The inclusion of children with special educational needs and disabilities in mainstream school settings is a practice which is encouraged internationally as a way to mitigate the risks of educational exclusion and disadvantage (European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education, 2018). However, mainstream school systems (and school systems more generally) also carry certain risks for children with special educational needs and disabilities, particularly with the increasing focus on standards, testing and accountability. In the UK, for example, concerns have been raised about the ‘standards agenda’ showing how the pressures on schools to perform have worked to the detriment of students, who may not be expected to do well in standardized tests (Rogers, 2007; Tomlinson, 2012), and similar challenges around ‘high stakes testing’ have been found in other countries (Watkins 2007; Minarechová 2012; Hamre, Morin and Ydesen 2018). In addition, parts of educational systems, such as streaming, setting and tracking, may have significant impact on the inclusion of children and young people, and the construction of difference (Sturm 2018).

These systemic ‘risks’ exist in parallel with the everyday practices of teachers and school staff, which may be more or less inclusive, and the actions of parents. Teachers, school staff and parents all work within the boundaries of national educational frameworks, which shape their scope of action, but may also exercise their agency to facilitate inclusive practice. The relation between ‘systemic risks’ and the day-to-day actions of teachers, school staff and parents is the focus of this symposium.

The key question guiding the symposium is: What ‘risks’ do educational systems present for children with special educational needs and disabilities and how do different stakeholders navigate these risks? The papers in the symposium present work from four European countries, which discuss different elements of this question, including the practices and experiences of teachers in Germany (Sturm) and in the UK (Allan and Jørgensen), parents’ experiences of professional support offered by schools in Norway (Bruin and Nevøy) and the responses of Danish educational institutions to shifting approaches to diversity-management (Hamre).

By drawing together research from these four different countries, the symposium will discuss diverse patterns of inclusion/exclusion in European educational systems, the agency of the different stakeholders within them and the way the two completement or contradict one another in relation to the inclusion of children with special educational needs and disabilities.    

European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education, 2018. Evidence of the Link Between Inclusive Education and Social Inclusion: A Review of the Literature. (S. Symeonidou, ed.). Odense, Denmark. Hamre, B., Morin, A., Ydesen, C. (2018), Testing and Inclusive Schooling: International Challenges and Opportunities, Routledge. Minarechová, Michaela (2012) Negative impacts of high-stakes testing, Journal of Pedagogy, 3 (1): 82 – 100. Rogers, C., 2007. Experiencing an ‘inclusive’ education: parents and their children with ‘special educational needs.’ British Journal of Sociology of Education 28, 55–68. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425690600996659 Sturm, T. (2018) Constructing and addressing differences in inclusive schooling – comparing cases from Germany, Norway and the United States, International Journal of Inclusive Education, DOI: 10.1080/13603116.2018.1444105 Tomlinson, S., 2012. The irresistible rise of the SEN industry. Oxford Review of Education 38, 267–286. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2012.692055 Watkins, A. (Editor) (2007) Assessment in Inclusive Settings: Key Issues for Policy and Practice. Odense, Denmark: European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education.