Isabelle Tearse
Cumings
ENGL 3200.7
18 April 2016
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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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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
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
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
2016.<http://ezproxy.dominican.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.
aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=53753053&site=ehost-live>.
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.
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
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
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
2016.<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.dominican.edu/doi/10.1111/1467-
9604.12082/epdf>.