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Tearse 1

Isabelle Tearse

Cumings

ENGL 3200.7

18 April 2016

Inclusion vs. Separation

What is in the Childs Best Interest?

Over the past decade, many more students with disabilities have been integrated

into regular classroom settings. Some teachers and educational professionals may argue

that the inclusion of a student with disabilities in a regular classroom setting may hinder

the quality of their education. However, other teachers and principals alike believe that

inclusion will significantly benefit these students and give them greater opportunities to

learn by receiving an education similar to their peers. Frances Lee, Andy Smith and

Sheena Bell, Joe Johnson, Lorna Idol, and James Jauffman and Jeanmarie Badar discuss

both sides of this debate and include studies that reveal multiple perspectives from

current teachers.

According to Frances Lee in Inclusion of Children With Special Needs in Early

Childhood Education: What Teacher Characteristics Matter, teachers attitudes vary

towards the inclusion of children with special needs in educational environments. Lee

states that teachers who had previously had some form of special education training were

more positive about inclusion (Lee 80). Lee states that in a study on the acceptance of

special education students in preschool in Hong Kong only half of the teachers agreed

that children with intellectual disabilities or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

(ADHD) should be included in a regular classroom setting. He discusses how 39.1% of


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teachers support the inclusion of students with visual impairments (83). Lee further states

regular class teachers felt underprepared and untrained for inclusion (80). He believes

that the longer someone has been involved with or surrounded by special education, the

more accepting they will be of these types of students in their classroom. Overall, by

including his own personal study and findings, Lee creates a strong argument for the

importance to better educate our teachers so that they can be in larger support of

inclusion. By organizing this article by the study, the results, and then a discussion of the

findings, Lee creates a clear, easy to comprehend claim. Additionally, the author includes

a small paragraph dedicated to discussing the limitations of the study, therefore causing

her credibility to rise, because of her acknowledgment of the possibility of errors.

The article Towards Inclusive Learning Environments (TILE): Developing the

Roadmap for the Inclusion of Students with Special Educational Needs in Vocational

Education and Workplace Settings by Andy Smith and Sheena Bell claims that there is

justification in developing a Road Map, an online educational tool, that would aid

students and teachers alike in inclusion classrooms and educational settings. The authors

believe that inclusion is an approach to education which generates greater opportunities

for engagement in learning, the environment, the curriculum, access to information,

employment and independence (Smith 154). They go on to point out that their Road

Map tool helps with the inclusion of special education students in continuing education

learning environments (152). This article is very powerful in pointing out that there are

educational tools that can aid in inclusion. While this article is also very clear and straight

forward, it does not include any major pieces of evidence to support its claims or to

validate that this tool will actually be beneficial. The lack of numerical data to support
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their claims creates uncertainties about its validity. With no hard evidence, it is hard to

believe that this tool will be something worth the large sums of money it would take to

create it.

Joe Johnson points out in, Including Young Learners with Special Needs

in Social Studies Classrooms many ideas that were not mentioned in previous articles.

He states that due to special education students being pulled out from classrooms for

social studies and science, as well as many teachers having lower expectations for their

learning outcomes, these students often did not receive the benefits of a full education

(Johnson 98). He goes on to state that based on the information provided by the United

States Department of Education, that 61% of students with disabilities spend 80% of their

school day in a regular classroom setting (99). Johnson believes that students who have

special needs are due the benefits of having a full education (104). The article is

persuasive, stating information from governmental sources to support its claims. By

referencing many other articles and studies who provides a broad spectrum of sources

that express similar views towards inclusion. Overall, this paper was very well organized

and well written.

The article Toward Inclusion of Special Education Students in General

Education by Lorna Idol outlines a program evaluation of multiple elementary and

secondary schools. In her findings, she concluded that two of the elementary schools

visited did not have inclusion in their schools and for the other two schools special

education was an integral part of the total school plan (Idol 80). Some of the teachers

interviewed believed that students who have disabilities and special needs should be

taught in self-contained special education classes (84). Similarly Idols results pointed
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out that two of the post-secondary administrators interviewed believed that special

education students should be taught in grade-level classes, but should also have

additional support services, such as a resource teacher. By including her own research

and study as well as the numerical data collected, this research helps to validate Idols

evidence. Additionally, her detailed and diverse interviews of the various teachers make

her overall claims much stronger and more reliable. Her overall study and results were

clearly organized and titled, making finding her information between the two grade levels

and different schools very easy. However, her overall argument is very unclear since she

does not draw any personal conclusions from the results of the study.

