One of the most significant benefits of inclusive education identified in the literature is that it helps culturally, linguistically, and physically diverse students fulfill their developmental needs more efficiently than isolated education models. Acknowledging the importance and benefits of inclusive school environments, Chicago’s Audubon Elementary School and many other educational facilities in Chicago continually attempted to improve their inclusive education practices throughout the past decade. Nevertheless, despite the schools’ personnel’s efforts, they have encountered numerous barriers to a successful transition from the mainstream educational model. Three main hindrances to the arrangement of inclusive class contexts are the low level of stakeholders’ awareness of advantages associated with inclusive education, physical obstacles such as inefficient building structure and limited accessibility, and the lack of essential educators’ skills needed to resolve behavioral and academic difficulties in learners with disabilities and develop appropriate instruction programs (Powell, 2015; Murphy, 2015). At the same time, the inability to create inclusive environments in schools prevents students with disabilities from developing essential social skills and achieving academic advancement.
The given project aims to encourage the commitment to the elimination of the identified obstacles among educators and school administrators in the Chicago area and stimulate the development of public awareness of the significance of inclusive educational environments. The project’s primary objective is the creation of a positive attitude towards inclusion and dispelling existing stereotypes pertaining to it.
The project seeks to encourage the following activities and practices:
- Staff Training: According to Connolly (2017), the lack of specially trained educators who could resolve major learning issues, address the unique needs of students with disabilities, and design strategies and tools for working with them is the main challenge posed to schools located in Chicago. Thus, school administration and local authorities should support teachers in obtaining greater professional experience and assist them in attaining a higher level of expertise needed to understand and work with diverse students.
- Fundraising: The shift towards a different educational model is always associated with significant expenses. Thus, to increase schools’ capacity to change and sustain the changes, it is important to eliminate the budgetary constraints.
- Physical environment assessment and change: The provision of equal opportunities for access to educational sites is vital to minimize the social isolation of students with disabilities.
- Development of new social-cultural norms and values: Enculturated forms of attitudinal exclusion foster the unwillingness to widely adopt inclusion in schools. Therefore, schools and advocates should aim to modify the dominant social perceptions of disability and educate stakeholders to value differences and diversity.
- Student communication and education: Teaching nondisabled students to respect diversity, be more compassionate and responsive is one of the core activities in the development of inclusive environments in schools. It is thus essential to develop in learners the ability to interact with people who differ from them and develop a greater awareness of the issues associated with social differences, inequality, and inclusion.
- Policy-making: The enforcement of policies at both school-wide and state-wide levels can help to institutionalize the endeavors aimed to create inclusive educational contexts and control them more efficiently.
- Advocacy: Effective evidence-based advocacy campaigns protecting the interests of diverse students can improve public awareness of the issues. Such programs may foster discussions in professional circles and mass media and lead to the consequent finding of new solutions to the current problems.
References
Connolly, C. (2017). Inclusion – Is it working? Web.
Murphy, P. (2015). The biggest barriers to inclusive education. Web.
Powell, J. J. (2015). Barriers to inclusion: Special education in the United States and Germany. London, UK: Routledge.