From special to inclusive education policies in Austria – developments and implications for schools and teacher education

ABSTRACT

This paper is concerned with the developments of inclusive education policies and their impact on teacher education in Austria today. As we argue, most policies concerning inclusive education are still reduced to a focus on disability. Such an approach can be explained, but not legitimised, by the historical development of the education of students with disabilities, which engendered specific tendencies in the evolution of policies of inclusive education and teacher education for inclusion. This policy evolution can be divided into three phases, which we analyse in detail in this paper: (1) the building of the special school system (the 1960s to mid 1980s), (2) establishing ‘integrative education’ structures and practices (mid 1980s – mid 2000s), and (3) efforts to make the Austrian education system more inclusive (2007 until today). The recent phase included a reform of teacher education for inclusive education, which, on the one hand, supports specific aspects of inclusive education, but, on the other hand, is still influenced by individual model discourses, rooted in the 1960s, such as binary groupings of students (dis/abled).

KEYWORDS:

• Inclusive education
• teacher education
• policy
• Austria
• UNCRPD

Introduction

In Austria and the majority of other European countries, most policies concerning inclusive education are reduced to a focus on disability. This approach can be explained, but not legitimised, by the historical development of the education of students with disabilities, which engendered specific tendencies in the evolution of policies on inclusive education. The authors group these into three phases according to how children with disabilities were educated: At first, they were excluded from regular schools up until the 1980s when the implementation of special schools reached its peak, before secondly, the disabled people’s movement and parents’ engagement led to the introduction of choice between two educational opportunities: special or integrative education. The beginning of the third era can be allocated to developments after 2007, when the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) sparked a new discourse around school-based inclusion of children with disabilities. Special schools play an important role throughout this historic overview and remain an important part in the landscape of schooling and choices for parents until today. As we argue, tracing the historical developments in education for students with disabilities and its impact on teacher education can help to understand recent challenges in teacher education for inclusive education better – not only for Austria but also for other European countries with similar historical pathways of education systems.

The evolution of inclusive education policies in Austria

In order to understand the evolution of inclusive education and the challenges associated with inclusive teacher education today, it is important to reconstruct the developments in the field of the education of students with disabilities – as a lot of the challenges at the present are rooted in the past. Analysing these processes, one can distinguish between three different historical phases that were shaped by differing policies: (1) The 1960s and 1970s were characterised by efforts to build a broad structure of special schools, intending to ensure the education of most students with disabilities and producing a dual structure (with a general school system alongside a differentiated special education system). Due to these developments, teacher training was aimed at preparing teacher trainees to work in special schools with students with specific disabilities. (2) In the phase between the mid-1980s and late 2000s, discourses around integrative education challenged the former structure. More and more integrative settings were implemented in mainstream schools, which also laid the foundation for a re-orientation of teacher education. (3) The third phase is closely linked with the obligations of ratifying Article 24 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN 2006). This period started in the early 2010s and is characterised by efforts to make the Austrian education system more inclusive (e.g. by making inclusive education an inherent part of every teacher training).

