Using research to encourage the development of inclusive practices

The field that has been known as special education or, more recently, special needs education, is involved in a period of considerable uncertainty. In particular, the emphasis on inclusive education that is now evident in many countries challenges special needs practitioners to reconsider their own thinking and practice. This context of uncertainty provides the special education field with new opportunities for continuing its historical purpose of representing the interests of those learners who become marginalised within existing educational arrangements. At the same time, many of the assumptions that have guided special education practice are, in my view, no longer relevant to the task (Ainscow 1999).