J. Spec. Educ. Res. 2(2): 81–86 (2014)

Invited Paper

Inclusive Education in Norway: Historical Roots and Present Challenges

Kari N

Headmark University College, Faculty of Education and Natural Sciences, Norway, 2418 Elverum, Norway

In Norway, inclusion in education is seen in a wide sense as increasing learning and participation for all. e his- torical background of inclusion in a country with a long tradition for inclusinve schooling is reviewed but in this article inclusionary practices as well as exclusionary tendencies in the current situation are identied. Present challenges are discussed in national and international perspectives.

Key Words: a broad understanding of inclusion, exclusionary tendencies

e Understanding of Inclusion aimed at developing an inclusive learning environ- ment for all. is corresponds with Norwegian policy In 2012 the Queen Sonja award for equity and inclu- guidelines where inclusive education is understood as sion was awarded to Fagerlund school, a Norwegian value-based eorts to remove barriers to learning and school for 6–13 year-olds in a small town. e school participation for all (Booth & Ainscow, 2011; Kunns- has 500 pupils of whom 80 do not speak Norwegian kapsdepartementet, 2006; Strømstad, Nes, & Skogen, as their rst language. All students in the local com- 2004). In the policy documents the notion of inclu- munity with severe and less severe disabilities as well sion is closely linked to the understanding of equity as studentss with behaviour and learning problems at- in education. On the system level, equity is about an tend the school. According to the jury this school: overriding legislation, regulations and syllabuses, and on the individual level, adapting the education • Is working systematically, knowledge-based, and in to individual abilities and aptitudes. To ensure eq- a long-term perspective with the pupils’ learning uity in education for all, positive discrimination, not environment equal treatment, is required, (Norwegian Directorate • Is practising equity and inclusion in a way that for Education and Training, 2008). Adapted education makes each pupil experience being valued in an in a school for all then may be the Norwegian deni- environment characterised by participation, trust tion of inclusive education, which means providing and community equal opportunities in a unitary school, “regardless of • Is characterised by good relationships between pu- abilities and aptitudes, age, gender, skin color, sexual pils and sta and among pupils—and with a good orientation, social background, religious or ethnic collaboration between school and home background, place of residence, family education or (Befring et al., 2012, my translation) family nances” (ibid.).

As can be seen from this example, the understand- A School for All? A Brief History of ing of inclusion is a broad one, not restricted to cer- Inclusive Education in Norway tain pupils, such as those with specic diagnoses, but Inuenced by the Salamanca statement (UNESCO, 1994), the notion of inclusive education entered * Corresponding Author Norwegian policy documents in the mid 1990s, but Mailing Address: Headmark University College, 2418 Elverum, Norway the spirit of inclusion dates far back. Along with E-mail Address: [email protected] other Scandinavian countries, Norway has a his- Received October 24, 2013, Accepted December 14, 2013 tory of universal schooling. In the rst half of the

