In 1971 the Italian Parliament passed law providing for education for all students with disability to take place in mainstream classes. A process of development of inclusive teaching and learning practices started that year and is still ongoing today. At the same time other European Countries have been discussing the two options -Special Education and Inclusive Schools- looking for effective models. Some countries, Portugal for example are moving more and more towards an Inclusive School System: others, such as England, have a School System in which experiences in special schools and mainstream education co-exist. The international pedagogical discourse sees the education of persons with disability as a matter of equality in education. Most discussions focus on the dilemma between – on the one hand – receiving specific support in order to develop one’s own skills in the best possible way, responding to the assessment the person has, and – on the other hand – becoming an active participant in our society. Our study aims to enrich the European debate with empirical data that picture the development of the established practice of Integrazione Scolastica, the Italian Inclusion-oriented School System, and the effects on the life of persons with disability outside and after school. The main objectives are: 1) describing the school paths persons with disability go through in Italy; 2) finding out if and how different school paths are associated with some aspects of life outside and after school (social life, friends, working position).

During the academic year 2007/2008 about 2,000 questionnaires were filled in by persons with disability aged between 68 and 6 divided into 7 cohorts and their families. They were asked to answer questions in closed form concerning their school careers, their present situation (social life outside school, friends, working position) and to express their satisfaction with them on a scale of one to ten. Different school paths are described through three variables: length of the school career; students’ presence in class together with their classmates (always, sometimes, never); for elder participants, whether they attended special schools or mainstream classes. Statistical analyses investigate the association of these variables describing school careers with others related to the life of persons with disability outside and after school (social life, friends, working position). Moreover, the data of different cohorts are compared to give an idea of the trends in the last 30 years.

We expect to describe the different school careers of the about 2,000 persons with disability that took part in our study, with particular reference to its length, the presence of the student in class together with their classmates and considering, for elder participants, if they attended a special school or a mainstream class. Moreover, we expect to analyze the association of different school careers with some aspects of the participants’ life outside and after school (social life, friends, working position).