Dóra S. Bjarnason The University of Iceland Inclusive education has been part and parcel of the Icelandic education policy since the 1990’s. Yet, the term “inclusive education” appeared for the first time in an Icelandic educational law text in 2008 (Lög um grunnskóla 2008, paragraph. 17) where the term is found in paragraph 17 which deals with the education of learners with special needs. Iceland ratified The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) in January1990 and in the same year established the office of The Ombudsman for Children. Yet, despite a clearer emphasis on the rights of children over time, manifest through a focus upon children’s voices, inclusive education in legal texts, and a growing number of disabled learners and learners with identified special educational needs in regular schools, it has been difficult to get some schools and teachers to welcome these learners or take on the responsibility of providing them with appropriate education in the mainstream (Marinósson, 2007). Learners with behavioural difficulties appear to be even less welcome by teachers to regular classes than those labelled with intellectual disabilities (Mortens, 2007). The discourse around inclusive education in Iceland has evolved around a black and white argumentation about whether or not learners with disability and special needs should attend regular schools with their peers or not (Jónasson, 2009; Bjarnason, 2004). Many teachers and some parents argue for segregation and individualised special education for learners labelled as having intellectual impairment, ADHD, and autism, but for different reasons (Marinósson, 2007). The paper will explore the background to this and asks two questions: First; what are the arguments for and against inclusive educational values and practices (Allan, and Slee, 2008) and how, if at all, have these changed since the 1990´s? Second; why is “inclusive education” getting a bad name in Iceland at the same time as there are calls for a strengthening of the value base for “the new democratic Iceland”, especially in the wake of the economic crash of October 2008? These questions will be explored through discourse analysis of policy and legal texts, media texts and teachers and parental public argumentation from 1990 until 2008 (Jóhannesson, 2006).