Exploring the Perspectives of Teachers, Parents, and Students in an Inclusive Education Setting

Background

Society’s perception of people with special needs has changed greatly over the years. In the early 1800s, the perception of society was that people with special needs were and would continue to be dependent on another person, so institutions were built to teach the skills needed in order for them to become more independent (Francisco et al., 2020). In 1837 public education was invented “with the goal of ‘Americanization’ of students” (Francisco et al., 2020, p. 2) and students with disabilities were educated, but due to the perceptions of the capacity for learning, “the curriculum in institutions that housed individuals with disabilities was differentiated from that of ‘normal’ public schools” (Francisco et al., 2020, p. 2).

Throughout the 1800s, society’s perception of students with disabilities changed from a sense of it being necessary for society to have a hand in teaching them to be independent to several court cases deciding that the new compulsory education laws did not apply to students with special needs (Francisco et al., 2020). “The trend shifted from isolation to integration in the early 1900s as society’s perceptions of disability changed” (Francisco et al., 2020, p. 3). Although this did not mean the integration of students with special needs into general education classrooms, it did mean that the students were “transferred to special classes with a smaller teacher-to-student ratio, which allowed for individualized instruction and was seen to be more beneficial to individuals with disabilities” (Francisco et al., 2020, p. 3).