Inclusive Practice In Schools

This report contains details of the findings related to inclusive practices in Australian schools. The current assignment aims to reveal, analyse, describe and disseminate information relating to inclusive education in a classroom setting. This paper seeks to address the following questions;
- What is inclusive education and its history?
- What does the literature state about the impact of attitudes on the practice of inclusive education?
- What policies and practices are in place in Australian schools?
- What might the diverse classroom of the future look like and based on the literature what strategies are there to enhance the diverse classroom of the future?
The developments over the past 30 years have seen a shift from segregated educations
Separately these documents address particular issue in inclusive education, but they all recognise the significance of inclusive education. Furthermore, inclusion has become a fundamental part of the Australian Curriculum (ACARA), Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCAA) and the Australian Professional Teaching Standards. These documents aim to get teachers and pre service teachers familiarised with inclusive practices of education.
Inclusion is described as being a human right, especially inclusion in education. One of the first statements that led to the importance of inclusive education is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR, 1948), which stated that every individual has the right to education, an education that is focused on developing lifelong skills. An education that promotes liberty, self-determination and friendships among nations. Much did not happen in 1948, however integration started to happen. The UDHR declaration is at the core of most newer and more relevant documents regarding
Policies and practices legalise the importance of inclusion among education in Australia. So what does the Australian Curriculum say? Both ACARA and QCAA state that inclusive education is “to ensure that all students with a disability are able to participate in the Australian Curriculum on the same basis as their peers through rigorous, meaningful and dignified learning programs” (2016). ACARA also states that schools in all regions must comply with the Disability Standards for Education (2005) which is directly linked to the Disability Discrimination ACT (Commonwealth of Australia, 1992) (2016). Schools in each state and jurisdiction will have their own policies, however they are all based from these two documents. However according to Fulcher, some policies and practices implemented can be interpreted differently. Fulcher (2015) conducted a study called Disabling policies?: A comparative approach to education policy and disability This study looks at biasness within policies in schools. Fulcher study found that although places advocated for inclusive education their policies and practices were ‘interpreted differently’. Students that were ‘too hard’ were sent to a separate classroom or excluded in some form. This was a particularly noteworthy finding that links to the previous study since if the individual has grown up in cultural setting that wasn’t directly discriminatory but with