Abstract:

Inclusive education is an issue that in recent years begins to resonate in Slovakia and Poland, both in educational theory and in practice. Inclusive education as a late modernity reform project is exemplified in the call for ‘Education for All’. Despite the simplicity of its message, inclusion is highly contestable. The issue of how the education system affects the life chances of students from different socio-cultural environment is interesting for professionals and educational policy-makers.

Precise definition of environment that can be considered socially disadvantaged, cannot be found in the law. However, socially disadvantaged backgrounds can be defined by donations for the education of disadvantaged pupils to schools. Social disadvantage is thus defined by material conditions of the child.

The purpose of this study was to identify and compare education policies and practices at national levels in Slovakia and Poland, which we can designate as inclusive, promoting inclusive pre-primary and primary education of pupils from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. It can be concluded that the basic obstacles to the successful implementation of the principles of inclusive education in pre-primary and primary education are mainly: unclear definition of the target categories of state educational policy in this area and inconsistent partial goals and strategies, lack of "political will" to respect this phenomenon as one of the policy priorities of government policy. Inclusive education is contested within educational systems and its implementation is problematic in both countries. Some of these contradictions are discussed in this study, providing an analysis of national education policies.

The outcome of the study is the presentation of examples of good practice in the implementation of inclusive education of pupils from a socially disadvantaged environment in Slovakia and Poland. We identified possible strategies that are likely to result in an improved and perhaps more culturally responsive implementation of inclusive education in both countries.

Keywords:

Inclusive education, pupil from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, examples of good practice.