Review of the International Trends in Inclusive Education of Children with Disability with a Situational Analysis of the Indian Context

This paper attempts to present a review of international trends in inclusive education of children with disability highlighting the status of inclusive education in India. To start with, conceptualization of inclusive education is presented explicating micro and micro exclusion and pseudo inclusion followed up by explaining the concept of ableism that underpins these processes of exclusion. This conceptualization is continued with the major features of inclusive practices in Australia, USA, UK, Italy, Finland and Canada culled out from an extensive literature review. These features include, funding approach to inclusive education, the process of identification of students with disability, inclusive practices followed, parental involvement, curricular adaptations and the prevalent models of educational settings. A capture of the similarities across these countries, highlighting certain special features is presented as a closure of the analysis of practice in these countries. The Indian scenario is presented in continuation to this consolidation sketching a brief picture of the efforts in the direction of inclusive education, analyzing the key challenges in our path of achieving an inclusive education.