Inclusion: Three Brief Essays: Differences Between Inclusion and Mainstreaming, Pros and Cons and How it has Impacted the General Education Settings

This paper presents three brief essays, each of which is an answer to one of the following three questions:

1. What are the major differences between inclusion and mainstreaming?

2. What are the pros and cons of inclusion?

3. How has inclusion impacted the general education settings throughout the United States, and how will understanding the history of inclusion help you as an educator?

Essay 1: Differences Between Inclusion and Mainstreaming

According to Fink (2004) the inclusive classroom is a classroom that has been given the responsibility of mainstreaming special education students into the population of general education students. In order to fully understand, this sentence, the terms 'inclusion' and 'mainstreaming' needed to be defined and distinguished.

With respect to the foregoing, Powell (2007) states that mainstreaming is really an older term that refers to a process (usually a gradual or part-time process) involving the placement of the special student in a regular classroom. For example, students who are mainstreamed may attend separate classes within the regular school but they will also attend one or two regular classes such as gym or art.

One of the key assumptions of mainstreaming is that certain special education students can be placed in regular classrooms because their disabilities are few and it can be expected that they will perform at or near grade level with few or no accommodations or modifications (Powel

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classrooms, the students in inclusive classes not only make more academic progress, they also are more likely to graduate, less likely to engage in juvenile or criminal behavior, more likely to live independently two years after leaving school, and more likely to be employed within one year of leaving school. They also show higher levels of self-esteem and tend to have higher expectations for themselves in terms of life success. The foregoing does not mean that inclusion is without its disadvantages. In this regard, McCarty (2005) points out that one problem with inclusive education is that school districts, school personnel, and parents differ in terms of understanding and implementing the placement of students with special needs in inclusive settings. This is because the law is somewhat vague and subject to differing interpretations and because the inclusive terminology is not standardized in any way which can foster confusion in terms of placement requirements. These differences in understanding and implementation mean that many inclusive programs are not as effective as they might be. Thomas and Loxley (2007) also point out that while inclusion appears to be a more cost effective approach, actually implementing it at a

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