Inclusive Education in Norway: Historical Roots and Present Challenges

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 historical 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 environment 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 Eects. 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).

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