Autism and the right to education in the EU: policy mapping and scoping review of Nordic countries Denmark, Finland, and Sweden

Abstract

IntroductionThe universal right to education for people with disabilities has been highlighted by the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In this paper, we mapped policies addressing the right to education and special education needs of autistic children in Denmark, Sweden, and Finland.MethodsA policy path analysis was carried out using a scoping review as an underlying framework for data gathering. Policy mapping was performed independently by both lead authors to increase reliability.Results and discussionThe values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities have been closely translated into the respective education systems of the countries under study, offering special education needs services and support in mainstream education with the aim of including as many children into mainstream education as possible. Even though the education systems are comparable, the approaches between the countries under study are slightly different. Denmark and Sweden have passed several policies specifically geared towards special education needs, while Finland incorporates this more in general education policy.ConclusionAll countries under study have incorporated the values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in their respective education systems while emphasising the need to include as many children in the mainstream system as possible.

Inclusive Education in the European Union: A Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis of Education Policy for Autism

“…The place where the support services are delivered remains ambiguous because policies rarely explicitly state the place of delivery [12][13][14][15][16][17]. Parental involvement, however, was previously found to be key in letting children with SEN experience effective and welcoming educational settings in which their needs are met [5].…”

“…Various approaches have been found in the EU as well. Finland, for example, adopted a teaching curriculum that includes courses on each potential step of the education system, making it so that every teacher has at least a basic understanding of SEN [14]. Sweden acknowledged the need to address at a system-wide level and at an individual level by distinguishing two types of special education teachers: SEN teachers that focus at the individual level, and special education needs coordinators, who specialize at addressing the education environment as a whole [14].…”

“…This study synthesizes the ndings of the policy analyses by EDUCAUS, which comprises descriptive data on individual policies of the 20 investigated EU Member States [12][13][14][15][16][17]. Information in each case was collected by means of a scoping review [28,29] of the respective national policy repository and analyzed through a path dependence analysis [30].…”

“…Recently, autism, SEN, and education policies in 20 EU Member States-covering 76,87% of the EU population [11]-have been mapped by the European Consortium for Autism Researchers in Education (EDUCAUS) using a path dependency framework. The aim of EDUCAUS was to systematically compare policy across all EU Member States against the vision of an education system which supports autistic children to ful l their potential [12][13][14][15][16][17] [in press]. Each policy analysis focused on a speci c theme, including parental involvement [13], teacher education [14,16], and teacher responsibilities [16].…”

“…The aim of EDUCAUS was to systematically compare policy across all EU Member States against the vision of an education system which supports autistic children to ful l their potential [12][13][14][15][16][17] [in press]. Each policy analysis focused on a speci c theme, including parental involvement [13], teacher education [14,16], and teacher responsibilities [16]. Each review found IE to be present in national policies of most Member States, though many of the investigated countries also retain segregation-based frameworks.…”