In the century following emancipation, Blackamericans developed robust and effective schools despite limited resources. Unfortunately, their successes and contributions to the education system are often overlooked. This interdisciplinary theoretical paper draws on historiographies of segregated school systems, examining the struggles of…

Inclusive education is a fundamental right of all students. Despite international policy initiatives, educational exclusion is pervasive, especially in the Global South, and disproportionately affects disabled students. Barriers to inclusive education have been itemised in the literature, but in this conceptual paper that offers a novel…

In this introduction, we establish why school leaders must be attentive to how the organization of educational programs for English Learners impacts the degree to which they are segregated or integrated. We preview each article in the special issue and clarify the contributions that these pieces collectively make to research and practice. We argue…

In this article, I draw attention to the early 1850s in the Bombay Presidency when the colonial government first assumed responsibility for mass education. I show that in the subsequent decades, publicly funded schooling was narrow and extremely exclusive as a result of the strong opposition of dominant castes to the education of the Dalits…

This paper offers a perspective on bilingual education (BE) as inclusive education. Ethnolinguistically-separated schools and classrooms in Sri Lanka resulted from an enduring, mother tongue instruction policy which abetted a deeply ethnically-divided nation. More recently, Sri Lanka has experimented with a BE programme in pursuit of enriching the…

School choice is a hotly debated issue in today's press, politics, and public discourse. In principle, the idea of families being able to choose the public school that is best for their children has widespread appeal. Interest in choice has been fueled in part by distinctive views about educational approaches and in part by the fact that…

Drawing upon a broad concept of inclusion, the first section of this article is dedicated to a critical discussion of the principle of "equal opportunities," which currently dominates the social justice discourse in Germany. Specifically, this section examines how far this principle, which focuses on the role of the individual in…

The over-representation of Romani children in special schools in the Czech Republic is well documented and widely condemned. In 2007 the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) found the state guilty of discrimination against Romani children on the basis of disproportionate placement of children in remedial special schools. In 2015 high numbers of…

Global discourse about human rights, education for all, and inclusive education has altered social norms relating to dis/ability and schooling, especially through awareness-raising, by legitimating advocates' positions and by facilitating policy reforms. Affected by societal and educational change, special education systems and their participants…

This article was presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, September 2012 Cadiz, Spain. The article argues that community dialogue and participation is a vital dynamic in desegregation and explores the centrality of forms of empowerment which can be described as "inclusive community development" (ICD). The segregation…