The 1960s to mid-1980s: building the special school system

The adoption of the School Organisation Act (‘Schulorganisationsgesetz’, SCHOG 1962) in 1962 can be considered as the most important school reform post-World War II, as it established the basis for the organisation of the Austrian school system until today. Insofar as it concerned disability, the new act was very relevant, as the special school was specified as the key place of education for children and adolescents with disabilities – a place where preferably all students were supposed to receive the best education possible, depending on their disabilities (Engelbrecht 1988). These efforts to provide access to education for all students with disabilities were of key importance as they also allowed students with so-called intellectual and multiple disabilities to attend special schools; a population of (potential) students who, until then, had all too often been diagnosed as ‘unable to attend school’ (‘Schulunfähigkeit’) and, thus, been refused access to these or any other schools. As a result, Austria developed what, following the typology of the European Agency for the Development of Special Educational Needs, can be considered as a two-track approach (EADSNE – European Agency for Development of Special Needs Education 2003): the special school system was expanded massively over the course of the 1960s and 1970s and students with and without disabilities were educated separately from each other. In line with the ambitions outlined above, special schools that were dedicated to ‘catering to’ specific disabilities, such as ‘special schools for physically impaired children’ (‘Sonderschule für körperbehinderte Kinder’), ‘special schools for students with learning disabilities’ (‘Allgemeine Sonderschule’) and, due to the effort to provide an education for all students, also ‘special schools for children with severe impairments’ (‘Sonderschule für Schwerstbehinderte’, catering for students with intellectual and multiple disabilities), were founded. It is important to underline that the understanding of the term ‘learning disability’ considerably differs from the British concept of learning disability and refers to a certain range of phenomena, from what would be considered learning difficulties to mild intellectual disabilities in other European countries (Pfahl and Powell 2011). The expansion of the special school system led to a major increase of special schools, and, consequently, students in these educational settings. In the school year 1960/1961, 22,136 students attended special schools, in 1975/1976 the overall number was already at 34,709 (Engelbrecht 1988). After that, numbers decreased, but only due to cohorts with a low birth rate. In 1960/1961, 132 special schools existed, in 1984/1985 there were 356. Statistics show that the special school for students with learning disabilities (‘Allgemeine Sonderschule’) turned out to be the most frequented type (23,326 students in the school year 1981/1982) and the second highest type were special schools for children with disabilities (‘Sonderschule für Schwerstbehinderte’) (the second most (1981/1982: 3,166 students). Most other school types were centralised and, thus, often were boarding schools, but with relatively low numbers of students (within the hundreds, cf. Engelbrecht 1988, 497). As these numbers show, the main focus of the education of students with disabilities was impairment-oriented, mirroring the hegemony of the medical model of disability that focuses on functional limitations of students and derives types of special education services from medical diagnosis in this period. Within this approach, a strong emphasis on cognitive disabilities (learning difficulties and intellectual disabilities) emerged – which, as we argue, strongly influences special needs teacher education until today.

The aforementioned developments were accompanied by specific efforts to recruit, educate, and professionalise teachers for their work in the growing number of special schools. In 1968, teacher training colleges were implemented and became the new key institution of teacher education. They offered courses for primary school teachers lasting four semesters. Students who wanted to work as special school teachers had to take additional occupational courses with two modules: (1) Special school for students with learning disabilities (‘Allgemeine Sonderschule’) and (2) a school subject. However, the implementation of special schools for students with severe disabilities called for trained personnel. Most teachers working in these emerging types of special schools were crafts teachers or had completed the extra-occupational course on special education and chosen handicrafts as a second module. This focus can be explained by the expectations of very low ability held towards students with intellectual disabilities, as handcraft was assumed to be their main skill and academic learning was considered to be very difficult for this student population. Due to this lack of qualification, some teacher training colleges started offering advanced training courses in ‘pedagogy for students with mental retardation’ (‘Geistigbehindertenpädagogik’, e.g. at the Teacher Training College of Upper Austria) – a reaction that can be viewed as an effort to improve the participation and learning of this population, which, on the other hand, mirrored the medical model approach of the Austrian (special) school system. However, in total, the area of special education badly lacked professionalisation. In the school year 1973/1974, 41.5% of all teachers working in special schools had no teaching certificate (‘Lehrbefähigung’, Engelbrecht 1988, 518). Due to this and the low level of professionalisation of teachers in other school forms, an amendment to the School Organisation Act restructured teacher education in 1975. Now, teacher training colleges had to implement courses lasting six semesters, training students to become special education teachers: as part of a basic teacher education, every student, no matter whether they were studying to become a primary, secondary or special school teacher, had to take the same courses on teaching basics. Furthermore, special education teachers had to pass an additional part focused on learning disabilities, challenging behaviour (‘Verhaltensstörungen’), and mental retardation (‘geistige Behinderung’). This newly implemented course of studies attracted more and more students: in 1979, 8.4% of all teacher educations students studied to become a special school teacher, in 1985 10.8% (Engelbrecht 1988, 519).

