Inclusion in an International Perspective: Introduction

A CD-ROM box with the inscription 'So what is inclusion?' — Launch of the cd-rom “So what is inclusion?“ at the Crucible Centre for Human Rights & Social Justice, Roehampton University, London, England (2007).
Copyright: John Paul Edward Kelly alias rockinpaddy, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

On approaching the term "inclusion" from an international perspective, the diversity of groups that are meant to be included soon emerges. In Germany, the inclusion of people with disabilities into mainstream education is focused while in other countries, social, economic or cultural inclusion is highlighted in the context of different groups of individuals that are typically regarded as being excluded from education. Different dimensions of inclusion (societal scope / excluded groups) are evident in the following statement
"In the past few decades "disability" has climbed the academic ladder. Just as race, class and gender itnow is being considered an advantageous instrument for critically exploring a wide range of societal issues." (as found in the introduction on a website on "Disability History Lecture Series" at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium). Likewise, the discourse on inclusion occasionally reflects problems that are specific to individual countries or regions.
Similar to "disability", the term "inclusion" is experiencing a period of interest in academia - which is easily discernible from the number of publications on the topic.

Bar graph of the publications found on the German Education Portal for the keyword 'inclusion' (as of 31.05.17) — Publications found on the German Education Portal for the keyword “inclusion“ (as of 26.03.2020). Show numbers and literature links for the graph (accessible text file).
Copyright: N. Cohen CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

To narrow down the scope of our dossier, we focussed on inclusion in the field of disability. Nevertheless, the boundaries between different definitions of inclusion are fluid. Especially international organisations like the UN or UNESCO stand for a rather broad definition of inclusion in all spheres of society and for all groups of persons.

The webdossier is ordered by continents. So far, it provides information on international and European, North, Central and South American as well as African issues. Asia and Oceania will be added gradually. The chapters for each continent are then sorted by type of resource (websites of organisations, networks, policy documents, reports, journals, conferences, ...).

Additionally, we provide information on inclusion in some individual countries.

Progressively, we will also present various educational topics with regard to inclusion. First, we addressed the topic of "Digitisation, digital education and inclusion" from an international perspective.

Digital Education & Inclusion (international)

Last Update: 13.02.2024 - bildungweltweit@dipf.de

Inclusion News

Eurydice report 2023/2024 -Diversity and inclusion (EACEA)

Cover of the International Handbook of Inclusive Education + additional information — Copyright: Verlag Barbara Budrich, CC BY-SA 4.0

The International Handbook of Inclusive Education has been published in January 2021. It is available online and free of charge.

Information about the book (on the German Education Portal)
Go directly to the fulltext of the handbook

Zero Project - Tag Education (Zero Barriers)

Inclusion scolaire : recherche et développement dans la francophonie et lEurope latine - 2e Biennale du LISIS

The German National Report on Education 2014 has a focus on disability. English information will be available soon.

Take a look at Germany

Special Needs and Inclusive Education in Germany

Further International Dossiers

Inclusive education (date: May 2010)

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