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Environmental intervention to
promote mainstream school inclusion: The Buckinghamshire Inclusion
Project (Phase 1) . Lisa A. Osborne, Norah Frederickson, and Phil Reed University College London, UK Behavioural intervention has been shown to work when applied at the level of the individual. However, this study examines the effectiveness of this approach when dealing with a school environmental system. This project runs over three years, and its aim is to promote the successful inclusion of identified pupils from Special Schools into Mainstream Primary and Secondary Schools, and to improve the ability of Mainstream Schools to meet their needs. The first phase is to develop a shared definition, and a replicable model, of inclusion, and to unite the involved schools in this mutually agreed definiton, which has practical application. This has been investigated by the use of the Mainstreaming Social Skills Questionnaire, analysis of the teachers' qualitative definitions of successful inclusion, and responses to inclusion scenarios, designed to establish the prevailing concept of inclusion. The schools' responses to the above questionnaires provide an indication of the past and present teaching environments, against which can be monitored the learning behaviours of the included children, thus, providing a reinforcement history. The next phases of the project will support this inclusion through environmental manipulations. The schools have trained on the Circles of Friends strategy, and have expressed positive attitudes towards this approach. Keywords: environmental intervention, school inclusion, mainstream and special schools, educational psychology, children |
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