Sustaining comprehensive secondary school reform (CSR) represents an immensely difficult and unresolved challenge for the field. The problems associated with CSR are of significant concern to proponents of inclusion given that more responsive schools and classrooms are connected to, if not dependent upon, the success of broader school reform efforts. In this paper, we will employ the experience derived from a decade of practice in secondary school reform to interpret the findings from the CSR literature. We will extract lessons learned about the reform process to identify five key implications that seem to be preconditions for the success of comprehensive site-based reforms and lead to inclusive practice.

Literature regarding the transition of students from primary to secondary school indicates that all students face a number of problems centring around the school environment, academic adjustment (teachers and curriculum) and social environment. These problems are likely to be exacerbated for students with disabilities or special needs. There is limited research into the transition of the general student population from primary to secondary school and virtually none regarding the transition of students with disabilities or special needs. This study concentrated on the transition from primary to secondary school of students with disabilities or special needs in Victorian mainstream Catholic schools. One hundred and ten teachers from 109 schools completed questionnaires. Findings suggested a considerable level of concern for the transition of this particular group of students and support for a number of specific activities and procedures to facilitate smooth transition and communication between school levels. Support was found to be greater in theory than practice.

School failure often stems from a mismatch between the language used by children and the language used in schools. Central to the mismatch is the fact that schools use “extended texts” (i.e., long stretches of language that expound a topic). Extended texts impose major and unique language processing demands that are unfamiliar to many children. At the same time, these texts cannot be abandoned since they are central to the school’s educational mission. However, it is possible to modify the form they have commonly taken. This form, developed to meet the constraints of a prior time, is marked by dual disadvantages: a) it emphasizes memory for details, a skill that is problematic in many language disabled students and b) it is based upon “isolated” decontextualized concepts that do not support coherent discussion. This paper offers an alternative model for classroom text which involves the use of a) memory aids (i.e., materials to reduce the need for recall of verbal details) and b) “predicated topics,” (i.e., patterns for structuring conceptual information in a predictable and relevant manner).

The past decade saw a movement towards consensus in special education as personnel increasingly directed their attention to a literal interpretation of special education. At the same time, there was a shift from the old concern with extensive diagnosis and categorization of child-centred, organically based deficits, as the poor returns of this approach became apparent to parents, to teachers and to all other personnel involved with children needing assistance in learning.

In essence, special education is about preventing, remedying, reducing and offsetting the effects of learning problems. Facts about what can or cannot be done to expand learning and learning ability provide the basic propositions from which all conclusions in special education must be drawn. Special educators recognise that learning ability within a domain is, to a large extent, learned and that failures need not be predictable nor inevitable.

Influential in bringing about this new conceptualisation was the effect of the most exciting development in special education in the last two decades: an extensive and rapid growth in the power of instruction. This improvement was particularly apparent to those people who had access to the latest developments, on a worldwide basis, and who had the opportunity to check their magnitude in model projects. Almost overnight it became clear that special education services had to change completely. At the same time the most frustrating and disappointing feature of this era was the fact that so much of the newly created potential for helping special children remained largely unexploited as far as the vast number of “at risk” children was concerned. Consequently, the great expectations that were generated were often comprehensively and persistently thwarted as professionals, schools and systems failed to make the necessary adjustments. “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” This paper looks at prospects both from the point of view of new advances in instructional research, their origins and potential, and also at ways in which we can encourage professionals, schools and systems to adjust to these advances.

The suggestion is made, in this paper, that too many children have been placed in Special Schools for the physically handicapped. One of the reasons for this has been the tendency for the community to use the terms impairment, disability and handicap, interchangeably. An attempt is made to clarify the difference between these terms. It is claimed that there should be “compelling educational reasons” before a child is placed anywhere other than a regular class in a regular school. Guidelines for determining alternative placements are suggested. The paper claims that, in Australia, there does not exist an appropriate continuum of educationl service provision for children with physical disabilities. It is contended that too little use is made of the special class within a regular school.

Historically it has been the practice to educate a child with a significant physical disability in a special school. Of course there have been some exceptions to this practice, but it has never-the-less been true that a child with, say, athetoid cerebral palsy, would probably have been placed in a “special school for the physically handicapped”. Fortunately that situation is changing and it is appropriate that we look now at both why the special placement model was so popular, and also what factors should be considered in determining an educational placement today.

