Inclusionary Education in Italy: A Literature Review and Call for More Empirical Research

Since the 1970s, Italy has had a national policy of integrating nearly all students with disabilities into the general education classroom. As a result, many advocates of inclusion in the United States have identified Italy as an excellent example of how wide-range inclusion can be accomplished. However, some U.S. and Italian educators have expressed concern that very little research has directly examined Italy's inclusion practices and outcomes. In this article, all of the available literature in English in a 20-year period that pertained to Italy's inclusion outcomes and classroom practices was reviewed. Of the studies directly addressing Italy's inclusion practices, survey studies were the most common, and very few studies used experimental methodology. Furthermore, survey studies generally found outcomes considered to be favorable toward inclusion practices, whereas the results from experimental studies called the benefits of full inclusion into question. Of the studies that described interventions for students with disabilities, only a small percentage was conducted in a general education setting. Implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.