Inclusion is an international trend, and means that all children learn together in the same classrooms, regardless of the presence of a disability. Attitudes, sentiments, and concerns are variables which have been found to influence the success of inclusion. There is a need, then, for the development of a concise tool for measuring these. This paper describes the development of an improved scale for measuring sentiments, attitudes and concerns about inclusive education in pre-service teachers, based on an examination of data gathered from 996 pre-service teachers from five tertiary institutions using a modified version of the Interactions with People with Disabilities scale (Forlin, Jobling & Carroll, 2001; Gething, 1991, 1994), the Concerns about Inclusive Education Scale (Sharma & Desai, 2002), and the Attitudes Toward Inclusive Education Scale (Wilczenski, 1992, 1995). The scale has been developed with international use in mind, and the sample includes pre-service teachers in Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, and Canada. Based on the statistical results, conceptual judgments, and a critique of content and format from an "expert group", a new scale, the Sentiments, Attitudes and Concerns about Inclusive Education scale (SACIE), is developed. The rationale behind the development of the scale is discussed.

Basing on document analysis and drawing insights from the author’s participation in the evaluation research project of the Pilot Project on Integration of Children with Special Needs in Ordinary Schools (1997-1999), this paper argues that preparing teachers for inclusive education is one of the urgent and prime tasks of teacher education in 21st century Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). The first section points out that there is a gap between HKSAR school reality and the curriculum of teacher education. Increasingly placing mainland children and those with special educational needs in regular classroom offered by local pre-service teacher education institutions, and research findings show that the issue of integration/inclusion education has either been left out or not been given sufficient attention. The second section suggests that in order to bridge the gap we need to take a paradigm shift in current pre-service teacher education. Successful school integration implementation is subject to teachers’ understanding, attitude and knowledge of inclusive education. Otherwise, recruiting more schools in the integration project will only create more classroom frustrations and failure. The last section presents an inclusive curriculum proposal for teacher education in 21st century HKSAR.
[Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

152 elementary students age ranged from 8–11 were studied on their affective and social domains in a school with an inclusive school curriculum in Hong Kong. Five questionnaires from the Assessment Program for Affective and Social Outcomes (APASO) (EMB 2001) were used to measure students’ attitude to school, self concept, attitude to learning, interpersonal competence, and problem solving strategy. The differences between normal (N=136) and inclusive (N=16) students were examined by one-way ANOVA tests. The outcome was triangulated with teachers’ perspective through teacher conference and school profile report and curriculum policy to reach a descriptive account is reached. The two groups had significant differences on social and academic self concept which were explained by a “positive discrimination” perspective to suggest a gap between what students perceived and teachers thought. There are discrepancies between teachers’ perception on the school curriculum and the effect that students reflected by the study, which suggests the how an inclusive curriculum could be shaped, such as cultivating a multicultural environment and the perspectives on both teachers and students.

It is the global trend in education to include students with special needs in ordinary schools. Recently, the British are promoting the use of a whole school approach to inclusion using a special programme, the “Index to Inclusive Education”. This paper discusses the issues in the implementation of inclusive education in Macao and Hong Kong SAR schools, explains the aims of the Index and the stages of implementation and the need to develop inclusive schools.
[Copyright © 2003 University of Macau.]

This paper will describe a project that was designed to encourage dialogue and exchange between students taking courses in Special Education at the University of North Texas and The Hong Kong Institute of Education via the Internet. The project was designed for the to develop a peer mentoring relationship sharing their experiences, increasing their cultural awareness, and examining their philosophy. Information will be presented on the manner in which the project was designed. Details of the mechanics of the project, samples of the exchanges and the evaluation of the project as well as future plans will be presented.

The increasing number of Mainland Chinese immigrant children with difficulties in Hong Kong schools mandates understanding of the complex interactions between cultural-linguistic differences and disabilities. This case study adopted narrative inquiry to probe deep into participants' lived experiences to reveal that the special education teacher was primarily concerned about the student participant's difficulty associated with his disabilities, totally unaware of the impact of her limited proficiency in the child's first language. Researchers called for government policies to integrate special and multicultural teacher education.
[Copyright © Elsevier Ltd.].

A core goal of inclusive education worldwide is to maximize the learning potential of students with special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream educational settings. However, little research attention has been paid to SEN children's social and emotional gains from inclusive education compared to their academic performance. This study included social, emotional, and academic variables in a single research design, not only to test their relationships but also to explore the predictive roles of social and emotional factors in academic performance for SEN students. Participants were 515 SEN students in grades 1–6 in mainstream primary schools in Hong Kong. The results showed that the social and emotional competences of children with SEN were significant predictors of their academic performance (p < .001), with emotional competence having the larger impact. Although SEN students' relationships with peers and teachers were not found to be direct significant predictors of academic performance as reported in previous studies; they positively and significantly predicted emotional and social competences of SEN students (p < .001). Implications for establishing a caring campus, as well as developing educational interventions which will increase SEN students' positive emotional experiences and foster and maintain their adaptive social and emotional competences are discussed.
[Copyright © Springer].

This paper reports the final development of a scale to measure pre-service teachers' perceptions in three constructs of inclusive education, namely, sentiments or comfort levels when engaging with people with disabilities; acceptance of learners with different needs; and concerns about implementing inclusion. The Sentiments, Attitudes, and Concerns about Inclusive Education Revised (SACIE-R) scale was developed from an initial 60 items and administered through a series of refined surveys. A final 15-item scale was validated using 542 pre-service teachers from nine institutions in four countries including Hong Kong, Canada, India, and the United States. It is posited that the SACIE-R scale will yield valuable information for assisting universities and colleges in preparing more specific training to address the needs of pre-service teachers for working with diverse student populations.
[Copyright © Western University].

This article, written by Meng Deng of Beijing Normal University and Kim Fong Poon-McBrayer of the Hong Kong Institute of Education, reviews and analyses the reform of special education in China, the challenges confronting Chinese special education provisions, and how the Chinese inclusive education model, namely 'Learning in Regular Classrooms', has been shaped by the pragmatic needs aligning with the nation's economic and social developments. In an effort to provide wider school access, the current inclusive education model has become the form of educational placement that serves the majority of students with disabilities in China. The authors conclude that reforms in the last two decades have resulted in dramatic changes and progress in many facets of special education service delivery, school structure, administrative monitoring mechanism, and instructional practices. However, the current Chinese special education service structure is still shaky, with inadequate resources, personnel preparation and support at the local level. Fundamental changes to the examination-oriented mainstream education system are still needed, to enhance the quality of education for students with special needs.
[Copyright © Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd.].

因應社會重視平等機會的理念，香港學校自上個世紀末便開始關注照顧特殊學生的需要；為了鼓勵主流學校照顧這類學生的學習，特區政府十多年來在中小學推行融合教育。此文除了回顧香港政府相關教育政策的發展外，亦會分享一所小學在這方面的實踐，以剖析香港融合教育政策的演變及其最新的發展。
[Copyright © 2013 優質學校教育學報.]