This research examines the strategies reported by teachers who have managed aggressive and extremely disruptive behaviour of students who have special needs. A sample of 52 teachers from mainstream and special settings listed the strategies that they have used to respond to this behaviour, the reasons for their choice and their estimate of the effectiveness of the strategies. The results indicate that teachers of students with special needs encounter a significant amount of challenging behaviour directed towards themselves and others. The study found that although teachers’ years of experience and level of training were unrelated to their choice of strategies and their perceived success, the majority of teachers relied heavily on their own and their colleagues’ experiences rather than on evidence‐based/empirical research. The study also found a low reported incidence of negative or coercive interventions and that approximately half of the teachers adopted strategies that involved some form of functional assessment of aggressive and/or extremely disruptive behaviours. The implications for further research, policy development, in‐service training and professional development were explored.

The purpose of this within‐subject comparisons exploratory study was to examine the influence of a graphic representational strategy on the problem solving performance of fourth graders, including special education students with learning problems. We employed a preliminary design experiment, prior to conducting a formal experimental or quasi‐experimental study, to gain insights into factors that may inhibit or enhance implementation of the intervention, especially in the context of real world of classroom (Gersten, Baker, & Lloyd, 2000). Students received teacher‐led strategy instruction in problem solving using a whole group (8 to 9 students) format followed by guided practice in applying the strategy during cooperative groups. Results indicate that students’ word problem solving performance increased from the pretest to posttest on multiplication and division problems. In addition, some students were able to generalise the skill to untaught problems. Implications of the representational strategy for solving word problems by elementary students and special education students with learning problems are discussed.

This paper reports on an investigation of the attitudes of 225 principals employed in Queensland state schools, toward inclusion of students with disabilities. The justification for the study lay in the important role of school principals in implementing social justice strategies, together with the need to focus on attitudes toward inclusion, as opposed to mainstreaming or integration. The approach to inclusion taken in this study was the placement of students with disabilities and special needs in classrooms with children who do not have such disabilities or needs, together with the provision of support for the included student. A 30‐item scale measuring attitudes toward inclusion was developed and administered. In an attempt to identify the influence of factors which might be seen to influence inclusion attitudes, the following demographic variables were used for analysis: principals’ age and gender; type and size of school; previous and present experience with students with disabilities; and special education qualifications. The results showed the large majority of school principals were positive about inclusion. It was found that the demographics age, gender, and school size had no impact on attitudes toward inclusion. Using a two‐factor solution and a clustering of types of disability, significant differences emerged on the basis of type of school (secondary vs primary), type of disability (a combination of sensory, learning, intellectual, speech) vs aggressive behaviour, and previous teaching experience with students with disabilities. In terms of the implementation of inclusion, all respondents were equally cautious, pointing to the need for further training of teachers, aides and principals, and additional resources to ensure effective inclusion.

The present study surveyed the views of parents about the education of students with special needs in regular classrooms. The survey involved 81 parents of students without disabilities and 29 parents of students with special needs. The children attended an Australian primary school. The school provided special education to 35 students with special needs and some of their education was provided in regular classrooms. Both groups of parents provided a range of supportive comments, but also expressed concerns about the implementation of special education in regular classrooms. Specific concerns included the extra time and added stress of educating children with special needs in the regular classroom, the potential disruption and disadvantage to other students, and the lack of support and resources, which may decrease the amount of learning. These views are consistent with those expressed by teachers and students without special needs as reported in the companion paper (Wright & Sigafoos, 1997) to the present study.

Inclusive education workforce capability is the ability of the education workforce to meet individual student learning needs, regardless of educational context. In this study, we investigated the perceptions of 12 principals in Australian education settings on their views about roles and responsibilities related to the workforce’s preparedness for inclusive education. We used thematic analysis to identify 9 major themes and 3 subthemes across the 3 roles about which participants were asked: the principal’s role, the system’s role, and the teacher registration boards’ role. The findings indicated a number of areas of concern for these principals about ensuring the capability of the education workforce in the context of extensive student diversity. In summary, results indicated that principals, systems, and teacher registration boards each have a role in building inclusive education workforce capability, with a coordinated effort more likely to bring Australia closer to its pledge of inclusive education for all students.

In this paper, we explored various aspects of Canadian preservice elementary school teacher views about inclusive physical education. Based on prior work by Loreman (2014) that broadly examined preservice teacher views on inclusive education, in this study we looked specifically at inclusive physical education using a different sample of participants in the same program. Preservice teachers were asked a series of open-ended questions relating to their understandings, feelings of teaching self-efficacy, attitudes, and concerns relating to inclusive physical education in elementary school. Their responses reflected a strong focus on ability diversity (e.g., disability) and indicated that inclusive physical education means that all students should be part of the learning environment or that some should be excluded in roughly equal proportion. Depending on the curricular dimension, their self-perceived levels of preparedness ranged from low to high. The participants also presented a strong case for the necessity of resources available for the teaching of inclusive physical education.

