Abstract

There have literally been hundreds of articles, book chapters, and textbooks written about full inclusion. Most state departments of education mandate that general education teachers in training take at least one three-credit hour course in inclusive practices. But what do we really know about the effectiveness of inclusion and on what variables? The purpose of this article is to describe forces that changed full inclusion from a movement to a fait accompli in the absence of, or very scant, empirical research. Also, the sparse empirical research that has examined full inclusion will be critiqued and recommendations for appraising full inclusion will be presented.

Keywords: Full inclusion; Multi-tiered systems of support; Deinstitutionalism; Least restrictive environment