In March 2021, the European Commission adopted the Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2021-2030) (European Commission, 2021). Linked to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) and the European Pillar of Social Rights (European Commission, 2023), it pointed out the heightened risks of social and economic exclusion for persons with disabilities (PwDs) and made equal access to education a priority. Despite the efforts of multilateral agreements such as the Salamanca Statement and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals  to promote universalism over segregation (Spandagou, 2021), PwDs still face considerable barriers to full participation in education. Students with disabilities are more likely to be excluded from mainstream classrooms and have higher rates of school absence and lower rates of completion (World Health Organization, 2011). Equally, teachers with disabilities are underrepresented in the profession, and those who enter often experience an absence of reasonable accommodations and psychological support in the workplace. These inequalities have been exacerbated by reduced educational funding, inadequate facilities, and a shortage of specialist teachers and support personnel. At the same time, in broader society, populist and right-wing discourses denigrate programs that address widening social inequalities, threatening the inclusion agenda further. Highlighting the systemic and school-level challenges of disability inclusion, the European Trade Union Committee for Education, the key social partner at the European level, has suggested that the 2021 Strategy should go further (European Trade Union Committee for Education, 2021).

In recent years, there has been growing empirical interest in the capacities of social partners – trade unions and employer organisations – to engage in education policy development through social dialogue at the European and national levels (e.g. Stevenson et al., 2018). Moreover, effective industrial relations between education unions and employers are noted to be intrinsic to a rights-based social approach to disability inclusion and, thereby, the quality of employment experience for PwDs (International Labour Organisation, 2017; Pettinicchio and Maroto, 2024). However, while there is considerable comparative inquiry into the implementation of the education inclusion agenda at the national level (e.g., Ainscow et al., 2019; Hardy and Woodcock, 2015; Shuelka and Engsig, 2020), research on the role of social dialogue on the inclusion of persons with disabilities in education and work remains limited (e.g., Holubová et al., 2023). This is significant if we consider the importance of disability inclusion to individual social and economic well-being and, more broadly, the creation of democratic societies (Ydesen et al., 2022).

To address this knowledge gap, this paper analyses education social partners’ patterns of action – both individually and collectively with other organisations and with their social partners – on issues of disability inclusion. Our principal research questions are:

• What are the patterns of action and engagement in social dialogue in promoting disability inclusion between educational unions and employer organisations in Europe?
• Are there regional patterns?
• Are there sectoral patterns?

In this research, we analyzed social dialogue between employers’ and employees’ organisations according to the forms identified by the European Commission:  Joint activities and projects, information sharing, consultation, negotiation (collective bargaining).

In doing so, we recognized that different European countries have very different industrial relations systems and structures (European Commission, 2012), while the relations in the social partnership are not always positive, and education unions may lack the capacity to work on such educational issues. Understanding the complexity of these contexts was important to identify how social dialogue might be used to address disability inclusion issues in education and employment. 

Funded by the European Commission, this quantitative analysis is part of a larger multiple methods comparative study on inclusive education and employment developed by the European Trade Union Committee (ETUCE) for Education and the European Federation of Education Employers (EFEE), the two European level social partners in educational industrial relations. To understand the patterns of action on issues of inclusion across Europe, an online survey was distributed via ETUCE and EFEE to their member organisations, e.g., education unions, ministries of education, and vocational and technical education associations. Data were collected and managed using the REDCap platform (Harris et al., 2019). The 74 survey items addressed social partners’ actions to promote disability inclusion in education and employment. The survey was divided into two parts. The first part included 14 items on organisational policy, structures and personnel, disability representation and training, and support for education personnel with disclosed disabilities. The second part included 60 items on actions in areas of education policy, recruitment and retention, professional learning and development, pay and working conditions, and disability equality and anti-discrimination. Items were designed with dichotomous branching scales (Yes/No). A Yes response to an action led to follow-up questions on the types of action taken (Action by my organisation, Action with another organisation, and Action with social partner through social dialogue). A Yes response to Action with a social partner through social dialogue led to a follow-up question on the type of social dialogue (Communication, Consultation, Negotiation or collective bargaining, and Joint projects or initiatives). Respondents could elaborate on their item responses in open text boxes at the end of each thematic section. Data were analysed using SPSS (IBM Corps 2024) and Winsteps (Linacre, 2023). Adopting an instrument development approach for creating scales, Mokken Scale Analysis (Mokken, 1971) and Rasch Analysis (Rasch, 1960) were used to identify patterns between actions on inclusive education and inclusive employment and social dialogue between social partners. The relationship between a respondent’s ability to endorse an individual item and their difficulty on a set of related items enabled the calculation of a measurement on that scale for each respondent (Bond and Fox, 2015). This research advances a methodological approach employed by Authors (2019) in which this combination of methods had demonstrable success in refining existing scales and defining new constructs expansively (see also Authors, 2021, 2022, 2024).

Initial findings reveal that the social partners are engaged in actions that are not explicitly focused on disability inclusion in education but are deemed necessary for teaching and learning for all students and quality working conditions for all educational personnel. These actions are primarily at the individual level—not with other organisations or social partners—and relate to overall education funding, recruitment and retention of educational personnel across all types of education, and professional development of educational personnel in general. Regarding item difficulty, however, education unions and employer organisations indicated a lack of advocacy for improving representation in educational leadership. Moreover, while every organisation indicated that it represented members with disabilities, few actually collected data on these persons within their organisation. Although the political will to promote inclusion in education and employment is evident at the global level (e.g. UNESCO, 2025; World Health Organization, 2006), our findings indicate that the national and local social partners need to take increased action to advocate for disability inclusion, particularly in educational employment. While the focus on increased educational expenditure and staffing, in general, could be considered a means to promote inclusion for all through adequately funded systems and qualified personnel, the voices of persons with disabilities are often marginalised from policy and policy development and disability representation in senior positions (e.g. educational leadership, boards, committees) is weak. Additionally, although social partners are engaged individually in actions on education and inclusive education, joint actions tend to be limited to collective bargaining on industrial issues, e.g., pay and working conditions for all personnel in mainstream education and, sometimes, for special education. Overall, the lack of data at the level of social partners suggests a need for more research to ensure evidence-informed policymaking for persons with disabilities.

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