Making Inclusion Work Research Articles

Meaningful Connections: Making Inclusion Work

For many years, students with disabilities were educated in separate facilities on separate campuses from their same aged peers. With the original passing of what we now call the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, these students were, and still are, required to be educated in the least restricted environment. Students with disabilities who had previously been separated were brought into their neighborhood schools. As we continue to see more and more students with disabilities in inclusive schools and classrooms, it is important that we work together and collaborate with other teachers and therapists in our schools to provide the best education to these students.

Making Inclusion Work With Co-Teaching

Making Inclusion Work With Co-Teaching

Making Inclusion Work in General Education Classrooms

The goal of any educational program is to help students maximize their performance. For many students with disabilities, the environment in which to achieve this outcome is under continuing debate and sometimes diminishes the likelihood of achievement. As a result of a long and sometimes difficult history of treatment, individuals with disabilities experience educational professionals and service providers who not only downplay their capabilities and willingness to live a "normal" life, but who also argue that excluding them in educational processes is justified, proper, and right. We believe to increase normalcy in their lives, all individuals with disabilities should be educated with their peers without disabilities in environments that are inclusive. In this article, we discuss how general and special educators can make inclusion work in general education classrooms despite continuing concerns about its practicality.

Making inclusion work: Experiences from academia around the world

Making inclusion work: Experiences from academia around the world

Making Inclusion Work: Experiences from Academia around the World (review)

Reviewed by: Making Inclusion Work: Experiences from Academia around the World Gaële Goastellec, Assistant Professor Saija Katila, Susan Meriläinen, and Janne Tienari (Eds.). Making Inclusion Work: Experiences from Academia around the World. Cheltenham, UK/Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 2010. 209 pp. Cloth: $99.95. ISBN 978-1-84844-084-5. Making Inclusion Work: Experiences from Academia around the World is a collective call for inclusion and multiplicity in academia. Written by 22 organization and management scholars from nine countries, this book builds on the authors' autobiographical and autoethnographical experiences in developing inclusion projects in their own universities to illustrate the plurality and usefulness of inclusion practices. The methodology of the book is thus deliberately bottom up, based on everyday practices and experiences. In the introductory chapter, Saija Katila, Susan Meriläinen, and Janne Tienari define inclusion as "bringing in new voices, themes and methods in teaching and research . . . or incorporating considerations of gender and ethnicity" in curricula, courses, and research projects (p. 1). The different case studies presented in the 13 chapters and three parts structuring the book illustrate that knowledge is always situated in time and place. The editors, through this collection, advocate for diverse inclusion practices that are rooted in historical periods and local contexts. Part 1 focuses on the development of curricula and institutional arrangements that foster inclusiveness. Each of this part's three chapters depicts the implementation of an innovative program regarding inclusion. Collectively, these cases insightfully address the question of organizational changes across various geopolitical and cultural contexts. Patrizia Zanoni and Hans Siebers, in Chapter 2, study the creation of a master program in the organization of cultural diversity targeting a culturally diverse student body at a Dutch university. They identify four organizational dimensions as the main reasons for the program's success: implementation by a committed team of scholars; strong support from a top manager; having a talented program coordinator; and the preexistence on campus of a potential student body for the program. However, time also represents an important component of the success formula. Not only was time needed to obtain a consensus among the different actors involved (department, faculty, and university) but the timing of the program's implementation proved to be equally essential. The authors consider the strategy or fortuitousness of "seizing the moment" and taking the societal context into account when launching such a program. Chapter 3, by Mary Ann Danowitz and Frank Tuitt, focuses on the issue of diversity management through the case study of a Ph.D. program at a U.S. university. Their case illustrates the integrations of diversity and inclusiveness through strategic administrative action, and curriculum and pedagogical innovation. In Chapter 4, Refine Bendl and Angelika Schmidt analyze the institutionalization of gender studies in an Austrian historically male-dominated university. Tracing the program's development from the central role of the first activist to the resulting political recognition of the issue, the authors chart the slow transformation of inclusion from a bottom-up process to a top-down one. "The trade-off for formal legitimacy and incorporation," they note, "has been an erosion of wide democratic participation and activism" (p. 59). The second part contains four chapters in which authors describe their individual experiences with curricular and pedagogical innovation and change in the pursuit of diversity and inclusiveness. Chapters 5 and 6 present different ways to integrate inclusive practices into curricula. Myrtle P. Bell, in Chapter 5, advocates the coupling of experience and evidence as an efficient tool to teach diversity. She explains how, in her teaching, she confronts students' erroneous beliefs and stereotypes through the use of individual experiences and quantitative research. Sandra Billard, in Chapter 6, reveals how she uses action research and action learning as teaching strategies to introduce the inclusion issue in courses for Australian graduate management students. [End Page 709] Chapters 7 and 8 address the issue of inclusion in research practices. In Chapter 7, Ulla Eriksson-Zetterquist illustrates how a pioneer research project questioning the role of gender in teaching was a catalyst for affirming this issue as central in her own Swedish institution. In doing so, she analyzes how disciplinary cultures impact this process. David M...

2008 April English Leadership Quarterly, v30.4

In this issue on The English Language Arts and Special Education, readers will find background information on the legal aspects of special education legislation and some important terms that English language arts teachers need to know; a discussion on how special education and content area teacher education programs can work together to provide preservice and classroom teachers with programmatic experiences that prepare them to work with students with special needs in regular and inclusion classrooms; and a glimpse into what effective instruction might look like in an inclusion classroom. Also included is a review of Making Inclusion Work: Effective Practices for ALL Teachers by John R. Beattie, LuAnn Jordan, and Robert Algozzine.

Among the Periodicals: Making Inclusion Work

(2002). Among the Periodicals: Making Inclusion Work. Childhood Education: Vol. 78, Our Crisis in Children's Mental Health, pp. 318-320.

Legal Principles Important in the Preparation of Teachers: Making Inclusion Work

All students with disabilities have a right to an appropriate education under federal law. To provide that education, future teachers need to be able to make sound decisions regarding students' individualized education plans (IEPs), assessments, and placements. Even though the federal law clearly defines responsibilities in educating children with disabilities, much conflict has been apparent in the court system and in due process hearings. The nature and number of court cases and due process hearings suggest that the federal law is not always followed. When analyzing conflict situations, it appears that some of those difficult situations could have been avoided. The following four principles are based on errors found in prominent special education court cases, the author's professional experience as an administrator, and a review of due process hearings. If taught to preservice teachers, the principles will help them to plan appropriately for their students. Teachers will be in a better position to avoid a due process hearing or defend the school district if a due process hearing is inevitable. The principles are applicable for all preservice teachers studying any type of disability at any age level.