The mid-1980s to late 2000s: the rise of the integrative education approach

In the early 1980s, the hegemony of the special school system started to erode, as the Austrian disabled people’s movement and parent organisations were no longer willing to accept the mandatory segregation of students with disabilities. Their protests were directed at the media, sparking a controversial public debate on disability and education – which inspired a lot of practitioners in schools. Thus, in 1984, the first pilot project in a mainstream primary school was started in Oberwart in the federal state of Burgenland (Southern Austria). Several pilot projects followed in other federal states soon after (Anlanger 1993). Step by step, these activities and the broad media coverage on the issue of ‘integration of children with disabilities’ forced political decision-makers to change the law. In 1986, a general decree by the Austrian Ministry of Education permitted the mainstream schooling of students with physical or sensory disabilities (‘Grundsatzerlaß Körperbehinderte oder sinnesbehinderte Kinder im Schulwesen Österreichs’). Two years later, in 1988, the 11^th School Organisation Act Amendment (‘11. SchOG-Novelle’) set out the legal basis for pilot projects in mainstream schools, leading to a significant increase of pilot projects all over Austria. In addition, the Ministry of Education published a concept for facilitating pilot projects in primary schools in 1989 (Gruber and Petri 1989). Finally, after a nationwide scientific evaluation of the pilot projects, ‘integrated schooling’ in primary schools was established by the 15^th School Organisation Act Amendment (‘15. SchOG-Novelle’) in 1993. This act gave parents the formal right to decide whether their children should attend a mainstream or a special school. In the meantime, several ‘integration’ pilot projects at the level of lower secondary school (‘Sekundarstufe I’, until the 8^th grade) had been initiated. In 1996, the 17^th School Organisation Act Amendment (‘17. SchOG-Novelle’) was adopted, setting out the legal basis for ‘integrated schooling’ at the lower secondary level and enabling school boards to permit deviations from the curriculum for individual children. However, due to the federal structure of the Austrian education system, states developed different policies on the implementation of ‘integrated schooling’. For example, Styria followed a one-track approach to integration (Feyerer 2009). Others, such as Vienna, developed a multi-track approach. Policies on integrative education led to a large increase of students with disabilities in mainstream settings: in 2000, around 50% of all students with special educational needs were placed in mainstream settings. Due to a stagnation of policies at the national level, this rate remained the same for over 10 years (Buchner and Gebhardt 2011).

In this historical phase, integrative education emerged as a new paradigm, aiming to cater for students with disabilities in mainstream schools by providing specific settings with additional pedagogical resources, which were thought to allow teachers to create educational spaces that fit the needs of all students. This approach was implemented in three different ways at school level: (1) integration classes, (2) single integration, and (3) cooperative classes (Feyerer 2009). The so-called ‘integration class’ (‘Integrationsklasse’) can be considered as the most common structure intended to foster integrative education. This educational setting provides space for a – in comparison to ‘regular’ classes – reduced amount of students (ca. 20), of which, depending on the respective federal state, 5–7 students need to have an official – medically backed – diagnosis of special educational needs (SEN). Integration classes are equipped with additional personal resources: Teams of two teachers (in theory, one with a degree in special education and the other with a degree in primary or secondary education) instruct the class through collaborative teaching – in order to teach in a way that suits the learning dispositions of every student and fosters his or her competences (ibid.). Within the single integration setting (‘Einzelintegration’, also known as ‘Stützlehrerklassen’), a single student with SEN is part of a ‘regular’ class and receives a certain amount of support hours (this typically meant 4–8 h a week) by a special education teacher, who is supposed to provide remedial teaching in relation to the diagnosed disability of the student and/or counsel class teachers and parents concerning the participation and remedial activities of the student. ‘Cooperative classes’ (‘Kooperative Klassen’) are small classes of 8–10 students with an official diagnosis of Special Education Needs (SEN, a label widely used in educational contexts) and are instructed by a special education teacher. These classes are located in a mainstream school and are supposed to be taught together with ‘regular’ classes for some lessons in the week, usually in subjects with rather low expectations of academic performance such as arts or physical education.

Despite these changes in education policies and the implementation of integrative education in schools, the dual mode of organisation of the Austrian school system, stemming from the two-track-approach from the 1960s and 1970s, remained untouched at the administrative level. Special education remained organised as a separate entity responsible for special schools and supporting integrative education in mainstream schools. At the local level, centres for special education (‘Sonderpädagogische Zentren’) equipped mainstream schools with permanent (such as the special education teachers of integration and cooperative classes) and mobile teaching personnel (such as the special education teachers that worked by the hour in ‘single integration’ settings). Hence, special education teachers working in mainstream settings were primarily part of the centre for special education and formally allocated to a mainstream school for a certain period of time.

