ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to grasp the spirit of the 1960s, when 'integration' first appeared on the public agenda in most Western societies. It focuses on integration policies and school reforms and presents a differentiated picture of the status of integration policy reforms in the area by the end of the 1970s/early 1980s. A distinction is made between different reform stages reached by that time, then in terms of main reform strategies chosen in the OECD region. When OECD/CERI embarked in 1978 on the project, 'The Education of the Handicapped Adolescent', it was noticed that integration had 'undoubtedly' emerged as the dominant policy issue relating to the organisation of schooling for handicapped children in most of the member countries. The organisational aspects of integration reforms are focused on the basis of statistical figures concerning students with special needs in a number of countries.
