Unifying General and Special Education: What Does the Research Tell Us?

Abstract

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act has provided the impetus to educate all children in more inclusive settings. With the move toward inclusion has come the recognition that changes must occur in the manner in which teachers are prepared. Since the 1970s, efforts have been made to ensure that general educators have some content in their preservice preparation programs related to disabilities either through modifying existing courses or by adding special education courses to the curriculum. However, research suggests that such practices have not resulted in adequately prepared general educators for inclusive settings. A more recent early childhood education trend in preparing preservice students for inclusive settings is to unify general and special education curricula in universities/colleges. An overview of efforts toward unification and a summary of the limited research in this area are provided. The remaining articles in this topical section are introduced with a discussion of the need for further research related to unification.