Also in the 1980s, the structure of teacher education remained the same: all special education teachers were trained at teacher training colleges (‘Pädagogische Akademien’, later ‘Pädagogische Hochschulen’), which offered, as described before, a 3-year course of studies named ‘special education teacher’ (‘Sonderschullehramt’). Not only the title but also the structure of the course of studies suggested graduates were to work in a special school setting. Furthermore, until the mid-1990s, most teaching practice phases (‘Schulpraktika’) took place in special schools, which suggested these settings as a regular workplace. Rather similar to the organisation of the special school system, a lot of modules of the curricula still focused on medicalised knowledge about specific disabilities in relation to learning processes such as an overemphasis of clinical aspects of disabilities and the expected limitations of learning and the assumed special needs in relation to these aspects. The main emphasis in this phase of teacher education was still put on learning disabilities and teaching in the respective special schools – as this group of students remained the largest. In the 1990s, the amendments to the school organisation act, increasing numbers of students with disabilities in mainstream schools, and the implementation of integrative education settings outlined above had a minor impact on special education teacher training. For example, at the teacher college of Upper Austria, an advanced training course coined ‘integration teacher’ was established, which aimed to equip trainees with skills for teaching in integration classes, such as cooperative teaching (Feyerer 2007). At other teacher colleges, curricula were, but only to a certain degree, adapted to the changes within the school system. However, in the late 1990s, the structure of teacher education started to change. Although the name of the course of studies remained the same in most cases (‘special school teacher’), modules rather aimed to prepare students to work in integrative settings or special schools. For example, teacher students were taught the individualisation of learning processes and adaptive learning, stemming from progressive education, such as open learning settings (e.g. ‘station learning’, project work). Some courses also referred to the concept of inclusive education. However, most curricula were still dominated by knowledge with reference to the medical model focusing on specific disabilities, especially learning disabilities. However, since the mid-1990s, students could also do some teaching practice in integrative settings.

2007 until today: implementing the UNCRPD, making the Austrian school system more inclusive

The ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) in 2008 brought a new dynamic into the discourses around inclusive education in Austria: intense debates regarding the quality of inclusive education and the continued existence of special schools took place. In 2012, the Ministry for Social Affairs coordinated a discussion process on the implementation of the UNCRPD between several ministries and stakeholders, which led to agreements on which measures needed to be taken in order to fulfil the obligations of the convention. The measures agreed were published in the National Action Plan (‘Nationaler Aktionsplan’, NAP 2012–2020). For the area of inclusive education, two main aims of the NAP proved to be very important: the policy of implementing ‘inclusive model regions’ (‘Inklusive Modellregionen’) and the teacher education reform (‘Lehrer*innenbildung NEU’). The policy on inclusive model regions (BMBF – Bundesministerium für Bildung und Frauen 2015a) aims to encourage federal states to implement inclusive school structures and reduce special education in segregated settings. The idea was to start with three federal states (Carinthia, Styria, and Tyrol) in order to gather experience on the transformation processes, develop good practice, and transfer this knowledge to other federal states to encourage them to become a model region as well. The very ambitious aim of the Ministry was that all nine federal states should become inclusive model regions and all special school settings should be reduced and reorganised by 2020 (BMBF – Bundesministerium für Bildung und Frauen 2015a). However, until today (2019), only one additional federal state (Vorarlberg in 2018) applied to become recognised as an inclusive model region – maybe because the budget for implementing inclusive model regions can be considered ridiculously low (to our knowledge, each model region receives 0,5 job position for coordination and 5000 Euro for non-personnel-costs each year). Even though this policy did not have the broad effects anticipated by the Ministry, the efforts around the ratification process of the UNCRPD led to a moderate increase of students with disabilities in mainstream schools on the national level (around 61% of all students labelled with SEN in school year 2016/2017, Mayrhofer et al. 2019). However, this means that, at the national level, more than a third of all students with an official diagnosis of SEN are educated in segregated settings. In the inclusive model regions, the rate of students with disabilities placed in mainstream schools increased much more (Feyerer and Svecnik 2019). Interestingly, at school level, the educational settings did not change in comparison to the ones developed in the 1980s and 1990s: students with disabilities in model regions (and in other Austrian federal states) are taught in integration classes, single integration settings or in cooperative classes. Even though the latter had already been criticised in the evaluation of the integration projects in the 1980s and 1990s as it can be considered as a barrier for social participation with students from other classes (Feyerer 2009), the ‘cooperative class’ persists in the inclusive model region of Carinthia, where especially students with intellectual disabilities are placed in such a setting (Svecnik, Petrovic, and Sixt 2017). However, the move towards inclusion did not lead to a transformation of the dual structure at the school administration level until recently: even though in 2015, the former ‘centres for special education’ were renamed as ‘centres for inclusive and special education’ (‘Zentren für Inklusive und Sonderpädagogik’), their place and function in the system did not change, as a lot of them were still located in special schools and were thought to provide special schools and inclusive settings in mainstream schools with teachers. Only in 2018, the new educational reform envisaged to transform this structure by creating organisational units called FIDS (Unit for Inclusion, Diversity and Special Education), which are allocated to the management level of the mainstream school administration (‘Bildungsdirektion’).

