Annotated Bibliography

Obiakor, F. E., Harris, M., Mutua, K., Rotatori, A., & Algozzine, B. (2012). Making Inclusion Work inGeneral Education Classrooms. Education& Treatment Of Children, 35((3), 477- 490.

The intent of this article was to explain how inclusion can work with special education students in the general education classroom. Regardless of concerns, this article talks about how to help both general and special education teachers make inclusion work in their classrooms. In this scholarly article, it discussed the benefits for students being in the classroom. It talked about how students felt like they were part of a community, could partner up with fellow students and wouldn’t feel different or separated if they required extra help from the teachers.

Through a quasi-experimental study was used to find answers. Two groups were observed for one year. When looking at the groups, one group has included a child with an intellectual disability and the other group had no children with special needs. The results concluded with there was no difference. This meant that including children with intellectual disabilities in the general classroom with support is not going to harm academic performance of the other students without disabilities. The article suggested that future studies be completed to look further into variables such as types of supports, the extent of collaboration, severity of the disability. A strength of this article is that this study helped eliminate fear of inclusion for educators, parents and other school officials. Because this study was completed there is more information to support inclusion in not harming special education students nor general education students. A weakness of this article was that the study only used one child with disabilities. In most inclusion settings there are generally more than just one student so the results might have ended up much different if that was the case. Overall, this article made good points regarding the use of inclusion, but it only supports inclusion at the elementary level. It was unclear if secondary education was

A Qualitative study was conducted collecting data through questionnaires and interviews. The focus of the data collection was on the positive and negative effects of inclusion and the problems faced when trying to implement these programs. The study looked at teachers who supported inclusion, but when asked to put special needs students in their classroom they became reluctant. The study wanted to find out the teachers attitudes toward the subject, there willingness to help those students, and the needs of the students with disabilities. The results showed that 41.37% had positive attitudes toward inclusion, 55.16% were willing to participate. Weaknesses of this article are that it only focused on a group of educators from the same area and only general educators were interviewed. It would have been nice to have heard the opinions of the special education teachers too. A strength would be the clarity in evidence. The author claims that the teachers aren’t confident in what they know about special education and how to teach those students. Overall, this article gave perspective to the similar problems other countries have like in the United States. Inclusion is a global phenomenon that everyone is trying to make