is largely internationally regarded as best practice (Boyle, Scrive, Durning, & Downes, 2011; Katz & Mirenda, 2002b; Thomas & Loxley, 2007). Historically, the education of children with and without special needs was delivered through discrete systems of provision (Thomas & Loxley, 2001). The Warnock Report (Department of Education and Science; DES, 1978) proposed that pupils of all needs and learning abilities should be educated together in mainstream schools. The UK Education Act (DES, 1981) codified many recommendations made by the Warnock Report, and the ‘mainstreaming’ of children with special educational needs became a more common practice in the UK. However, statements regarding the official stance on mainstreaming education at that time, from the Irish Department of Education “tended to be a mixture of aspiration and caution” (Griffin & Shevlin, 2007, p. 44). It was not until the publication of the Special Education Review Committee Report (SERC; Department of Education and Science, 1993) that inclusion of children with special educational needs into the mainstream classroom environment was recommended in Ireland. The SERC report further regarded children with SEBD as falling under the domain of special educational need.
The 1990s, both in Ireland and internationally, saw a move from segregated systems of education towards inclusion, with this shift founded upon rights-based policy statements. The World Conference on Special Needs Education in Salamanca, and the adoption of the Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education, set the policy agenda for inclusive education on an international basis (UNESCO, 1994). As outlined in the Salamanca Statement (agreed upon by 25 international organisations and 92 governments, including Ireland), inclusive education is based on the fundamental right of all children to receive education in their local community, regardless of their ability. The Education Act (1998) represented an important move towards inclusive education for those with special educational needs in Ireland. However, Griffin and Shevlin (2007) suggested that the biomedical definition of disability used in this Act negated psychosocial aspects. Following on from the Education Act, the EPSEN Act (2004), replaced a biomedical with a social model of disability, and identified disability as reduced capacity to benefit from, or participate in, education. The adoption of a social model of disability places the onus on society to collectively remove disabling barriers (Tregaskis, 2002). The EPSEN Act thus focused on capacity building- a fundamental move towards a holistic approach whereby schools and the professionals within, are the key drivers of inclusion, in partnership with other professionals and parents/guardians. It mandated inclusive education, except in circumstances where the best interests of children are not served by such placements, afforded a greater role in decision-making to parents of children with special educational needs (Carroll, 2010), and established a comprehensive appeals procedure. However, although all features of the EPSEN Act were to be delivered over a 5-year period (commencing in 2005), the economic downturn has delayed full implementation, indefinitely (Armstrong, Kane, O’Sullivan, & Kelly, 2010; Smyth & McCoy, 2009).
The shift from ‘integration’ of children with diverse needs to ‘inclusion’ is more than a shift in semantics; it represents a shift in paradigm (Mittler, 2001). Integration involves the movement of ‘ready’ pupils from special to mainstream schools. Within an integrationist system, children with needs must adapt to fit in with the mainstream approach, whereas in an inclusive system this need not be the case. The inclusive school is one which recognises and responds to the multiple, diverse needs of students, despite the inherent difficulties in this provision. According to UNESCO,
“the challenge confronting the inclusive school is that of developing a child-centred pedagogy capable of successfully educating all children, including those who have serious disadvantages and disabilities” (1994, p. 6). Therefore, inclusion is not a matter of simply placing pupils with challenges into an existent system of education (Sebba & Ainscow, 1996). Rather, it should be “… concerned with overcoming barriers to participation which may be experienced by any pupils” (Ainscow, 1999, p. 218).
Some critics of inclusive education suggest that its adoption has been based upon a moral standpoint rather than upon empirical evidence regarding effectiveness (Lindsay, 2007; Simpson, 2004). Those operating within a human rights and social justice perspective argue that inclusively-oriented schools reduce discrimination and represent a positive step towards wider societal acceptance of those with differing needs (Culham & Nind, 2003; Polat, 2011; Riddell, 2009). However, others suggest that there is a division between rhetoric and reality when speaking of inclusion in education; they suggest that the perception of the current model as inclusive is a fallacy and that the system is actually integrationist (e.g., Visser & Stokes, 2003). Changes to educational provision legislation must be accompanied by changes in attitude (Visser & Stokes, 2003). Any discussion on inclusion should acknowledge that although legislation over the past 30 years has led to a reduction in the numbers of children in segregated education, it did not necessarily have an equitable effect on all children with additional needs. The number of children with SEBD attending segregated schools actually increased over the course of the 1980s (Goacher, Evans, Welton, & Wedell, 1988) and despite the advances in inclusionary practices that have occurred since then, some have suggested that children with SEBD remain at greater risk of educational exclusion than their peers (Cooper, 2004; Graham & Jahnukainen, 2011). So whilst the concept of inclusion appears to have been largely embraced, in practice, this does not always extend to those whose behaviours are deemed problematic in a mainstream classroom.
