Kształcenie integracyjne – atmosfera myślenia życzeniowego?

Abstract

The changes of the terms of educating the disabled were introduced in Poland in 1993. However, despite more twenty-year experience of integration education, giving equal educational opportunities to disabled children and youth still raises remarkable doubts. It is worth noting that in official discussions, as well as in the professional literature, it is the ideological side of the integration that is emphasized primarily, without much reference to the social conditions of its implementation. You may even notice that the atmosphere of wishful thinking is adopted and it is believed that by sheer change of the approach to the opportunities created for the development of people with disabilities their social integration will be achieved. Without denying the importance of education and educational activities conducted in integrated classes, and above all the need to treat all people in the same way, it is worth considering where to find the possibilities of implementing the accepted assumptions? Are they to be found only in the ideological message and curricula, or also in the attitudes of teachers who implement them? The crucial issue is the approach of teachers to the introduced changes in the education system: do teachers – the practitioners of educational activities – share the way of thinking of the creators of the introduced integration activities?