New developments in teacher education for inclusive education in secondary schools

The new reforms in relation to inclusive education need to be understood as part of a comprehensive reform of teacher education, which was prepared by a board of experts in 2011 (Vorbereitungsgruppe PädagogInnenbildung NEU 2011). The major redo of teacher training was targeted towards levelling differences in the educational backgrounds of teachers working in the different kinds of secondary schools that exist in Austria: Grammar schools (‘Allgemeine Höhere Schule – AHS’) and general or middle schools (‘Middle Schools – MS’). Teachers working in the latter had been trained at teacher colleges, whereas those aiming to work in academic lower and upper secondary schools had to finish a 6-year diploma at university. In the course of remodelling teacher education for secondary schools – which also included implementing a BA and MA structure – the two institutions providing teacher training at that level so far were merged and grouped into four regional clusters. All teachers working at the secondary school level in the future will undergo one education track. They have to choose two subjects and attend courses both at university and teacher colleges. After finishing a four-year BA programme, alumni are allowed to teach at lower secondary schools. Subsequently, a two-year MA program including a so-called ‘induction phase’ enables working at higher secondary levels as well.

In regards to inclusive education, the new teacher education curricula imply a forward trend (Biewer and Proyer 2018; Biewer 2017; Feyerer 2015). In 2015, the aims of inclusive education policies (to reduce the number of special schools and establish inclusive education in every federal state) led to a rather fast termination of all training in special education at the secondary school level. Instead of the former ‘special training for special education’, the reform process of teacher education allowed for the introduction of inclusive education into all general BA curricula of secondary school teachers’ training. Additionally, since 2016, inclusive education can also be studied as a subject on its own (Universität Wien 2016) in combination with a second one, for example, Maths, Sports, English or Arts (as all secondary education teacher students have to study two subjects in Austria). Furthermore, inclusive education will be (approximately from the end of 2019 onwards) part of the teacher training MA program (as teachers in higher secondary education need to have obtained education at MA-level, see above).

Compared to the former education structures of special education, the new inclusive education track consists of more ECTS points and thereby allows for a deeper knowledge of the basics in special needs education as well as its critical contextualisation in regards to inclusive education. According to the curriculum, alumni and alumnae are prepared to work either in a specialised, integrative or inclusive setting. Specialisations such as qualifications in the area of Sign Language are possible depending on the location of studies.

Discussion: the persistence of special school discourses and the ongoing struggle for inclusion

Austria has come a long way concerning the implementation of inclusive education. A lot of effort has been taken to make the school system more inclusive. However, a broader and deeper implementation of inclusive education is challenged by persistent discourses on special education, which are rooted in the 1960s, but until today affect different levels of the Austrian education system.

Firstly, even though official policies are aimed at closing down special schools all over Austria, no reliable measures for such a vast transformation process have been taken, and, as the development of the separation quota all over Austria shows, special schools remain a very well-established part of the Austrian school system. Furthermore, the cost-intensive, untouched dual organisational structure of the Austrian special education system supports the persistence of special schools as, for a broad implementation of inclusive education, the (financial) resources bound to special schools would be needed. Instead of a shift of budgeting, the implementation of inclusive education in Austrian schools remains underfinanced – even in such prestigious projects as the inclusive model regions (Buchner and Steger 2019). Recently, there has been ongoing debate around the cost-effectiveness of inclusive schools in model regions, sparked by a report of the General Accounting Office (Rechnungsh of Österreich 2019). Even though examining the costs of inclusive education is a legitimate measure, notably there has been no discourse on the cost or cost-effectiveness of special schools. Such discourses and the untouched ‘co-existence’ of special schools and schools that try to be inclusive points to the sway of a strong special school lobby, which remains very influential and well organised, e.g. in Austrian teachers’ unions, which persistently argue and campaign for ‘the preservation of special schools’ (e.g. by the Lower Austrian Union of Employees (NÖAAB), cf. Gebhart 2017).

Secondly, due to the historical evolution of inclusive education in Austria, which can be considered as a political struggle for inclusive education for students with disabilities and structurally tied to a medical model-oriented special education system, teaching in inclusive settings is largely guided by a reduced understanding of inclusive education with a focus on students with disabilities. In other words: medical model discourses around disability, stemming from the 1960s, are carried on until today and can still be found embedded in recent discourses and practices of inclusive education.