2.7 Challenges for teachers: Resources and reactions to inclusion
An essential prerequisite for successful inclusion is that appropriate resources to meet the needs of all children are available. As stated previously, children from socioeconomically disadvantaged areas are more likely to experience adjustment
difficulties. In Ireland, the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS)4 scheme targets additional resources towards schools with higher numbers of disadvantaged pupils. These schools typically have smaller class sizes; approximately 81% of junior and senior infant DEIS Band 1 classes hold no more than 20 children (Weir & McAvinue, 2012). DEIS Band 2 classes are larger in size, with 55.3% of junior infant and 44% of senior infant classes having no more than 20 children. A reduction in the number of children within a given class may boost student engagement and child adjustment (Blatchford, Edmonds, & Martin, 2003; Finn, Pannozzo, & Achilles, 2003). Small class placement over a period of three or four years has been shown to positively influence rates of achievement and increase the percentage of graduates by 80% (Finn et al., 2005), and more for those from low socioeconomic groupings.5
Although the concept of inclusion has been welcomed by teaching staff (e.g., Idol, 2006), the operational reality is somewhat differently regarded (MacBeath, Galton, Stewart, MacBeath, & Page, 2006). Some forms of special educational need are deemed comparatively more difficult to manage in a mainstream classroom setting, than others. For example, schools face greater challenges in including children who display problem behaviour (Department for Education and Skills; DfES, 2004), whilst there is evidence to suggest that school psychologists regard SEBD as the most difficult form of special needs within mainstream schools (Evans & Lunt, 2002). Those with SEBD fall into the category of special educational needs, which carries with it an increased likelihood of exclusion/expulsion from school (Jull, 2008). Arguably, inclusionary practice must be fully inclusionary, and not selective of the most manageable types of need, but it must also exemplify supportive practice,
4 DEIS consists of a range of programmes designed to address educational disadvantage within the
public school system and incorporates band 1 and band 2 (higher and lower levels of disadvantage, respectively), along with DEIS rural. Identification of schools in need of additional resources is based upon a range of poverty indicators such as rates of local unemployment, local authority housing, and student eligibility for the free book scheme (Department of Education, 2005).
5 Irish classrooms contain a high pupil-teacher ratio of 18:1, a figure notably higher than European
for students and teachers alike. Thus, MacBeath et al. (2006) reported that a blanket acceptance of inclusion, coupled with inadequate resources, could prove damaging and could exacerbate the extant problem of inequity in education.
Teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion should not be examined in isolation, as multiple factors have been shown to contribute to belief formation. For example, a number of potentially interrelated factors (including class size, levels of perceived and actual support, beliefs regarding own ability to manage, overarching demands of curriculum, and the types and extent of student needs) may combine to inform beliefs regarding inclusion. For example, teachers who hold favourable attitudes towards inclusion have been shown to put more effort into fostering classroom success than those with unfavourable attitudes (Avramidis, Bayliss, & Burden, 2000). A similar relationship between teacher attitudes towards inclusion and direct classroom practice has been reported by Bender, Vial, and Scott (1995) and by Buell, Hallam, Gamel-McCormick, and Scheer (1999). The effect of teacher perceptions and subsequent bias regarding abilities/disabilities of children in their care, have been referred to variously as ‘expectancy effect’, ‘Pygmalion effect’, ‘Galatea effect’ and ‘Golem effect’ (Babad, Inbar, & Rosenthal, 1982; Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968). If teachers believe that improvements in behaviour and learning are possible for all children, this may in turn affect the social and academic opportunities of the children in their care. As previously mentioned, behaviour can be regarded as context- specific- “...the incidence of disruption seems not to have been caused by the presence of “disruptive children” alone, but by an interaction between these children and the context within which they were taught” (Dyson et al., 2004, p. 81). Therefore the classroom environment can exert a significant effect not just on behaviour, but also on the way in which behaviour is perceived by teachers. Where the expectation is that children should remain seated and engaged in one particular task, those whose behaviours do not conform to this are more likely to be considered to be disruptive. In the absence of this expectation, the same behaviours may be regarded differently (Maag, 2004).
