The expansion of special education in educational systems that have introduced inclusive education policies and practices appears paradoxical, but it is not. Inclusive education initiatives have followed the trajectory of previous attempts (e.g., mainstreaming, integration) of reforming the education of students that teachers in general classrooms perceived difficult to teach. Skrtic (1991) described the ways that schools respond to public demands for change by creating the illusion of change. In this process, specialised arrangements and provisions expand, increasing the number of students who are identified as requiring such specialised arrangements in separated programs. Hence, policy and practice initiatives fail because they are not radical enough to disrupt the purpose and organisation of schools for all students. Moreover, the identification of an ever-increasing proportion of children and young people in schools cannot be separated from uncertain economic, social, and political conditions and the fundamental limitations of schooling to provide the promise of education. Again, this is not new (Tomlinson, 1985). What changes is the cultural dynamics that inform the identities produced for individual students. Starting from these premises, this paper explores special education in the inclusive education era. The Australian and Greek education systems are used as illustrative cases. The comparative analysis of policy documents, statistics and reports covers the period 1990-2022. The history, organisational arrangements, and loci of special education in the two systems are markedly different. Both systems have introduced policies that promote inclusive education but have maintained a special education orientation, language, and provisions. In both systems, special education has experienced continuous expansion and the education of students perceived as requiring special education is considered inadequate and in crisis. The analysis illustrates the changes over time in the core elements of special education as an administrative function of identifying, diagnosing, and allocating funding and resources. The paper postulates that there are limits to this expansion of special education as a mechanism for regulating educational systems and in this sense, special education exemplifies the limits of hope and despair (Ball, 2020) about the potential of education.

Ball, S.J. (2020). The errors of redemptive sociology or giving up on hope and despair, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 41(6), 870-880. Skrtic, T. (1991). The special education paradox: Equity as the way to excellence, Harvard Educational Review, 61(2), 148-207. Tomlinson, (1985). The expansion of special education, Oxford Review of Education, 11(2), 157-165.