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CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS article

Front. Educ.
Sec. Special Educational Needs
Volume 9 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2024.1422089
This article is part of the Research Topic Advancing inclusive education for students with special educational needs: Rethinking policy and practice View all 4 articles

Australia at an Educational Crossroads: Special Schools and Inclusive Education

Provisionally accepted
Therese Cumming Therese Cumming 1,2*Jennifer L. Jolly Jennifer L. Jolly 1,3Aaron B. Bugge Aaron B. Bugge 1
  • 1 University of New South Wales, Kensington, Australia
  • 2 UNSW Disability Innovation Institute, Sydney, Australia
  • 3 University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The ongoing debate surrounding special schools and inclusive education in Australia has come to the forefront since the recommendations of the 2023 Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, where the Commissioners were split on the implementation of full educational inclusion and the elimination of special schools. The authors discuss the controversy surrounding segregated special education classes and schools, particularly considering the push for full inclusion. The concept of inclusion is examined through a brief review of national and international policies and academic and popular literature, including how the inclusion continuum is conceptualised by policymakers, academics, and families. Stakeholder perspectives on the complexities and challenges of implementing full inclusion in mainstream school settings offer differing experiences and opinions on what is possible. Lastly, by examining the nuances of the special school controversy, the authors provide recommendations on how best to meet the educational needs of all students, across the spectrum of abilities.

    Keywords: Special Education, Inclusive education, Special schools, Australia TMC: Writing-original draft, conceptualisation JJ: Writing-original draft, conceptualisation ASJB: Literature review, proofreading, editing 12. Funding

    Received: 23 Apr 2024; Accepted: 03 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Cumming, Jolly and Bugge. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Therese Cumming, University of New South Wales, Kensington, Australia

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.