Sorry for taking so long to reply - I have felt intimidated, LOL! I said I wanted to conduct this research, at some mythical point in time, not that I already have...
But I do have some informed opinions.
In order to understand where I’m coming from, let me copy some of the PM wrote to Aquinas (we actually did notice we we getting off topic, as some of the best conversations do...):
I live in a country with a tradition of hard core tracking, with schools for college prep (and a few gifted programs scattered among those), for clerical track, for manual track, plus schools for the children with speech issues, learning diabilities, the deaf, the blind, the mentally disabled, the physically disabled...you name it, there’s a school for it - and, of course for every school, there is an adapted curriculum, which assumes, for instance, that physically disabled children need the learning disabled curriculum, or at most can just about cope with manual track. Densely populated country, so there usually will be a specialised school within an hours travel time, and if not, there’s boarding schools. Internationally quite unique, I believe.
Of course, there is an equal and opposite reaction, with a strong political push for doing away with any and all curricular differentiation for anyone, mainstreaming all children with disabilities immediately in the closest school available no matter what their needs, and including mentally disabled children in college prep classes simply so that „these schools carry their share“, without conceding that some conflicts of interest may not be solved by telling the teacher to „just differentiate“
Definitely interesting times. With one kid 2e (HG+ and suspected ADHD, plus anxieties, rigidities, the usual), one kid similar but probably somewhat less extreme in both directions and one kid with severe physical disabilities, learning disabilities AND probably gifted (jury still out), I will have my hands full in the next few years. After that, I could probably write a PhD about just my family’s experience!
So, what is Canada doing right?
For one thing, the discussion has been going on for decades, and the idea that on principle, all public schools should be accessible for everyone, both physically and otherwise, isn’t radical but mainstream. I can also see, from international surveys like PISA, that Canadian schools tend to manage a large spread of ability, SES and cultural and linguistic backgrounds in their schools and still do very well on achievement for all, but without the incredible pressure that, for instance, South Korean schools put on kids. So, Canadian schools appear equipped to manage a huge amount of diversity, and manage it well. I understand that, for instance, a learning disability is considered and issue to be resolved, in the normal course of things, with support teachers and curriculum adaptation, not segregation, and a physical disability is not considered an issue at all, or of anything, in the realm of medicine and maybe civil engineering (where should we put the elevator?), not pedagogy.
I am in a position where that would already be HUGE progress.
I imagine (this is where on the ground research would have to start) that a system like that has a head start also on how to include the biggest outliers (the highly gifted, the multiply disabled etc) - that a system that is doing so well accomodating so many different learners, it would be easier to find an individualised solution for situations in which a parent or a teacher might feel a child is not served well even then, the way you describe.
I wish I’d feel more confident about in class differentiation for widely differing intellectual ability levels - I can’t get my mind around the problem that a teacher can teach (ie actually instruct, as opposed to manage individual work time) in the zone of proximal development only for exactly one level at a time, and that the more levels there are in the classroom, the less time there is for each and the outlier levels fall by the wayside.
I read texts stating that inclusion is when you engage *everyone* in the classroom in the same topic and simply feel “not possible”. But maybe I’ve just never seen it done.
