Inclusive education : examining equity on five continents /

Over a period of two years, the editors of this volume invited authors from nine countries to meet in different universities over two years to discuss the historical changes in inclusive education in their homelands. To provide comparisons, some authors came from first-generation inclusive education countries and others from second-generation countries. In the former group, pressures from grassroots organizers in the 1960s led to legislation establishing guidelines for inclusion in mental health treatments and educational services. In the latter group, similar efforts began in 1994 after officials agreed to UNESCO's Salamanca Statement for action on special needs education. Although two of the six studies of first-generation countries focus on the US, the other descriptions concern countries such as Austria, England, and Sweden. The second-generation countries include South Africa, India, and Argentina. A 12-page conclusion offers some general remarks about topics such as the dangers of labels. Interested readers might consult David Mitchell's Contextualizing Inclusive Education (2005), which contains essays by some of the same authors. Discussions of different cultural perspectives appear in Mairian Corker and Tom Shakespeare's edited volume Disability/Postmodernity (2002). Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate, research, and professional collections. J. Watras University of Dayton