Despite the impressive growth of inclusive education around the world, questions and considerations about equity have been neglected. This edited volume makes a major contribution to the field of inclusive education by analyzing equity concerns that have emerged from the implementation of inclusive education models in nine nations on five continents. The authors examine how disparate approaches to inclusive education are mediated by the official and implicit goals of public education; by access to intellectual, human, and material resources; and by collective understanding of and educational responses to sociocultural differences. Inclusive Education provides critical reviews of research on this important education reform movement, as well as a refined theoretical understanding of the ways equity is addressed. It also offers lessons for future policy and research that are mindful of equity.

This comprehensive book is grounded in the authentic experiences of educators who have done, and continue to do, the messy everyday work of transformative school reform. The work of these contributors, in conjunction with research done under the aegis of the National Institute of Urban School Improvement (NIUSI), demonstrates how schools and classrooms can move from a deficit model to a culturally responsive model that works for all learners. To strengthen relationships between research and practise, chapters are coauthored by a practitioner/researcher team and include a case study of an authentic urban reform situation. This volume will help practitioners, reformers, and researchers make use of emerging knowledge and culturally responsive pedagogy to implement reforms that are more congruent with the strengths and needs of urban education contexts.