Inclusive classrooms are challenging teaching and learning environments, where heterogeneity is made visible in all its forms, such as learning profiles, learning styles and intelligences (Tomlinson, 2011).
Teachers dealing with heterogeneity are expected to develop effective strategies to address individual differences in needs, interests and learning preferences in a common classroom.
This paper offers an insight into a selected number of inclusive classrooms in Italy, whose teachers consider themselves as successful in creating a satisfactory classroom enviroment which meets the expectation of inclusive ideals (e.g. UNESCO, 2009; European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education, 2009).
Differentiating means resorting to a variety of strategies with the aim of engaging all pupils in a learning process, addressing the particular learning needs of each and of the whole class.
Differentiating requires suitable classroom management strategies, flexible pupils’ grouping and the ability of planning, managing and supervising simultaneous different activities (Tomlinson, 1999, 2011).
Italian school system has attempted, for almost forty years, to create inclusive classrooms. At the end of the ’70s a policy for integrazione established that all pupils, irrespective of their disability, had the right to attend mainstream classrooms where suitable accomodations had to be offered (Law 517/1977; Framework Law 104/1992). In the last decade the policy developed into the direction of an inclusive system, enlarging the rate of pupils’ needs recognised (Ministro dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca, 2012).
In spite of the long tradition, little empirical research has been made within classrooms to know how mainstream settings have been structured and organised to make the system really inclusive in the practice (Ianes, Zambotti, Demo, 2013). Moreover the research evidenced phenomena of 'micro-exclusion' and 'pull-out' which need to be further investigated (D’Alessio, 2011; Ianes, Demo, Zambotti, 2014), as well as the use of spaces, which plays an important role in processes of exclusion and inclusion (D’Alessio, 2012).
This study focuses on the results of a qualitative data analysis regarding differentiation strategies applied in inclusive classrooms in Italy. The data were collected through a multiple case study, consisting of observations and focus groups with teachers, pupils and parents. Classes were selected thanks to the voluntary candidature of teachers.
The aim of putting a particular focus on differentiation is to obtain information about the preferred strategies applied by teachers in inclusive classrooms (e.g. differentation strategies regarding environment arrangements, presentation of learning opportunities, teaching materials and evalutation/assessment).