In Lani Florians article Special education in an era of inclusion: The end of

special education or a new beginning? she stresses how inclusion for students with

special needs may be difficult since those who implement it would have to ensure that

students with disabilities will continue to receive the support needed while in the general

education community. She mentions that discussing special education often brings up

problems of injustice and highlight[s] the dilemmas of access and equity

inherent in education systems. Florian questions how teachers could undertake the task

of providing for all is special education students are included in regular classroom

environments (Florian 26). Florian argues that inclusion would need to include rich

learning opportunities that are sufficiently made available for everyone, which would

allow all students to participate in classroom life (27). Overall, Florians argument

about the uncertainty of how inclusion will work shows a different perspective than

previous articles. While she does reference other literary works, she does not include any

quotations or significant evidence from those works, therefore making her overall claim
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questionable. Additionally, her information is clear, however, the organization is harder

to follow since she discusses one topic, moves on to the next, and then goes back to the

original topic. Overall, her argument is comprehensible, however, her lack of evidence

makes the reader wary of her information presented.

The article Instruction, Not Inclusion, Should Be the Central Issue in Special

Education: An Alternative View from the USA by James Jauffman and Jeanmarie Badar

claims that anything other than instruction impairs the rights of special education students

to a proper education. The idea that students should be incorporated into regular

classrooms is a perspective [they] do not share (13). The authors state that they believe

that in some cases exclusion from the general classroom education is necessary to

provide an appropriate education and to achieve substantive social justice (13). They

argue that the real issue is not inclusion, but in fact creating a system with better

instruction for students with special needs than can be provided with only general

education. Jauffman and Badar assert that with universal education will come predictable

problems because of the inevitability of diversity among all students. They go on to say

that even if some students who were significantly disabled were excluded from the

classroom these problems would still occur (15). In short, the authors argue that

inclusion is not the real issue and that the current instructional practices prevent students

with special needs from receiving a genuine education. They reference the Convention on

the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which would significantly support their claims;

however, it is evident that there are pieces of information missing, causing the reader to

be wary of the possibly distorted evidence. However, the article is very clearly laid out
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and broken into small sections that make finding information and following the various

topics easy and efficient.

While teachers have brought up some concerns on how to support special

education students, the majority of the articles presented reveal that most teachers are in

favor of inclusion of these students. The future of these childrens education is in the

hands of the teachers, so with the right tools teachers can make integration a successful

and positively viewed educational practice. With sufficient teacher training, there is a

high possibility that inclusion will continue to be sought after and included in future

educational settings.
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Works Cited

Florian, Lani. Special Education In An Era Of Inclusion: The End Of Special Education

Or A New Beginning?. Psychology Of Education Review 34.2 (2010): 22-29.

Education Research Complete. Web. 20 Apr.

2016.<http://ezproxy.dominican.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.

aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=53753053&site=ehost-live>.

Idol, Lorna. Toward Inclusion Of Special Education Students In General education.

Remedial & Special Education 27.2 (2006): 77-94. Education Research

Complete. Web. 20 Apr.

2016.<http://ezproxy.dominican.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.

aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=20081079&site=ehost-live >.

Johnson, Joe, and Ruth Busby. Including Young Learners With Special Needs In Social

Studies Classrooms. Social Studies Reasearch & Practice 10.3 (2015): 98-108.

Education Research Complete. Web. 19 Apr.

2016.<http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.dominican.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfvie

wer?sid=ca5c7189-d66e-4b1e-81bc-

62ae92f453ef%40sessionmgr115&vid=7&hid=115>.

Kauffman, James M., and Jeanmarie Badar. Instruction, Not Inclusion, Should Be The

Central Issue In Special Education: An Alternative View From The USA.

Journal Of International Special Needs Education 17.1 (2014): 13-20. Education

Research Complete. Web. 20 Apr.

2016.<http://ezproxy.dominican.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.

aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=108872387&site=ehost-live>.
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Lee, Frances Lai Mui, et al. Inclusion Of Children With Special Needs In Early

Childhood Education: What Teacher Characteristics Matter. Topics In Early

Childhood Special Education 35.2 (2015): 79-88. Education Research Complete.

Web. 9 Apr.

2016.<http://tec.sagepub.com.ezproxy.dominican.edu/content/35/2/79.full.pdf+ht

ml>.

Smith, Andy, and Sheena Bell. Towards Inclusive Learning Environments (TILE):

Developing the Roadmap for the Inclusion of Students with Special Educational

Needs in Vocational Education and Workplace Settings. Support for Leanring.

N.p., May 2015. Web. 12 Apr.

2016.<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.dominican.edu/doi/10.1111/1467-

9604.12082/epdf>.

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