A commitment to inclusive education would not need to be justified simply because it is a human right.Moving forward with inclusion also enhances the movement towards meeting the mandate of international commitments (see Objective 4 of the United Nations Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development).  However, there is evidence to show that learning in schools where the diversity of students, including students with disabilities, is welcomed and embraced has a positive impact on all members of the educational community (all students, professionals and families), on the school as a whole, as well as on the local community in which it is located (Kefallinou, et al., 2020).

With regard to teachers, this positive impact is reflected in improvements in both their professional performance (e.g. in their teaching methodologies - Hehir, et al., 2016 - or the way they collaborate with other teachers – Drossel et al., 2019) and their personal well-being (e.g. personal satisfaction or perception of competence – Jordan et al., 2010).

Regarding students, the presence of, for example, students with disabilities does not interfere negatively with the academic performance of their peers and if there is any impact on them it is positive (Hehir, et al., 2016; Alnahdi, 2019; Cologon, 2019). With respect to students with disabilities, significant positive impacts are also found both academically and socially (Kefallinou, et al., 2020). Hehir et al. (2016) concluded that there is evidence that even educational settings can confer short and long-term benefits for all students.

For families, when inclusive education works, their perception of personal and family well-being is positively affected (Cologon, 2019) and this is related to their partnerships with schools and teachers (Simón et al., 2022).

However, it is questionable whether these benefits are shared by the different members of the educational community and, more specifically, by the families of peers or teachers. In fact, the educational community is often unaware of the benefits of embracing diversity (UNESCO, 2020). According to the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education (2022), for countries to move forward with the challenge of building increasingly inclusive environments, it is important to share a vision of what the meaning and sense of inclusion is. In this context, it is important to have evidence of the positive impact of inclusion, while recognising the different views on the subject (Dalgaard,  et al., 2022; Gray et al., 2021).

Moreover, learners with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are commonly viewed as more challenging for an effective inclusive education than learners with other special educational needs (SEN) (Humphrey & Symes, 2013). For this reason, it is relevant to know the opinion of members of the educational community such as families or teachers in mainstream schools who, among others, teach students with ASD.

Therefore, the objectives of this study were a) to identify what benefits of inclusion are perceived by teachers and families at schools where students with ASD are enrolled,  and b) to analyse the influence on this perception of variables related to the families (having children with and without SEN) or the teachers (age, experience and training).

In order to respond to these objectives, a mixed methodology was used. Families from different educational levels and teachers from 14 schools participated. To collect the information, a questionnaire on perceived benefits was used and in-depth interviews were carried out with teachers and families who have children with ASD.

The results show that both families and teachers identify benefits related to students with SEN, their peers and teachers. These results have relevant theoretical implications in the framework of analyses of the meaning and significance of inclusion as well as practical implications.

This research has been developed through a mixed methodology following a concurrent triangulation strategy, collecting both quantitative and qualitative data (Creswell, 2014). Quantitative part: a total of 323 families and 180 teachers belonging to 14 regular schools of different educational levels (from early childhood education to baccalaureate) participated. All of these schools were involved in schooling students with ASD. These students spent over 60% of the time in the mainstream classroom. 50% of these schools were public and the other 50% were charter schools. The information was collected using the Questionnaire on the perception toward the benefits of inclusive education (Muñoz et al., in press; Simón et al., 2022). It consists of 16 items that evaluate 2 areas: benefits and losses for the classmates of the learners with SEN and for the teachers and the school. This questionnaire is filled up by indicating the level of agreement with the statements presented in the items based on a Likert scale with 4 options (1 = completely disagree, and 4 = completely agree). For the analysis of the results, the statistical software SPSS was used (v25.0). Kolmogorov-Smirnoff tests were carried out to check whether they met the requirements for the application of parametric statistics. The results were positive, thus it was decided to use non-parametric tests. Mann-Whitney tests and Kruskal-Wallis tests were conducted. Qualitative part: in-depth interviews were carried out with 22 families of pupils with ASD and 24 classroom and support teachers of these pupils of different educational stages. The questions script for the interview was designed with the aim of analysing positive and negative aspects of the pupils with SEN schooling, taking into account peers, teachers and the school. First all transcripts we read deeply. Inductive codes were then established in order to make sense of the information collected. In this way, we developed an inductive coding system that facilitated the compression of the gathered data (Miles and Huberman, 1994). To ensure the rigour of the analysis, all the information was analysed simultaneously by two researchers and contrasted later with another researcher of the team. Moreover, all the interviewees used the same question guide to perform the interviews (Braun and Clarke, 2008). Ethical Aspects: The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University (CEI-88-1654).

Both families and teachers identify benefits for the students with disabilities themselves, their classmates as well as for the teachers and the school. There are important coincidences in this perception. Perceived benefits for pupils with SEN include being considered to be better prepared for the real world and having more opportunities to develop their academic competences and to nurture their personal and social development. Regarding the benefits identified for their peers without SEN these also involve being better prepared for the real world and having more probabilities of respecting and valuing human differences. In relation to the teachers, improvements in their teaching practice are noted, favouring that it reaches all pupils as well as greater collaboration with other teachers. Finally, regarding the school, they are considered to be better prepared to respond to the needs of all students. However, these perceptions vary according to related variables such as having or not having children with SEN, as well as factors related to teachers, specifically the experience of having been a teacher of students with SEN. Also, families with children with SEN have an even more positive perception than families without them. Families talk about the constant fights and levels of strength they need to deal with, and schools came open about the need to embrace changes and improvements. It is also a great opportunity for the peers to understand other´s needs and for the school to understand the concept barrier and to overcome it for all students. These results have relevant theoretical implications in the framework of the analysis of the meaning and significance of inclusion. Inclusive education in itself can become a lever for school improvement. In the same way, these results can be powerful evidence so as to improve the school in terms of being more inclusive.

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