Inclusive Education: Current Discourse and Prospects for Development

 The development of inclusive education remains a very challenging task, despite the fact that more than 10 years have passed since its legislative enshrinement. It is time to form a scientific reflection of this stage, to identify further tasks of the inclusive processes. According to the official documents, the state educational policy is focused on the changes in this area until 2030, what allows us to follow this process. The scientific description of the Russian model of inclusive education will be interesting for our foreign colleagues. They can compare it with the models of their countries.

The state policy on inclusive education is good, but its practical implementation is overcoming systemic obstacles. These obstacles are the mindset of educators, a lack of competencies, and the difficulties of normative and financial regulation. The main vector of state policy that frames the systemic development process of inclusion is based on support for learners with disabilities. It generates tension within the scientific and pedagogical community, which lasts for years and requires going beyond the boundaries of the medical approach.

This special issue presents expert views on the problems, and opportunities for the development of inclusive education in different scientific positions and interests. The authors discuss the contradictions between global trends of inclusive education and the development of Russian education, state policies, obstacles and resources for the realization of the principle of continuity of the inclusive process at different levels of education, and goals and opportunities of inclusion in the education of children with different developmental disorders. A special topic of this issue is the formation of the future teachers with requiered professional competencies. The discourse of scientists from different countries, who share their solutions on the preparation of a future teacher, brings the changes. An important strategic role in the formation of a unified educational space belongs to professional educational communities; it is to identify professional deficits and the needs of professional development teachers might face.

We hope that this issue will provide material for anylisis, and will become the subject of professional discussions and formation of new hypotheses in psychological and pedagogical studies of education. We are sure that the goal of any education is inclusion.

V.V. Rubtsov, PhD in Psychological Sciences, Professor, Academician of the Russian Academy of Education, President, Head of the International UNESCO Chair «Cultural-Historical Psychology of Childhood», Moscow State University of Psychology & Education (MSUPE); President of the Federation of Educational Psychologists of Russia

S.V. Alekhina, Associate Professor, PhD in Psychological Sciences, Director of the Federal Center for the Development of Inclusive Education, Moscow State University of Psychology and Education (MSUPE).