In line with Article 24 in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) (United Nations, 2008), inclusive education - emphasising all learners’ rights to participation, belonging, and meaningful learning - has become a priority in European education policy. This has resulted in a shift toward educating students with special educational needs in mainstream rather than segregated settings, a development identified in a comparative study across seven European countries (Buchner et al., 2021). However, this development has progressed unevenly across student groups. For students with intellectual disabilities (ID), the study indicates that they remain the group most frequently placed in special schools and receive their education in segregated settings. At the same time, students with ID are described as a “hidden population,” due to significant gaps in data about their education, resulting in “a lack of transparency in the implementation processes of the UNCRPD” (Buchner et al., 2021, p. 18).

In Sweden, by contrast, students with ID constitute a visible group as they are admitted to a distinct school form: the Compulsory School for Students with Intellectual Disabilities (CSSID). This school form follows its own national curricula, syllabi, and timetables, and in the 2024/25 school year, 1.5% of all compulsory‑school‑age students attended the CSSID (Swedish National Agency for Education [SNAE], 2025). As a formal ID diagnosis is required for admission, the Swedish system enables systematic examination of inclusion and UNCRPD implementation for this group. Yet, although the separate school form is intended to accommodate diverse needs, organisational boundaries may reinforce exclusionary processes (Göransson & Nilholm, 2014). The Swedish Education Act states that students with ID should be given opportunities to receive their education in mainstream classes (Public Law 800, 2010). Nevertheless, only 9.1% of CSSID students were integrated into mainstream classes in 2024/25, even though about 90% of CSSID units are located within or near mainstream compulsory schools (Göransson et al., 2022; Sjöqvist et al., 2021).

This discrepancy highlights a tension between rights‑based inclusion frameworks and organisational structures that remain largely segregated. However, within the UNCRPD framework, inclusion is not merely a matter of placement but concerns students’ actual opportunities to participate in the educational and social life of the school, a condition that further presupposes that diversity can function as a pedagogical resource when students are provided with genuine opportunities to engage in shared, meaningful activities (United Nations, 2008). From this perspective, inclusion can be understood as a dynamic process shaped by exclusionary forces operating both outside and inside schools (Malmqvist, 2025). As the proportion of students in the CSSID has increased in recent years (SNAE, 2025), questions arise regarding what teachers need to do - together in practice - to enable participation and learning for students with ID in line with the UNCRPD.

Against this backdrop, the aim of this study is to illuminate how inclusion, understood as all learners’ rights to participation, belonging, and meaningful learning, can be meaningfully realised in everyday school practice when the overarching educational system remains structurally segregated. The study is guided by the following research question:

• How can teachers develop shared working methods and didactic practices that enhance inclusion for students with ID, and what conditions emerge as significant in doing so?

The study is theoretically grounded in the Staircase Model of Inclusionary and Exclusionary Processes (Malmqvist, 2025), which conceptualises inclusion and exclusion as positions along a dynamic continuum rather than fixed states. The model highlights how students move between different degrees of inclusion and exclusion over time and provides an analytical framework for examining how collaboration between school forms may strengthen or counteract these movements.

The study is designed with a qualitative, practice‑based methodological orientation and an action‑research‑inspired approach. It has been initiated at one school, where six teachers currently participate. The intention is to include an additional three schools to capture how inclusion‑related processes develop across different sites. The methodological approach conceptualises inclusion as a situated and relational process that is shaped in the everyday realities of teaching, rather than as a fixed organisational arrangement. The study is organised into recurring cycles in which the participating teachers and the researchers jointly plan, implement actions, reflect, and revise. Each subsequent step in the process is shaped by what becomes visible in teaching and in students’ participation (Rönnerman, 2012). This cyclical structure enables analysis of how inclusionary and exclusionary processes emerge, shift, and are renegotiated over time through teachers’ didactic and organisational choices. The dataset comprises three components: 1. Planning templates and structured logbooks completed by participating teachers alongside the planned actions. The templates articulate instructional goals, specify observable indicators of participation, and clarify what is being trialed. The logbooks, written immediately after each lesson, document implementation, observations of student participation, and planned adjustments for subsequent sessions (cf. Bjørndal, 2011). 2. Focus‑group discussions with participating teachers. An initial discussion examines how collaboration is understood and enacted in everyday practice; follow‑up discussions address planning of actions, experiences from and analyses of the implemented actions, and the identification of emerging needs that inform subsequent action cycles. Led by the researchers, the conversations address responsibility, information flow, and planning, and how these conditions shape students’ opportunities for participation (Rönnerman et al., 2016). All discussions are audio‑recorded and transcribed. 3. Classroom observations and student interviews conducted in connection with the actions. Observations focus on communication, interaction, and moments when students either engage or withdraw. Interviews, using adapted formats and supports as needed, elicit students’ perspectives on shared teaching and factors that facilitate or constrain their participation. The analysis is conducted as a thematic content analysis of the transcribed material and collected documents (Creswell & Poth, 2025). Coding focuses on didactic choices, organisational conditions, and relational and communicative processes. The resulting themes are then interpreted through the Staircase Model of Inclusionary and Exclusionary Processes (Malmqvist, 2025), enabling the empirical material to be analysed as stay‑in or push‑out processes in relation to students’ participation and inclusion.

Grounded in an action‑research approach, the study is expected to contribute to a deeper understanding of how inclusive and exclusionary processes unfold in everyday teaching, and how these processes can be actively shaped to align educational provision for students with ID with the principles of the UNCRPD. Through iterative cycles of planning, action, reflection, and revision, the project is anticipated to generate a set of practice‑tested didactic principles for co‑teaching and co‑planning when students follow different curriculum components. These principles are expected to clarify how teachers’ instructional and organisational decisions can influence mechanisms of stay‑in and push‑out, as conceptualised in the Staircase Model, and thereby offer concrete strategies for strengthening students’ opportunities for participation and learning. In addition, the study is expected to enhance professional learning by establishing routines for collective reflection - such as logbook writing, peer‑supported observation, and structured focus‑group discussions - that foster improved relational coordination between staff in the CSSID and mainstream compulsory school. These collaborative practices are anticipated to build shared professional understandings of inclusion and create conditions for more coherent pedagogical and organisational responses. Finally, the study is expected to produce a set of practical tools, such as planning templates, participation indicators, and concise implementation guides, designed to support iterative improvement in inclusive practice. While developed within the present study, these tools and the associated insights are formulated to be adaptable and informative for use in other educational settings. Taken together, the contributions offer situated insights with potential applicability for strengthening inclusive processes and aligning provision for students with ID with the intentions of the UNCRPD.

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