© 2014 e Japanese Association of Special Education K. Nes

18th century free schools for children of common cated whether you were to be sent to a special school men were introduced, preceded by the claim of the or class, or, if your IQ was deemed too low, to insti- Church that everyone should be able to read religious tutions within the care system, not the school sys- texts. A system with a free public school for all and tem. Sterilisation was frequently part of the decision private schools for those who could aord it, con- for girls (Pihl, 2010). By these procedures some were tinued throughout the 19th century. Students with deemed as ‘uneducable’ and were looked aer by disability were mostly le to explore private solu- their families, later by health-care institutions. tions, but in 1881 a law was passed on schools for the abnormal, i.e. the blind, the deaf and the mildly in- Integration Reforms tellectually disabled. Late in the 19th century, rights e dual school system legislation existed for to seven years of education for all were stated, and nearly 100 years from 1881 to 1975, when the act of emerging ideas about the unitary school continued special schools was abolished and the integration law into the 20th century as part of the nation-building came into force. From then on there has been one process (Engen, 2010; Haug, 1999). education act and in principle one common school for all children. All students now had their educa- Nation-Building. Discriminatory E ects. tional rights established by a common education act. Up to 1814 Norway had been under Danish rule, A paragraph ensured the right to special education and until 1905 the Swedish King was King of Norway. for those who needed it, preferably in the mainstream Building a new independent nation and its iden- school. tity was seen as part of the task of the schools. A e special school reform agreed on in 1975 did major goal of education in Norway and many other not take place until the beginning of the 1990s when countries was to create nation-states in which all the state special schools actually closed down. Some groups shared one dominant mainstream culture. former special schools became competence centers to It was assumed that ethnic and immigrant groups support local schools and parents. At the same time had to abandon their original cultures in order to the institutions for intellectually disabled also closed fully participate in the nation-state. In the rst half down. According to the principles of normalisation, of the 20th century, an assimilationist conception service, work, and education and so forth should be- of education existed in most of the Western demo- come physically separated from the home—now out- cratic nation-states including Norway. In the nation- side the institutions— and be provided by the munic- building process-seemingly leading to more liberty ipality (Nirje, 1992). and democracy-the Norwegifying assimilation poli- cies implied exclusion of minorities and their rights Inclusive Education in Norway—Present (Engen, 2010). is policy particularly hit the in- Status & Challenges digenous Sámi population. Sámi students were not allowed to use their mother tongue in schools until Setting aside the polished surface of inclusion, how the end of the 1960s. Sámi is now an ocial language does it look in reality? Below I will show on the one in Norway, along with Norwegian, which is spoken hand how inclusive practice on dierent levels can be by most people. identied, and on the other hand ask how possible We see that cultural and linguistic minorities were exclusionary mechanisms may threaten inclusion. We discriminated against (UN, 1976), but what about are mostly talking about exclusions within education, children with impairments or other special needs only rarely exclusions from education (cf. UNESCO, throughout the 20th century? e mainstream and 2003). special school systems continued, and aer the Sec- ond World War the range of special schools was ex- Inclusion is Practiced tended to cover ve groups, including disruptive About 97% of all Norwegian students aged 6–16 behaviour. Special classes in several ordinary schools attend the common, free mainstream school, run by also appeared in the cities (Haug, 1999). Placement the local educational authorities (Norwegian Minis- for the feeble-minded, the intellectually disabled, and try of Educaton and Research, 2008). In that respect even travellers was decided by IQ-tests. Results indi- the Norwegian school system is among the most

— 82 — Inclusive Education in Norway inclusive in the world. No child, even if he or she is e alternative had been to send her out of the local disabled, can be denied access to the local school. area, and nobody would have known her” (ibid. p. Girls and boys and high and low achievers from di- 10). verse socio-cultural backgrounds take part in lessons together, without permanent streaming according to Exclusionary Mechanisms I: Social Inequality is ability. All children are the responsibility of the local Reproduced school. Very few are in special schools; less than 1%, If you are a girl and your parents are well educat- and about 2.2% of students in compulsory school age ed and speak Norwegian, generally speaking, your (6–16) are in private schools. All students are to re- chances should be good in the Norwegian school ceive dierentiated and adapted instruction in the system (Bakken, 2010; Dale, 2008). In Norway as in school nearby. In Oslo, 40% of the pupils are cur- many other countries, boys, pupils from economi- rently bilingual, but children who do not speak the cally disadvantaged and working-class backgrounds language of instruction well, do have certain specic and from linguistic and cultural minority groups are rights to adapted support. Sámi children have their overrepresented in special education (Markussen, own syllabus in Sámi language. Frøseth, & Grøgaard, 2009; Nordahl & Hausstät- Special education is intended to ensure adapted ter, 2009). e same groups do systematically worse and equitable education for persons who do not, than others when it comes to learning outcomes and or cannot, gain satisfactory benets from regular even to the alarmingly high drop-out rate in upper teaching (Education Act §5-1). us, the right to secondary education. Further, average learning out- special education is non-categorical. An expert as- come as to literacy and numeracy is not satisfactory, sessment states whether the student has this right, according to PISA and other studies (Kjærnsli, 2007). and the content of special education in question. Too many pupils, especially the talented children are e right applies to pre-primary, primary, lower and probably under-challenged in class and hence under- upper secondary education. When special educa- achieving (Idsøe & Skogen, 2011; Mortimer, 2004). tional needs are stated, more resources are allocated e intention of the politicians is to reduce the gap by in order to implement individual educational plan improving the chances of boys and pupils from im- (IEP), usually in part time special education in con- migrant backgrounds and from socio-economically nection with the ordinary class. If the impairments less privileged homes. e measures taken have not of the child are substantial, full time special educa- yet proven eective (Bakken & Elstad, 2012). tion is assigned. External support is given locally by the educational/ psychological service. State compe- Exclusionary Mechanisms II: Increasing Exclusion tency centers support local schools in teaching low in Special Education frequency groups (Norwegian Ministry of Education Figure 1 shows how the number of pupils re- and Research, 2011). ferred to special education has grown from 6% in If we look beyond the systems, researchers have 2003–2004 to 8.6% in 2012–2013. is has happened studied classroom teachers who practice inclusion to see what their main characteristics are: a good rela- tionship to the pupils, a good knowledge of the sub- ject matter, collaboration with all stakeholders in the school, and giving rewarding and relevant feed-back to the children (Mæland, 2004; Moen, 2004). Chil- dren with multi-handicaps like the eighth grader Anne, are taught in their local school (Munthe-Kaas, 2004). Anne’s lessons mostly take part in a little room next to her class, and sometimes in class with addi- tional support. e head teacher said (translated): Fig. 1 Number of Pupils in Compulsory Education Receiving “My hope for Anne is that, aer she has le school, Special Education (unbroken line) from 2003–2004 to when meeting peers in town, they will stop and ask 2012–2013. Girls (lower line) and Boys (upper line). how she is. If that happens, we have achieved a lot. Percent. (GSI, 2013)

