ABSTRACT
Concomitantly, there are a number of challenges in conducting comparative research in special education. Cross-national comparability is hampered by differences in needs such as prevalence of disability types. Any cross-national comparison has to address challenges related to the availability of data reported by countries and their quality. This chapter provides a typological framework to examine special education systems worldwide. A typological framework, using criteria to classify and compare groups of countries. This form of classification can reveal interesting patterns of special education needs and development about each type. This approach has a number of benefits. For example, it may be that the types are capturing a progression in the development of special education provision across the categories, from the need to initiate services in Ghana to Qatar's expansion of services. From a needs-based perspective, this typology highlights how socioeconomic factors and educational policy can affect the growth of special and inclusive education services in countries like Italy and Finland.