The provision of information about inclusionary practice during initial teacher education (ITE) may significantly reduce negative beliefs upon entry to the classroom. For example, Mittler (2000) has stated that “...ensuring that NQTs have a
basic understanding of inclusive teaching and inclusive schools is the best investment that can be made” (p. 137). Booth, Nes, and Stromstad (2003) suggested that few newly qualified teachers (NQTs) have clear comprehension of inclusionary practice values. The terminology used by student teachers can indicate the attitudes they hold towards children with special educational needs; this has been shown as sometimes exclusionary and offensive (Pearson, 2005). Mintz (2007) reported that although most teachers viewed special educational needs through an environmental lens, a significant number held beliefs which more closely represented a medical model of disability6. Thus, despite the fact that many ITE students hold positive beliefs regarding inclusion, others may benefit from targeted engagements to facilitate the development of positive, inclusive attitudes and behaviours. Where teachers become equipped at an early stage in their career, with necessary skills and positive perceptions regarding inclusive practices, beneficial classroom outcomes can occur (Cooper, Kurtts, Baber, & Vallecorsa, 2008; European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education, 2010). However, holding favourable attitudes towards inclusion alone does not guarantee success. For example, Lancaster and Bain (2010) showed that teachers’ recognition of learner diversity and adaptive practice are also important for meaningful inclusion. A willingness to modify one’s own teaching practice in recognition of diversity of student needs is frequently seen in teachers who score high on self-efficacy (Stein & Wang, 1988). This may be because highly self-efficacious teachers are more likely to attribute child learning difficulties to external (and therefore, modifiable) factors (Brady & Woolfson, 2008). Beliefs which suggest that the problem is internal to the child, and therefore inaccessible to change by the teacher, are more likely to result in lack of teacher effort (Poulou & Norwich, 2002).
Although teachers may hold positive attitudes towards inclusion, where these children have SEBD, teacher confidence may be reduced (Avramadis et al., 2000; Cardona, 2009); they may feel anxious (Gyimah, Sugden, & Pearson, 2008), or
6 The medical model of disability, with reference to socio-emotional and behavioural difficulties,
locates these problems ‘within’ the child with focus on the impairment rather than on the individual (Evans, Harden, Thomas, & Benefield, 2003).
burdened by the additional responsibility of management (Rothì, 2008). The latter authors noted that this stems from a lack of training in psychological issues facing certain children; teachers in their study felt ‘abandoned’ by a local authority that had promised, but had not delivered, training on mental health issues. Similar findings were reported by Ališauskas and Klizaitė (2010), who noted that those engaged in ITE felt insufficiently prepared to recognise and meet the special educational needs of pupils. Educational preparedness of teachers is important, but other barriers to inclusive practice have also been cited. In a review of the inclusion debate, Kavale and Forness (2000) stated that teachers reported insufficient time to meet the needs of all students. This perceived excess of time spent on children with SEBD was echoed in a study by Lloyd-Bennett, (2006), which noted that this may stem from the rigid curriculum constraints, or indeed, from other factors including teaching style or school behaviour policy. In Ireland, a similar pattern is observable. Shevlin, Winter, and Flynn (2012), in a small scale Irish study, cited teachers’ positive opinions regarding inclusion. However, they also reported teachers’ concern regarding their capacity and that of the school, to provide a truly inclusive education. An earlier study noted unawareness among Irish teachers regarding how to best meet the needs of diverse groups of children, and warned that this can result in the use of wholly inappropriate teaching methods (Shevlin, Kenny, & Loxley, 2008). Among Northern Irish trainee teachers, 57% were concerned that they did not have the necessary skills to teach children with SEN in an inclusive environment (Lambe & Bones, 2006a). Addressing teacher concerns may prove challenging. These factors, as previously stated, are inter-related. Perceptions regarding resources, preparedness, and time constraints combine to influence teacher behaviour, and in turn shape child learning and development within the mainstream classroom.