In 1977, Italy adopted a policy to fully include students with disabilities in mainstream classrooms. The study surveyed the attitudes of Italian teachers towards inclusive education 40 years after this reform. The data were collected from 153 basic school teachers using the Teachers' Attitudes towards Inclusion Scale (TAIS). The results indicated that the Italian teachers had a high commitment to inclusive education. Approximately 90% of the respondents agreed that students with special educational needs should be educated in mainstream classrooms, and only 7% felt that they should be transferred to special education classrooms instead. To improve the quality of inclusive education, the teachers most frequently mentioned the need for more in-service training, smaller class sizes, and additional help from support teachers and therapists in the classroom.

Objectives. The aim of this study was to compare a sample of Italian (n = 29) and Finnish children (n = 32) with Down syndrome for possible differences emerging from diverse educational surroundings. Besides the level of adaptive and challenging behaviours, some other issues were compared, including teacher satisfaction. Methods. We used the children's teachers as informants. They were interviewed using standardized scales. Results. No differences in adaptive behaviour or challenging behaviour were observed between the samples. All children from the Italian sample were fully included in mainstream classes, while in the Finnish sample, 92% of all the school years were spent in self-contained special education classes. The Italian sample received physiotherapy and speech therapy more often than the Finnish sample. Satisfaction concerning the resources and organization of the children's education was high among the Finnish informants but rather low among the Italian informants. Conclusion. The results illustrated some differences in the organization of special education of children with Down syndrome in Finland and Italy. The interpretation of the level of adaptive and challenging behaviour scores was hampered by the high standard deviations, indicating the inner heterogeneity of the samples.