Keeping the promise? Contextualizing inclusive education in developing countries

Inclusive education became a global promise corroborated by international declarations such as the Salamanca Statement (1994) and the Incheon Declaration (2015). Most countries worldwide have committed to the goal of inclusive education, putting a lot of pressure on so-called developing countries. Against this backdrop the threefold purpose of this book is to: 1. Generate research evidence on the development and implementation of inclusive education in developing countries, 2. Contextualize inclusive education in specific developing countries and contexts, and 3. Reflect on the future of inclusive education in developing countries. (DIPF/Orig.)

Equality of opportunity and equality of outcome

The report on the findings of extensive empirical research on equality of educational opportunities carried out in the US on a very large sample of public schools by Coleman and his colleagues has had a major impact on education policy and has given rise to a large amount of research and various interpretations. However, as some interpreters have highlighted, even more important than the findings of the survey themselves has been Coleman’s redefinition of equality of opportunity, abandoning the then prevailing conception of equality of educational opportunities as equality of starting points and replacing it with the concept of equality of educational opportunities as equality of educational outcomes. The question is, therefore, whether equality of outcomes really is one of the two types of equality of opportunity. The purpose of the present article is to show that equality of opportunity and equality of outcomes are two different types of equality. If they are different, the interpretation that Coleman has redefined the concept of “equality of educational opportunity” turns out to be incorrect. (DIPF/Orig.)