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3rd Workshop
on
Training of Teachers of the Visually Impaired in Europe

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5 Definition of Integration and Inclusion

Because the subject of the workshop is related to integration and inclusion, the workshop began with a discussion about the definition of these concepts.
Dr Heather Mason, Birmingham, UK, presented the following definitions:

Integration

Integration traditionally refers to the education of children with special needs in mainstream settings.

Inclusion

The fundamental principles of 'inclusion' are far deeper. Inclusion in education involves the process of:

This presentation was followed by the first discussions in the five discussions groups. This yielded the following results, additions and conclusions:

From discussion group 1:

All the participants in group 1 agreed unanimously with the above mentioned points about the inclusion. With the aim to look deeper into the subject they discussed each point in teams of two or three and came to the following conclusions;

What are the possibilities of inclusion?

If started at the early stage of education it is easier to be introduced later on in the society. In fact it should be introduced at the pre-school stage by early intervention teams.
Teachers' training also contributes to the process of inclusion, so every teacher should get the general knowledge of inclusion as the foundation for his/her further specialisation- i.e. working with the visually impaired.
In all societies, no matter their nationality there is acceptation for normality not diversity, which leads to social exclusion. There is still a long way to go to apply the process of inclusion in the societies. All those involved in it, though, should have the optimistic attitude to future prospects, for as every process, it is time consuming and even the smallest step forward should be encouraging.

From discussion group 2:

No report available with respect to this item.

From discussion group 3:

Integration begins with early intervention.

A system based on assistant/itinerant teachers may be a tool leading to inclusion, whereby the classroom teacher is not responsible for the vi child, and the whole classroom procedure does not have to be tuned to the needs of that child.

If you slow down the speed and rate of progress in a class be cause of a vi child, this clearly is no integration.
Inclusion has to happen in a regular environment rather than in a segregated one.
The teacher must remember that his/her goal is to adapt the vi child to the classroom environment, not the other way round; if there are problems with parents or other students because of a vi child in a class, there may be something wrong with integration in that particular class.
The sight of a crowd of children gathered around the one blind child using a computer in a classroom is very much inclusion stimulating.

From discussion group 4:

The group agreed that the statement from Heather Mason's handout with her views on integration and inclusion should be the guiding principle for the discussion, namely:
Inclusion in education involves the process of accepting that inclusion in education is one aspect of inclusion in society.
One of the participants proposed the following working definitions and differentiation: integration consists of fitting the child into the society whereas inclusion is fitting the society to the child. Integration was viewed more as placement in an mainstream educational setting whereas inclusion was said to involve social integration, to require restructuring of the person's environment. Early intervention was mentioned as a major prerequisite for successful integration and then inclusion.

Both integration and inclusion were juxtaposed to physical/mechanical placement of the child in a mainstream school. The latter does not involve the necessary support, either from the system or from the parents. One of the participants felt that that such terms as 'planned process' and 'policy' are characteristic of the two processes (integration and inclusion). Another participant disagreed stating that it is not the policies but the actually provided support that counts. The group agreed that adequate pressure and support from the parents may result in effective integration, even despite the lack of legislative/systemic provisions.

Other key phrases that were mentioned in relation to integration and inclusion processes were acceptance, access to the same curricula and materials, and equal expectations.

The group agreed that the child should be provided with the most favourable conditions for development and education. This brought the group to a short discussion on whether special schools should be retained. Several participants expressed the opinion that full inclusion was not for children with multiple impairments. The group agreed that special schools should continue as settings providing the most favourable conditions for some children. In a broad sense, special school was seen as a means of integrating some children in the community/society.

Conclusion: Inclusion was viewed by the group as un ultimate social goal, still beyond our reach, and integration - as a step towards inclusion in the area of education.

From discussion group 5:

The discussion of the notions of integration and inclusion concerned the importance of the difference between the two terms. The participants agreed that the problem of inclusion vs. integration in many countries constituted still an open question, and that there was a need for further broad discussion. There seems to be no equivalent notion underlying the English term inclusion in some Central and Eastern European languages, and it is not used in some countries as its meaning is unclear. This was attested to by the fact that the participants tried to arrive at the proper meaning of the notion of inclusion as opposed to that of integration via a strictly semantic exercise, consisting in the use of antonyms for the approaching of this problem: integration vs. segregation, inclusion vs. exclusion. Segregation meaning taking active physical steps towards eliminating the child from the regular society, exclusion being rather a mental attitude, consisting in that the child may stay in the same environment but does not fully participate in the social exchange.
The suggestion to use the somewhat synonymous term of acceptance instead of inclusion, resulted in arriving at the conclusion that it is not sufficient, as its meaning does not comprise perceiving the needs of individuals, but mentioning acceptance led the participants to another coonclusion, namely that the two terms discussed differ in that integration denotes simply placement of a person in a given setting - a mainstream classroom, for instance, while inclusion denotes acceptance of the given person as a member of the overall society, and acting accordingly. A shift is needed from merely equipping the child with some means to cope with his or her special situation onto endowing the teacher with appropriate capabilities and educating the society as to its overall responsibility for the impaired child's welfare.
In spite of obvious difficulty to clearly understand the difference between the notions of inclusion and integration, the participants agreed that having two different terms is important for both theoretical and practical reasons, for instance, to enable one to properly understand subject literature or for legislative purposes. It is the task of the subject professionals to promote new notions, because human knowledge is changing, and there is the need of the use of precise and adequate terminology.

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