Mainstreaming in education
Mainstreaming in education refers to the practice of integrating students with disabilities into regular classrooms for all or part of the school day. This approach emerged in response to legislative changes aimed at ensuring that children with disabilities have equal access to education alongside their peers. Key laws, such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), advocate for individualized education plans (IEPs) to cater to the unique needs of each student, emphasizing the importance of social interactions and reducing stigma. However, the implementation of mainstreaming has faced challenges, including disparities in how disabilities are assessed among different demographic groups and the practicality of accommodating diverse learning needs within standard classrooms.
Educators have explored various strategies, such as resource rooms and collaborative teaching, to effectively support mainstreamed students. While mainstreaming has demonstrated benefits, including improved academic outcomes for students with disabilities, schools often confront issues related to resource allocation, teacher training, and overall preparedness to meet these students' needs. The ongoing debate about what constitutes the "least restrictive environment" highlights the complexities involved in creating inclusive educational settings. Despite these challenges, mainstreaming remains a significant focus in efforts to foster an equitable educational landscape for all students.
Mainstreaming in education
Instructional practice in which all students of the same age learn together, regardless of capability
Mainstreaming was developed to ensure students with disabilities had equal access to public education. Making it work required significant resources and reform of existing educational strategies.
From the 1920s to the 1970s, students with disabilities were taught separately from other students. That practice changed when Congress passed laws to ensure that students with disabilities were not discriminated against. In 1973, Congress passed the Rehabilitation Act. By 1975, that law was joined by the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, which was reauthorized in 1990 as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). These laws aimed to allow children with disabilities to benefit from social associations with their peers (and vice versa). The strategy was called “mainstreaming.” Children with disabilities were allowed in regular classrooms for all or part of the school day. Activists began to explore the feasible boundaries of such inclusiveness. They took their cues from the civil rights era, hoping that no child would be sidelined into unacceptable “separate but equal” learning. They wanted to lessen the stigma for children with disabilities, advocating that each student receive an individualized education plan (IEP) tailored to his or her needs. These plans engaged all the stakeholders in a child’s education: the child, the relatives, the school, and medical experts.
The Courts Weigh In
In 1982, the Supreme Court issued a decision in Board of Education of the Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley. The Court determined that schools are not obliged to provide services to maximize a child’s potential and that schools, rather than external arbiters, should decide what is appropriate educationally. During the 1980s, the states further defined inclusion in such US Court of Appeals cases as Roncker v. Walter (1983), Devries v. Fairfax County School Board (1989), and Briggs v. Board of Education (1989). By 1989, the federal courts began to order schools to institute mainstreaming. The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Daniel R. R. v. State Board of Education (1989) clearly expected schools to do more than make a token gesture. Instead, it said that the schools must be prepared to teach children with disabilities by providing them in advance with the necessary aids and services.
Educators Face Problems in Mainstreaming
While the courts were deliberating, educators saw three problem areas. First, boys were being classified as having disabilities much more often than were girls. Minority students, such as African Americans, Latinos, and non-native English speakers, were also classified more often. Educators wondered how poverty, gender, and race factored into the situation: Did these students really have a disability, or were the schools’ assessment tools skewed?
Second, there were limits to the feasibility of mainstreaming. Perhaps a student with a behavioral disorder, despite much assistance, remained too disruptive to the rest of the class. Schools had to figure out what to do in such cases. Many schools tried “resource rooms,” where mainstreamed students could go for part of the day for individualized tutoring or small-group instruction. Some schools brought another teacher into the classroom to give extra assistance to students who needed it. Throughout the decade, educators and parents sought to define the legal phrase “least restrictive environment,” which specified one of the requirements for students with disabilities. For each child, they tried to find out the type of setting that gave the greatest exposure to other students but that still provided that child with the best instruction.
Third, most American schools were simply not yet prepared to institute mainstreaming in practice, even once they figured out how to do so in theory. As a result, there could be no quick fix to the problem. Even those who were convinced that mainstreaming was the right thing to do did not yet understand what it entailed in terms of necessary resources and expenditures. Thus, schools instituting mainstreaming had to take careful stock of its impact on the classroom. They had to make sure that their teachers were adequately trained, that the classrooms were equipped with necessary physical aids, and that appropriate teaching assistance was provided. Teachers had to begin to learn how to teach in more dynamic, sensory ways. Schools started to realize that there were other issues to work on, such as engaging parents in the process, arranging transportation for students, funding programs in urban and rural areas, hiring qualified staff, and providing home tutoring. There was no consensus as to what kind of diploma a graduating mainstreamed student should receive.
Several institutes were set up to address all these questions. The Badger School, in Madison, Wisconsin, was created as a school for students with severe disabilities, while the Juniper Garden Project at the University of Kansas conducted research focused on students of color with disabilities. Congress passed more laws to aid the adoption of mainstreaming. In 1983, Public Law 98-199 included funds to prepare students with disabilities for the transition from school to the workplace. In 1986, Public Law 99-457 expanded governmental intervention to aid children with disabilities, instituting programs designed to help such children from birth.
Impact
Mainstreaming became the preferred method for educating students with disabilities and has shown a number of benefits, including higher academic achievement among students with disabilities. The courts defined the parameters of such students’ inclusion in mainstream classrooms and began to order that such inclusion take place. Schools started to offer services from birth through the transition to employment, helping students with disabilities to become productive members of society without segregating them from the general student population.
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