On the policy level, recent papers, such as the ‘Guidelines for practicing and monitoring quality standards of inclusive teaching of students with disabilities’ (BMBF – Bundesministerium für Bildung und Frauen 2015b) try to refer to a broad understanding of inclusion, but, as the title of the document already suggests, in fact focus on students with disabilities. Realising inclusive processes means, according to that understanding, that ‘schooling and instruction should be created in a way that allows students with disabilities or rather special educational needs to receive the maximum support to develop their individual abilities and dispositions, and, a maximum of possibilities of integration into social environments and society.’ (BMBF – Bundesministerium für Bildung und Frauen 2015b, 1; own translation). On a more general level, teachers should practice cooperative teaching, support peer learning of students and develop positive beliefs towards inclusive education (ibid). However, teachers are taught to focus on students with disabilities, and, specifically, to practice ‘impairment-related, special educational’ (BMBF – Bundesministerium für Bildung und Frauen 2015b, 3) and individualised support.

On a structural level, the implementation of inclusive education by so-called ‘integration classes’ reifies a binary understanding of students as well as teachers’ duties. As mentioned above, the students structure of ‘integration classes’ is set-up by at least five students labelled as having SEN and around 15 students without the label SEN. The structure of teacher teams demands one teacher who is trained in primary or secondary education and one special or inclusive education teacher, which often supports a splitting of tasks between teachers in relation to (assumed) abilities of students. Qualitative studies have shown that these binary constructions guide teaching practices which lead to a segregated teaching of students considered as having SEN in ‘inclusive’ settings, such as the instruction of students labelled as having SEN in a separate room in main subjects (e.g. Buchner 2017).

Thirdly, the ambiguities discussed can also be found at the level of teacher education for secondary education. The newly introduced study program for inclusive education might be innovative especially in comparison to many other European teacher training schemes. Also, the implementation for training teachers at the level of higher secondary school points towards efforts to broaden inclusive perspectives. Nevertheless, the following aspects require critical contextualisation. Firstly, even though universities and teacher colleges could potentially implement curricula in the field of inclusion with a focus on ‘migration’ or ‘gifted children’, most programmes hold the additional ‘focus on impairment’ (Fokus Beeinträchtigung). Although in brackets, the focus on a specific and limited segment of inclusion is obvious and a reduction to a medical perspective of disability inherent – which links with previous contents of (special school) teacher education. Only little reference is given to other dimensions (i.e. migration and gender) and their intersections with disability, emphases that would support the development of a broader understanding of inclusion. Additionally, the curriculum requires a specialisation in certain areas. For example, in Vienna, one of four areas can be chosen: language and sensory, social-emotional, cognitive-motoric or Sign-Language pedagogy. Three of the mentioned areas imply a medical model focus on specific disabilities. Furthermore, the role inclusive education is to play in general education studies suggests a clear orientation towards individual characteristics or conditions by referring to a need of future teachers to take ‘social and cognitive prepositions’ (Universität Wien 2016, 2) of students into account.

Outlook

The transformation from special to inclusive education still faces strong challenges, which stem from medical model discourses around the education of students with disabilities that can be traced back to the 1960s. These discourses, the interlinked structures of the Austrian school system, and the political neglect of efforts for a well-planned, systematic closure of special schools prove difficult to transform. Current political developments in other European countries point to similar directions.

However, the UNCRPD gave new impulses towards a broad implementation of inclusive education around the globe, in Austria especially at the level of teacher education and far-reaching as compared to other European countries. Even though, as shown, curricula are still influenced by the disability-oriented tradition of education of special educators, the reform needs to be considered as a remarkable step forward as it tried to dissolve the dual structure of training, with a strict focus on inclusive settings. Of course, this cut stands in contrast to a structure of schooling that still provides education in special and mainstream schools.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tobias Buchner

Tobias Buchner is professor for Inclusive Education at the University College of Teacher Education Upper Austria. Buchner is member of the Austrian Monitoring Body for the Implementation of the UN-Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. His main fields of research are governmentality and education, Dis*ability Studies in Education, educational spaces and intersectionality and participatory research with students and teachers.

Michelle Proyer

Michelle Proyer holds a position as Tenure Track Professor for Inclusive Education at the Center for Teacher Education and Department of Education of the University of Vienna. She is the project leader of the certificate course for teachers with forced migration background and national coordinator of eCrisis and R/Equal and member of the project team of TEP. Her research and teaching focus on inclusive education and the intersection of disability and culture.