Innovative and transformative approaches to quality inclusive education in international contexts
Category: Publication
It has been just over 30 years since the Salamanca Statement was endorsed by 92 governments and 25 international organisations in 1994, which marked an internationally shared commitment to inclusive education (UNESCO, 1994). The UN Sustainable Development Goals further affirm the indispensable role of quality inclusive education for a peaceful and sustainable future of the globe (UNESCO, 2015). While the definition of inclusive education is often contested, it can be usefully understood as a process that aims to maximise the presence, participation, and achievement of all students regardless of their backgrounds, and minimise any form of marginalisation, discrimination, and exclusion (Ainscow et al., 2006). Inclusive education requires an education system to adapt to student diversity through systematic changes, ranging from policy and resource distribution at a macro-level to classroom pedagogy and support at a micro-level. Inclusive education is to respect a student’s right to dignity, and it is every educator’s responsibility to build a learning environment with the right conditions for inclusion (Cantali et al., 2025). In the past few decades, we have seen landscape shifts in many countries with a growing recognition and valuing of student diversity in classrooms. The ways that countries address equality and equity issues in education systems tend to vary depending on complex economic, social, cultural, and political factors. For instance, in China, a traditional special education system operates as a way to ensure that resources and services are in place for children with disabilities, the country’s most vulnerable group to exclusion in education, while tremendous efforts have been made recently to increase access to regular schools and improve inclusive practice by reshaping teacher education programmes (Wang, 2023). In contrast, in Scotland, its unique Additional Support Needs system reaches nearly 40% of its student population and all teachers are expected to be competent in inclusive practice, whereas it still faces issues that compromise what the support system sets out to achieve (Morgan 2021; Scottish Government, 2025). There won’t be a single unified solution that can be uncritically applied across international contexts. This does not undermine the difference it makes to our understanding when we learn about, in more depth, how progress is made and how challenges are overcome in one another’s social-cultural context. Indeed, there have already been many examples that demonstrate the importance of learning across contexts (e.g., lesson study). Therefore, this special issue will bring together the latest research that adds to the global learning of innovative and transformative approaches to quality inclusive education. The collection is intended to contribute to the conceptualisation of inclusive education and create a positive impact on the future development of policy and practice.
Initiator(s):
Beijing International Review of Education
Deadline: 30.05.2026
Language(s): English
Publication-Type: Article / Journal
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