ABSTRACT
Recent spectacular incidents of revoked exclusions for misbehavior have added to distorting the inclusion issue as one of ‘requiring teachers to teach disruptive pupils’ by merely placing them in mainstream schools where they then damage the educational chances of other children. Research, however, suggests the need to understand inclusive education not as merely placing children in mainstream schools but as a ‘connective pedagogy’ (Corbett, 2001) which embraces emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD) in the concept of diversity. Studies continue to point out that emotional and social factors affect all learning; show the connections between our feelings, our reasoning and our motivation; and emphasise that direct support strategies geared to meeting the needs of specific children should be developed as whole-school policies in relation to all children and understood by the staff as a whole.
