In today's schools the number of students who receive additional resources to access the curriculum is growing rapidly, and the ongoing expansion of special education is among the most significant worldwide educational developments of the past century. Yet even among developed democracies the range of access varies hugely, from one student in twenty to one student in three. In contemporary conflicts about educational standards and accountability, special education plays a key role as it draws the boundaries between exclusion and inclusion.
"Comparing Special Education" unites in-depth comparative and historical studies with analyses of global trends, with a particular focus on special and inclusive education in the United States, England, France, and Germany. The authors examine the causes and consequences of various institutional and organizational developments, illustrate differences in forms of educational governance and social policy priorities, and highlight the evolution of social logics from segregation of students with special educational needs to their inclusion in local schools.

Barriers to Inclusion offers a comparative and historical account of the rise of special education over the twentieth century in the United States and Germany. This institutional analysis demonstrates how categorical boundaries, professional groups, social movements, and education and social policies shaped the schooling of children and youth with disabilities. It traces the evolution of special education classification, explores growing special education organizations, and examines students' learning opportunities and educational attainments. Highlighting cross-national differences over time, the author also investigates demographic and geographic variability within the federal democracies, especially in segregation and inclusion rates of disabled and disadvantaged children. Germany's elaborate system of segregated special school types contrasts with diverse American special education classrooms mainly within regular schools. Joining historical case studies with empirical indicators, this book reveals persistent barriers to school integration as well as factors that facilitate inclusive education reform in both societies.

Winner of the 2017 Award for Significant Research on International Higher Education (CIHE/ASHE) Winner of the 2018 American Publishers Awards for Professional & Scholarly Excellence: Education Theory In The Century of Science, a multicultural, international team of authors examine the global rise of scholarly research in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and health (STEM+) fields. This insightful text provides historical and sociological understandings of the ways that higher education has become an institution that, more than ever before, shapes science and society. Case studies, supported by the most historically and spatially extensive database on STEM+ publications available, of selected countries in Europe, North America, East Asia, and the Middle East, emphasize recurring themes: the institutionalization and differentiation of higher education systems to the proliferation of university-based scientific research fostered by research policies that support continued university expansion leading to the knowledge society. Growing worldwide, research universities appear to be the most legitimate sites for knowledge production. The chapters offer new insights into how countries develop the university-based knowledge thought fundamental to meeting social needs and economic demands. Despite repeated warnings that universities would lose in relevance to other organizational forms in the production of knowledge, these findings demonstrate incontrovertibly that universities have become more-not less-important actors in the world of knowledge. The past hundred years have seen the worldwide triumph of the research university.

Winner of the 2017 Award for Significant Research on International Higher Education (CIHE/ASHE) Winner of the 2018 American Publishers Awards for Professional & Scholarly Excellence: Education Theory In The Century of Science, a multicultural, international team of authors examine the global rise of scholarly research in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and health (STEM+) fields. This insightful text provides historical and sociological understandings of the ways that higher education has become an institution that, more than ever before, shapes science and society. Case studies, supported by the most historically and spatially extensive database on STEM+ publications available, of selected countries in Europe, North America, East Asia, and the Middle East, emphasize recurring themes: the institutionalization and differentiation of higher education systems to the proliferation of university-based scientific research fostered by research policies that support continued university expansion leading to the knowledge society. Growing worldwide, research universities appear to be the most legitimate sites for knowledge production. The chapters offer new insights into how countries develop the university-based knowledge thought fundamental to meeting social needs and economic demands. Despite repeated warnings that universities would lose in relevance to other organizational forms in the production of knowledge, these findings demonstrate incontrovertibly that universities have become more-not less-important actors in the world of knowledge. The past hundred years have seen the worldwide triumph of the research university.