Inclusive education means that students with disabilities are supported in chronologically age-appropriate general education classes in their home schools and receive the individualized instruction delineated by their individualized education programs (IEP's) within the context of the core curriculum and general education class activities. Inclusion is an effort to make sure students with disabilities go to school along with their friends and neighbors while also receiving whatever specially designed instruction and support they need to achieve high standards and succeed as learners.

Inclusive education is not the same as mainstreaming or integration. Mainstreaming attempts to move students from special education classrooms to general education classrooms only in situations where they are able to keep up with their typically developing peers without specially designed instruction or support. Integration provides only part-time inclusion, which prevents the students from becoming full members of the classroom community.

​adapted from "What is Inclusion" Inclusion White Paper

Funded by the Florida Developmental Disabilities Council

11/26/02 © 2002 Florida State University Center for Prevention & Early Intervention Policy