— 83 — K. Nes in a period where the intentions have been to reduce school, as earlier mentioned, is becoming more and the need for special education by strengthening the more an exception (Munthe-Kaas, 2004). general adaptation of education (St.meld. nr. 16, It is a paradox that while this segregation curve 2006–2007). starts to point upwards, the UN convention on rights Figure 1 includes part time and full time spe- of persons with disabilities is ratied, saying among cial education, within and outside special classes or other things: “Persons with disabilities can access an schools. In addition, individual support resembling inclusive, quality and free primary education and sec- special education is given to another about 10% of ondary education on an equal basis with others in the the pupils (Nordahl & Hausstätter, 2009). e gure communities in which they live” (UN, 2006 article also reveals that about twice as many boys as girls are 24). Another group of pupils experiencing increas- in special education, a ratio that has been stable for ing segregation are those conceived to be disturb- decades (Solli, 2005). ing or disengaged. In some communities, alternative Figure 2 shows the number of pupils in segregat- schools with more practical subjects in small groups ed provisions. e number of special classes (hori- have been established for pupils older than 13 years zontal line) has continued to rise aer 2007, so there old, but increasingly, such arrangements pop up even are now more pupils segregated than when the state for primary school pupils (Jahnsen, Nergaard, & og special school system existed (Utdanning, 2012). For Grini, 2011). most pupils in question, beginning a special class Another ascending curve in Fig. 3 shows that just means leaving the local area. Cases like Anne, a stu- a few pupils, about 4%, receive special education in dent with signicant impairments attending her local year 1, while nearly 12% in year 10, in contrast to the principle of early intervention. A “wait-and-see” strategy seems to be prevailing, a strategy that will have particularly negative eects on pupils from homes with little capacity to support their children’s school work, which would allow per- sistence of social inequality according to the Ministry of Education which is suggesting strategies to counter this tendency (St.meld. nr. 16, 2006–2007). However, judging from the graph above, there is no increase, relatively speaking, in early intervention in special education. Fig. 2 Segregated Special Education. Number of Pupils in Special Schools (ascending line) and Special Classes (horizontal line). Percent. (Nordahl & Hausstätter, 2009, p. 190)

Fig. 3 Special Education from Year 1 to Year 10. Number of Pupils. Percent. 2006–2007 (grey) and 2010–2011 (black). (Meld.St. 18, 2010, p. 35)

