Summary and Conclusions: Ways Forward in Bridging Policy-Practice Gap Issues within Inclusive Education

This volume has aimed to identify and explore key issues in the policy-practice implementation gap in relation to both national and European level policy priorities and objectives. Such an examination has not been tackled in such an explicit way in the past at the European level and so it seems to fitting that we end this volume with some overall reflections emerging from the previous chapters from the editors. These reflections aim to identify the potential priorities for better supporting the implementation of policy for inclusive education and bridging the policy-practice gap.

The framework for these reflections is taken from the European Agency’s position on inclusive education (presented in detail in the ‘Changing Conceptions of Inclusion Underpinning Education Policy’ chapter). Within this position chapter, five aspects of policy implementation are highlighted as critical levers for the implementation of policy for inclusive education in practice. These critical levers are not country or policy context specific; they are seen as drivers that can potentially be used to promote system-wide change within all contexts and policy situations.