Inclusive classroom is a term used within American pedagogy to describe a classroom in which all students, irrespective of their abilities or skills, are welcomed holistically. It is built on the notion that being in a non-segregated classroom will better prepare special-needs students for later life. In the United States, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 guaranteed civil rights to disabled people, though inclusion of disabled students progressed slowly until the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, after which almost half of US students with disabilities were soon in general classrooms.
A lack of resources has placed a considerable burden on teachers and school boards, who are often unprepared and suffer from stress and frustration, affecting the success of programs. An advocated solution is co-teaching, doubling teaching staff to support an inclusive classroom.
History of inclusion Prior to inclusion Prior to the 1970s, most schools in the United States had non-inclusive policies. Students with disabilities were often not permitted to attend public schools as it was believed that they were unable to be educated. Children who were deaf, blind, or had emotional or intellectual disabilities were instead sent to special facilities or institutions. In the late 1960s, almost 200,000 people with significant disabilities lived in state institutions that provided basic needs like food, shelter, and clothing. Those students with mild disabilities were segregated from the rest of the school, where only specially trained teachers could teach them. It was thought that integrating these students into regular classrooms would cause teachers to invest too much time with them due to their unique educational needs, which would then leave other students with little attention. Thus, the presence of students with disabilities was believed to be a burden and a nuisance to the "regular" students.
A few US states began to pass legislation that allowed, but did not require, school districts to begin educating students with certain types of disabilities. However, it was not widespread. In the 1950s, Edward H. Stullken, president and member of the Illinois Council of Exceptional Children,Illinois Council of Exceptional Children began to question the need to segregate students with disabilities from the public schools. This soon led to the rise of parent activists who challenged the courts. As a result, special education was expanded into public schools. After a successful court case in Pennsylvania, the state law was changed to acknowledge that it had the obligation to provide a free, appropriate education regardless of the disability. This case eventually led the United States to the 1975 creation of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA), which paved the way for all special education programs.
Timeline of inclusion Inclusion in the United States began with the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which guaranteed civil rights to all disabled people and required accommodations for disabled students in schools. The 1975 EAHCA, and its 1986 and 1992 amendments, guaranteed educational rights from any institution receiving funding, and encouraged states to develop programs for individuals with disabilities. In 1997, the EAHCA was revised as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and made it mandatory for all schools to develop and provide a free and appropriate public education for all children, in the least-restrictive environment possible. This included the use of Individual Education Plans (IEPs) for all special-education students. These requirements marked the beginning of full inclusion. The 1997 reauthorization of IDEA guaranteed more educational access for students with disabilities.
A 2004 reauthorization of IDEA aligned this act with the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which supported standards-based education reform. This reauthorization included appropriate technology and more funding specifically for special education. By the early 2000s, almost half of students with disabilities were included in the general classroom. As of 2013, inclusion is still strongly endorsed by the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) and is widely used in most classrooms across the United States. Although there are still controversies and debates on whether inclusion is the best practice for students with disabilities, it has become the norm in most schools in the United States.
Classification of students Inclusive classrooms have students with disabilities, behavioral issues, social issues, personal issues, intellectual disability, cognitive disabilities, and physical differences. This means every classroom could be considered inclusive. The goal is for the teacher to teach each student with similar effort, so that the nature of disability does not become disruptive to the operation of the class. Therefore, it remains that there is not complete agreement as to whether it is best to include all students with disabilities in the general education classroom or only those who are themselves able to follow a general education curriculum without modification. Where students in a given class are accessing curriculum at different levels of rigor, differentiated instruction is crucial to the successful operation of an inclusive classroom.
Disabilities IDEA defines a child with a disability as having intellectual disabilities, hearing loss (including deafness), a speech or language impairment, a visual impairment, a serious emotional disturbance, an orthopedic impairment, autism, traumatic brain injury, another health impairment, a specific learning disability, deaf-blindness, or multiple disabilities. In many cases, students that are covered under IDEA (2004) have IEPs or 504 plans. These students are typically paired with a paraprofessional in the classroom. This person is called also called an aide, paraeducator, or teaching assistant. Research shows that students performed higher when the paraprofessional was trained in inclusive classroom management.
