and develop the skills they need to survive." It actively supports inclusive education through four areas: advocacy, awareness-raising, capacity building, and implementation support. UNICEF also provides basic guidance to governments interested in creating inclusive education systems. UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, also advocates for inclusive education. According to UNESCO’s 2020 Global Education Monitoring Report, titled Inclusion and Education: All Means All, when looking specifically at disability and education inclusion, laws in 25 percent of countries address education in separate settings; 10 percent deal with integration, and 17 percent address inclusion. The remaining countries deal with segregation and mainstreaming. The Special Olympics Global Center for Inclusion in Education, another organization that fights for educational inclusion worldwide, noted that policies have been quicker to move toward inclusive education than laws. Data from 2020 suggests that while 50 percent of countries still have policy provisions for partial segregation of children with disabilities, only 5 percent of countries have policy provisions for full segregation, and almost 40 percent have some inclusion policy in place.

Since the end of the twentieth century, there has been a push internationally to encourage inclusive education. The United Nation’s Education for All (EFA) movement has been at the forefront to make basic education accessible to everyone. In 1994, the World Conference on Special Needs Education included more than three hundred participants from ninety-two governments and twenty-five international organizations. EFA objectives were addressed, specifically stating that schools should serve all children, but particularly those with special educational needs. Proponents argued that beyond the educational benefits, inclusive education could be justified for social and economic reasons. More than two decades later, UNESCO released the Education 2030 Framework for Action. The publication stressed that all forms of inequalities and marginalization needed to be addressed so that “Education for All” actually included everyone. According to Mel Ainscow, an author and professor of education, part of the difficulty in moving forward internationally with inclusive education has to do with important key terms, such as equity and inclusion, meaning “different things to different people." Ainscow believes that creating universal definitions for such terms should be a starting point in achieving inclusive education.

Bibliography

"About IDEA." Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. sites.ed.gov/idea/about-idea/. Accessed 4 Jan. 2025.

Ainscow, Mel. "Promoting Inclusion and Equity in Education: Lessons from International Experiences." Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, vol. 6, no. 1, 2020, pp. 7-16. doi.org/10.1080/20020317.2020.1729587. Accessed 4 Jan 2025.

Chen, Grace. "Inclusion or Exclusion? The ESL Education Debate." Public School Review, 4 Aug. 2024, www.publicschoolreview.com/blog/inclusion-or-exclusion-the-esl-education-debate. Accessed 4 Jan. 2025.

“Education 2030: Incheon Declaration and SDG4 – Education 2030 Framework for Action.” UNESCO, 2015, unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000245656/PDF/245656eng.pdf.multi. Accessed 4 Jan. 2025.

“Fast Facts: Students with Disabilities, Inclusion of.” National Center for Education Statistics, nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=59. Accessed 4 Jan. 2025.

"Get to Know ESSA." Pennsylvania Evidence Resource Center, 2021, www.evidenceforpa.org/essa. Accessed 4 Jan. 2025.

"Global Education Monitoring Report Summary, 2020: Inclusion and Education: All Means All." UNESCO, 2020, unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000373721. Accessed 4 Jan. 2025.

"History—Brown v. Board of Education Re-Enactment." United States Courts. www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/history-brown-v-board-education-re-enactment. Accessed 4 Jan. 2025.

"Inclusive Education." UNICEF, www.unicef.org/education/inclusive-education. Accessed 4 Jan. 2025.

Inclusive Education. UNICEF, Sept. 2017, www.unicef.org/eca/sites/unicef.org.eca/files/IE‗summary‗accessible‗220917‗brief.pdf. Accessed 4 Jan. 2025.

Jodl, Jacqueline, and Maya Bian. Global State of Inclusion in Education: A Review of the Literature. Special Olympics Global Center for Inclusion in Education, Jan. 2023. Inclusive Education Initiative, www.inclusive-education-initiative.org/sites/iei/files/2023-01/108‗Global%20State%20of%20Inclusion‗Policy%20Brief‗V21.pdf. Accessed 4 Jan. 2025.

Kabasakal, Esma, et al. "Information Requirements and Sources of Families of Mainstreaming Students Elementary Education Model in Respect of Socioeconomic Development Levels." Florence Nightingale Journal of Nursing, vol. 28, no. 2, 2020, pp. 213-220. doi:10.5152/FNJN.2020.18049. Accessed 4 Jan. 2025.

Steinfeld, E., and J. Maisel. "What Is Universal Design?" Center for Inclusive Design and Environment Access, University at Buffalo, 2012, idea.ap.buffalo.edu/about/universal-design/. Accessed 4 Jan. 2025.

“The 2022-23 California Spending Plan.” Legislative Analyst's Office, California State Legislature, 24 Oct. 2022, lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4641. Accessed 4 Jan. 2025.