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Discussion the overarching aims (Mathiesen & Vedøy, 2012; Sjø- berg, 2005). A curriculum reform from 2006 under- Too many students in the inclusive—more or less— pins this development (St.meld. nr. 30, 2003–2004). Norwegian school system, in or outside special edu- In combination with an aggravated school econo- cation, seem to be deprived of opportunities to learn my and reductions in sta, children with learning and participate fully according to their potential. problems more easily get pushed out (Mathiesen & However, it is a matter of debate whether all increases Vedøy, 2012). in special or alternative education should automati- To increase learning and participation for all, the cally be seen as a failure for inclusion. Can they be overarching aims and the fundamental values in edu- on the contrary, signs of better adapted education for cation have to be recognised and visible for all par- some students? Do these segregated groups/schools ticipants (cf. Booth & Ainscow, 2011). Losing track of reinforce marginalisation, or do they prevent it? Nev- the basic values in all the demands on education can ertheless, similar increase is seen in other countries as have exclusionary implications. well, a fact that is concerning many observers. For in- stance, Slee (2011) states that exlusionary practices are References resilient and asks whether we accept a system of spon- sored and marginalised pupils. Perhaps some exclusion Bakken, A. (2010) Di erences in achievement in the rst year of are seen as “natural” (ibid). the curriculum reform “e Knowledge Promotion”: Gender, In her article “ e irresistible rise of the SEN in- ethnicity and parents’ education. Norwegian Social Research, dustry,” Tomlinson (2012) claims that Governments report 9/10. (in Norwegian) do accept the funding of special education to deal Bakken, A. & Elstad, J. I. (2012) Too big expectations? e cur- with surplus groups in knowledge economies. Pre- riculum reform “e Knowledge Promotion” and inequalities viously the slow and troublesome children mainly in achievement. Norwegian Social Research, report 7/12. (in came from the working class, she says, but now the Norwegian) middle classes increasingly claim resourcing for Befring, E. et al. (2012) Queen Sonja’s prize for inclusive schools children who are unlikely to achieve in a competitive 2012. http://www.udir.no/Upload/Laringsmiljo/Skolepriser/ market-driven school system, by asking for categories Dronning_Sonjas_skolepris_2012_juryen_begrunnelse.pdf (in like ADHD that do not suggest that the parents are to Norwegian) blame. Actually, home and school may have common Booth, T. & Ainscow, M. (2011) Index for Inclusion. Developing interests in dening the pupil’s problems medically Learning and Participation in Schools (3rd ed.). Bristol: Centre (Brante, 2007). e quest for diagnoses may be one of for Studies on Inclusive Education (CSIE). the relevant factors behind the increase in special ed- Brante, T. (2007) e new psychiatry: e example of ADHD. In ucation in Norway (Mathiesen & Vedøy, 2012). Dur- G. Hallerstedt (Ed.), e power of the diagnosis–about knowl- ing the rst decade (1999–2010) of the new millen- edge, money and su ering. Uddevalla: Bokförlaget Daidalos. nium the sales of ADHD medicines increased from (in Swedish) Norwegian crowns 4 million to Norwegian crowns Dale, E. L. (2008) e common school: Reproduction of social 184. e increase is bigger than in many other coun- inequality. Cappelen akademisk. (in Norwegian) tries (Lunde, 2011). Engen, T. O. (2010) Literacy instruction and integration: e case Another relevant factor not only in Norway but in- of Norway. Intercultural Education, 21, 171–183. ternationally may be pressures from the professions GSI (2013) Norwegian school statistics. (in Norwegian) http:// in a situation where there is an expansion of special www.udir.no/Upload/Statistikk/GSI/GSI_2012_2013.pdf? education and special education personnel, and in epslanguage=no many countries simultaneously increasing inclusion Haug, P. (1999) Special education: Background, development and in mainstream education (Mathiesen & Vedøy, 2012; content. Abstrakt forlag. (in Norwegian) Tomlinson, 2012). But in Norway what is happen- Idsøe, E. C. & Skogen, K. (2011) Our talented children: A ing in the way schools are run is probably aecting challenge for the school. Kristiansand: Høyskoleforlaget. (in the exclusionary tendencies just as much, notably Norwegian) the increasing demands for measurable learning out- Jahnsen, J., Nergaard, S., & og Grini, N (2011) Is everyone join- comes, implying more testing and less attention on ing? Report, Porsgrunn: Lillegården kompetansesenter. (in

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