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Internationally, Governments have signed up to the principles of ensuring that they support the development of greater equity and inclusion in education. However, despite some progress many individuals and communities continue to face discrimination and remain on the margins of society. This collection of papers draws attention to the many challenges faced by persons who are perceived to be different from the majority population in their communities. This labelling of individuals has served to exclude many from engaging fully with those social and educational opportunities that the majority take for granted.

PUBLISHED ; The Netherlands ; The implementation of austerity measures in Ireland is having a significant effect on the ability of children with a variety of different and complex needs to reach their full potential through education. The recent attempt to erode services would have effectively translated into a 10 per cent cut in teaching supports for these young people, bringing the collective reductions over the past three years to 25 per cent (Inclusion Ireland, 2013). Austerity has also affected the future recruitment of educational professionals to support these young people. The Irish Times of September 19, 2013 included a cover page story where the plight of Kate Crowley who is in a wheelchair, has spinal rods, severe respiratory conditions and hearing problems yet was unable to be granted access to a special needs assistant to support her learning was noted in the Dail . In tandem with a reduced health service and the lack of educational assessment many are left in educational `limbo? while economic recovery is placed at the top of the political agenda for the Irish government.

PUBLISHED ; There has been a signi?cant policy shift from parallel systems of special and mainstream education in the Republic of Ireland towards provision underpinned by enabling legislation with a presumption for inclusion. The role of teachers in establishing inclusive learning environments is critical and it is generally accepted that inclusive practice relies to a large extent on teacher knowledge, skills, understanding, capacity and attitudes. This exploratory study aimed to gather information on teachers? attitudes about inclusion, and perceived constraints in creating inclusive learning environments. A range of schools from urban, semi-urban, provincial and rural backgrounds were included and data were collected using semi-structured interviews (n ? 24) including all principals, class teachers and support staff in the participating schools. Teachers recognised the challenge of responding appropriately to diversity within schools and are generally supportive of the principle of inclusion. However, there are clear concerns around their individual capacity and the capacity of their schools to develop inclusive learning environments. A positive school ethos was a signi?cant factor in ensuring inclusive practice. International research indicates that the complex mix of positive teacher beliefs combined with fears and perceived inadequacies is quite common in the evolution of practice towards inclusive learning environments

AbstractOver the course of the last 30 years, inclusive education has emerged as a key aim of education policies around the world. Also in Europe, most countries took efforts to make their education systems more inclusive—which led to growing numbers of children and young persons with disabilities in general education in Europe. The implementation processes of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) fuelled these efforts. However, as some authors have argued, not all students with disabilities seem to have benefited in the same way from these developments—such as children and young persons with intellectual disability (ID). This paper aims to explore this phenomenon in more depth by comparing some measures in relation to the implementation processes of the UNCRPD of seven European countries. Doing so, we analyze trends in placements (mainstream and special schools) of students with Special Educational Needs (SEN) in general and of students with intellectual disability specifically. As we show, an increase of students identified as having SEN in mainstream schools can be observed in all countries during the implementation process of the UNCRPD. However, in comparison to this rather broad group of learners, the percentage of students with intellectual disability in mainstream settings did not increase as much. Furthermore, the calculation of the "exclusion rate" revealed that this group of learners remains a key population of special schools. These results need to be understood as effects of specific shortcomings in the implementation of the UNCRPD, as we discuss in a further section. We conclude our paper with recommendations on future research and policies on inclusive education regarding students with intellectual disability.