Behavioral and social issues Behavioral and social problems range from talking out of turn to acts of violence. Response to intervention (RTI) and school-wide positive behavior interventions and supports (SWPBIS) models are two ways that schools are improving education for students with this type of issue.
Screening tools commonly used include:
Behavioral Assessment Scale for Children Two (BASC-2): Behavior and Emotional Screening Scale (BESS) Brief Academic Competence Evaluation Scales System (BACESS) School-wide Information System (SWIS) Social Skills Improvement System (SSIS) Student Risk Screening Scale (SRSS) Student Internalizing Behavior Screening Scale (SIBSS) Systematic Screening for Behavior Disorders (SSBD) End-of-Year or Grade-to-Grade Transitional Guides
Personal issues Students with personal issues include those with different spiritual identities, sexual identities, gender identities, religions, and cultures. Teachers are encouraged to increase representation of these groups in the curriculum through literature and other materials.
Cognitive disability There are many types of cognitive impairments that include attention and memory, language, executive function, problem solving and reasoning, and social functioning disabilities. Many of these students will have IEPs. These students may require extra time for homework and tests, alternative testing sites, repeated instructions, and the reduction of multiple-choice answers on exams.
Multicultural diversities Physical diversities would entail students of all races, cultures, and ethnicities. As English-language learners work on skills to become fluent in English, they also become an important focus of inclusive classrooms. Diversity should be intertwined into the classroom curriculum to teach all students effectively. Community-referenced instruction, a curriculum approach that allows educators to design lessons with multiple roles, challenges, and opportunities for learning, is a tool used to benefit all students in inclusive classrooms. Work experiences, research terms, and service learning are some examples of instruction within these inclusive classrooms.
Intellectual giftedness According to 20 USC § 7801(27), "gifted and talented" students are those who give evidence of high achievement capability – in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields – and who need services or activities not ordinarily provided by the school in order to fully develop those capabilities.
A study found gifted students in suburban schools outperformed gifted students in urban schools. Institutional shortcomings, such as poor curriculums, unrelatable teachers, and general opportunity gaps, are believed to be the reasoning behind urban school students' underperformance.
Theories and approaches There are various lesson plans, layouts, and approaches to inclusive teaching that can be applied to the various scenarios and backgrounds of students.
The first step requires that teachers make an effort to understand the students who require inclusive education. As stated by Cathy LeDoux, "The consensus among the literature has been that general education teachers are inadequately prepared to work with special needs students and, therefore, not prepared for inclusion." Therefore, misunderstanding, prejudice, and isolation can result. Teachers should attempt to understand students with special needs by asking a series of questions: What challenges do special education students present for general education teachers in inclusive classrooms? What are the perceived needs of general education teachers in relation to accommodating special education students in their classrooms? In what ways can administration support general education teachers in accommodating special education students?
Co-teaching
One approach is to implement co-teaching, the process where two teachers work together in order to teach students within the same classroom. In the case of inclusive teaching, a general teacher usually does not have the skill nor the understanding that is needed to relate to students with disabilities. Thus, a special education teacher is used to understand the problems faced by students with special needs. In this approach, general education teachers and special education teachers need to be effective communicators to create lesson plans, homework exercises, and communication methods that revolve around the inclusion of students with special needs.
When a sound co-teaching system is in effect, there are several instructional models that can be used. One model is referred to as "selecting manageable texts" whereby teachers match students to reading materials based upon whether the student needs special assistance due to special needs. Readability, vocabulary complexity, interest level, presence of prior knowledge, and the use of text enhancement are factors that are considered when matching students with texts. Specifically, book length, chapter length, and whether or not the book will maintain a student's attention are considered. Co-teaching can also help match a student's skills and abilities related to inclusive teaching to an IEP, a program developed for every student with special needs.
Individualized education plans