The reform of special education or the transformation of mainstream schools?

This chapter examines the question of how national governments can promote the integration of children with special needs into mainstream (regular) schools. It argues that although it is tempting to see integration as a reform of special education, its success actually depends upon the transformation of mainstream schools in ways which make them more able to respond to the diversity of student characteristics. This transformation itself depends upon a paradigm shift at a number of levels within education-not least in the way school managers and class teachers conceptualize their approach to student diversity. Paradigm shifts of this sort cannot simply be legislated into being, and therefore governments have to find sophisticated means of managing change.