International and European organizations, in particular UN, UNESCO, OECD and the “European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education”, are strongly committed to the values of equity, accessibility and anti-discrimination and support the implementation of Inclusive Education worldwide (e.g. UNESCO, 2016).

Inclusive Education means, on the one hand, to guarantee to all students, regardless of individual characteristics, the access to the general education system and, on the other hand, to offer quality education and services to all, in order to respond to individual needs and pursue their highest potential.

Although morally the aim of school inclusion is difficult to delegitimize, its realization has always faced skepticism and criticism, generating a debate both at political and academic level (Ianes & Augello, 2019; Imray & Colley, 2017).

Research plays a pivotal role in this debate, as it could empirically support the ideals and principles of inclusive education, as well as select virtuous models of implementation and identify current barriers and limitation to act towards a constant improvement.

Unfortunately, empirical legitimation is still weak and characterized by many challenges. Looking at research in the field, some authors (see for example Amor et al., 2019; Messiou, 2017; Van Mieghem et al. 2019) underlined that international publications tend to give more space to certain topics (e.g. attitudes and beliefs of teachers or peers towards disability), to be fragmented according to the different categories applied (e.g. disabilities, SEN, etc.), and to prefer qualitative approaches.

Previous systematic reviews conducted by our research group (Dell’Anna, Pellegrini & Ianes, 2019; Dell’Anna, Pellegrini, Ianes & Vivanet, 2020), focused on the outcomes of students without Special Educational Needs and on those of students with severe and complex disabilities in inclusive context, showed many limitations in research. Research data on students’ outcomes is still limited, especially with reference to students with severe and complex disabilities, while studies involving peers mostly focus on their attitudes and beliefs. Moreover, as discussed by other authors, conceptual issues (e.g Göransson & Nilholm, 2014) and methodological challenges (Cottini & Morganti, 2015) make comparison between different countries risky and can product unreliable data.

Similar concerns and issues, both regarding the debate and the state of research, have been raised in Italian context, especially in the last decade

Given the particular experience of Italy in the field of inclusive education, which can be tracked back to the 70s, it could be interesting to see whether similar trends and gaps, as well as limitations, emerge in national research. Moreover, Italian model has been subject of international interest together with the request of more empirical data (Giangreco, Doyle & Suter, 2012; Begeny & Martens, 2007).

Empirical data on Italian inclusive school model is only partially published in English, while a wider literature exists in Italian. As our aim is to enhance the dialogue at international level, sharing an overview of national research on school inclusion in Italy and its results, we decided to conduct a review, selecting only literature in Italian.

Our work aims to represent the main trends in Italian research on school inclusion of the 10-year period 2009-2019, in terms of: relevant dimensions, such as levels of inclusion (from micro teaching strategies to macro level, that of the regional or national context) or school levels more investigated; the main topics addressed and research methodology used. These results will also underline the main gaps and challenges, both conceptual and methodological, and will be discussed with findings regarding international literature.

To synthesize the body of evidence we chose a systematic review methodology (Moher, et al., 2015) as it employs rigorous and replicable procedures, for the selection and coding of the literature. This approach foresees the selection of literature through a first screening of abstract, registered in online databases, such ERIC and PsychINFO. Unfortunately, most Italian journals are not part of these online databases and, therefore, for this initial step, we had to establish selection criteria regarding both scientific journals and articles. Scientific journals were required to meet the following criteria: a) to belong to the sector “Didactics, Special Education and Educational Research”; b) to be a peer-reviewed and high scientific quality journal, as defined by the Italian Ministry of University and Research through the inclusion in the “class A” list; c) to be an Italian journal. Exclusion criteria were also defined: Italian journal entirely published in English-language and those addressing issues that do not take place in school settings (i.e. focused on historical, work/extracurricular issues) , etc.) were excluded. For what concerns the selection of the scientific journals, out of 286 journals examined (after excluding duplicated search results), only 29 journals met all the inclusion criteria. With regard to abstracts/articles, included articles had to: a) be primary studies; b) be published, in Italian, between January 2009 (year of Law n.18, with which Italy ratified the UN Convention on the rights of people with disabilities) and December 2019; and c) target the topic of school inclusion in Italy (therefore postsecondary education was excluded). A total of 7,052 abstracts were screened. Of this, 6,708 were excluded because they clearly did not meet the inclusion criteria. The full texts of the remaining 344 records were examined in more detail by applying the eligibility criteria. 164 studies did not meet the eligibility criteria, whereas the 180 studies meeting the eligibility criteria were included in the review. The articles have been analyzed by the two authors independently. They sorted the same set of articles into categories, and then they compared and discussed one another’s coding emerging. Both inductive and deductive categories were used. The analysis took into account the following aspects: (1) relevant dimensions for inclusion (e.g. level of inclusion or school levels involved); (2) macro-category related to studies’ focus and, within each ones, topics and information available; (3) methodological aspects (e.g. research design, instruments, sources of information, etc.).

Regarding the first aspect of the analysis, the review offers an overview of the trends, graphically representing for example the numerosity of studies focusing, for example, on class or school level, or involving kindergarten, primary, lower or upper secondary education. About the second aspect, results are organized according to the macro-categories inspired by the work of Cottini and Morganti (2015), who distinguish studies about school inclusion focused on: (a) processes, which describe practices at different levels; (b) outcomes, in particular those of students; and (c) impact of specific interventions. The inductive subcategories, instead, group together studies which focus on the same topic (e.g. class teaching strategies; students’ attitudes). In the third part of the analysis studies are classified according to the methodological aspects above mentioned. This overview on the three aspects allows us to deduct the gaps in terms of focus and the levels most neglected (e.g. nursery school compared to primary school) and to suggest future directions in research. Moreover, the analysis allows us to critically reflect on methodological aspects, such as for example: research design (e.g. overrepresentation of qualitative research design in some categories of focus and quantitative in others); sources of information and triangulation between different informants (e.g. students versus teachers); direct involvement of vulnerable groups (e.g. students with disabilities, children, etc.). These considerations should constitute an opportunity to identify the main limitations and suggest future alternatives in research. Lastly, while the analysis takes into account conceptual issues discussing, in particular, the way inclusion is defined and, according to it, studied, it has the potential of showing whether and how different perspectives and interpretations of inclusion impact on research focus and methodology.

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