Group 1 FTC101
INCLUSION
Content:
In America's earliest days, children born with disabilities were the source of shame and guilt
among families, often stashed away in institutions. As described by The Anti-Defamation League (2005):
The stigmatization of disability resulted in the social and economic marginalization of
generations of Americans with disabilities, and like many other oppressed minorities, left people with
disabilities in a severe state of impoverishment for centuries. In the 1800s, people with disabilities were
considered meager, tragic, pitiful individuals unfit and unable to contribute to society, except to serve as
ridiculed objects of entertainment in circuses and exhibitions.
Even into the late 20th century, 1.8 million students with disabilities in the United States were
excluded entirely from the public education system (Duncan, 2015).
In 1975, the federal Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA) required public schools to
guarantee a free, appropriate public education to students with disabilities. But the question of what
constituted appropriate education was left to the courts (Esteves & Rao, 2008). And despite the
legislation, the inclusion of individuals with special needs was considered by many educators to be of
questionable worth, a drag on teachers' time and an intrusion—a threat to the status quo (West, 2000).
In the 1980s, activists began to lobby for a broader civil rights statute. As a result, the Americans
with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed in 1990, ensuring equal access and equal treatment for people
with disabilities. Since then, the EHA has been reauthorized and renamed numerous times. The current
version, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, together with the ADA, the Every
Student Succeeds Act, and other legislation, aim to ensure that the concepts of access and
appropriateness are interpreted and applied consistently. All students are now guaranteed an education
that is not only accessible, but also free, appropriate, timely, nondiscriminatory, meaningful,
measureable, and provided in the least-restrictive setting. Today more than 90 percent of all students
with disabilities receive education in mainstream schools, and more than half are included in the general
classroom for at least 80 percent of the day (Snyder, de Brey, & Dillow, 2016).
Although the signing of these federal laws imposed immediate legislative mandates to ensure
equal access for and treatment of people with disabilities, long-standing assumptions, stereotypes, and
pedagogical practices have persisted. Practically, educators still struggle to balance the acute needs of a
few with the ongoing needs of the whole. Philosophically, educators and advocates today explore the
implications of a semantic or paradigmatic shift from disabled to different. In more practical terms, the
education community continues to worry that students with special needs will detract from the integrity
of the competitive classroom environment.
Exclusion by Race: Separate but Unequal
We've been here before. Up until the mid-19th century, virtually all slave codes in the United
States prohibited the education of black Americans (Marable & Mullings, 2003). At the time, it was
widely thought that educating those who were believed to be inferior would be not only a waste of
resources, but also a threat to the dominant majority.