Support teachers are responsible for educating students with disabilities who have complex needs and require additional resources. Because of the highly stressful nature of the role, support teachers are at greater risk of professional burnout, higher attrition rates, and impacts on wellbeing. There is a distinct lack of Australian or state/territory empirical evidence on strategies to promote support teacher wellbeing. In this exploratory qualitative study, we applied thematic analysis to interviews of Tasmanian support teachers to find that their wellbeing relies on principals’ and leadership staff’s support and implementation of wellbeing and inclusive education practices. Support teachers are experiencing stress, anxiety, emotional exhaustion, and depression caused by workload, accountability for funding, and poor leadership. School leaders who value wellbeing and inclusive practices foster a positive culture, demonstrating ecological theory. This study marks an initial step towards understanding how to nurture the support teachers of Tasmania.

It is recognised that the attitudes of parents and teachers are important in supporting inclusive education in developing countries. This study involved the application of quantitative research through the administration of a survey to determine the attitudes of parents and teachers in the Republic of Nauru. The results have provided preliminary data regarding attitudes related to the emergence of inclusive education in Nauru. Parents were more positive concerning issues that relate directly to the educational benefits of their children over more general benefits of inclusion in education. At this stage, teachers report higher levels of positive attitude than parents. A more fine-grained level of analysis revealed that there is a wide range of attitudes to aspects of education for students with disabilities, and areas of expertise needed to support inclusive education. This research has provided an understanding of current parental and teacher attitudes and levels of existing teacher expertise towards inclusion that is able to inform future policy development in Nauru.

I am honoured to have been asked to deliver the Des English Memorial Lecture. While I never met Des English, I have long been aware of his signal contributions to the field of Special Education and have learned much in conversations with those who knew him well. It is thus a considerable challenge to respond to the invitation by the Conference Committee.

In Volume 35, Issue 1 of the Australasian Journal of Special Education, Carter, Stephenson and Strnadová (2011) replicated a study by Burns and Ysseldyke (2009). In Carter et al.'s study, 194 Australian special educators were asked to rate the extent to which they used eight instructional practices. These practices were applied behaviour analysis, direct instruction, formative evaluation, mnemonic strategies, modality training, perceptual-motor training, psycholinguistic training, and social skills training. The first four of these practices had moderate to high effect sizes (and were regarded by the authors as more desirable techniques), and the final four practices had low effect sizes, on the basis of past meta-analytic research. Carter et al.'s findings were that while the Australian teachers used some desirable strategies relatively frequently, they also used some less desirable practices frequently and so desirable instructional practices should be encouraged at the expense of less effective practices. While these results are of interest, they also have the potential to mislead readers and later sections of the current article examine these potential misconceptions.

Apart from Iceland, Finland is the northernmost country in the world. Geographically it is one of the largest countries in Europe, but with only five million people it is one of the most sparsely populated. Like most other western countries, Finland has undergone a rapid process of urbanisation and change in occupational structure, although this did not begin until the 1940s. Nowadays about 65 per cent of the population live in urban areas (Statistics Finland 1991).

Children and young persons with severe behavioural disorders are attracting an increasing amount of political attention and publicity due to the disruption which many of them cause in community and educational settings. In this paper the authors examine definitions of behavioural disorders and summarize recent literature in the area. Other issues raised relate to prevalence data, and the apparent growth of the problem of disruption, the stability of behavioural disorders across time into adolescence and adulthood, and the increase in stress in teachers attributable to the presence of children with behavioural disorders in schools. Management approaches are described which hold promise of alleviating the problem for pupils, teachers and the wider community.

Two Hong Kong studies are described which investigate the perceptions of junior secondary school pupils (high- and low-achieving) concerning the effectiveness of rewards and punishments. Both studies employ versions of Caffyn’s questionnaire. Initial analysis reveals that (a) there is a relationship between disaffection and achievement, and (b) pupils of both achievement levels have more favourable perceptions regarding the effectiveness of rewards than they do of punishments. A focus on the relationships between achievement and perceptions reveals that (c) high-achievers perceive a large number of rewards as more effective than do low-achievers, (d) low-achievers perceive very few other rewards as being more effective than do high-achievers, and (e) the situation is a little more balanced for punishments. The paper includes a discussion regarding particular reward and punishment items perceptions about which differentiate low-and high-achievers. Finally, it is noted that there is a high level of consistency between findings in the two studies reported in this paper. Where it is possible to make comparisons with other research findings from Hong Kong and elsewhere, a high degree of agreement between such findings is found.