Browsing by Author "Haranko, Mira"

The purpose of this literature review is to clarify how inclusion is defined and how special education has improved towards inclusive education solutions in Finland. I also consider other concepts related to inclusion, such as integration. I also clarify how the concept of sense of belonging is defined and what influence it has on a student’s studies. The concept of inclusion has become known from Unesco’s Salamanca Statement. The Salamanca Statement involved an engagement considering education for students with special needs and it insisted on teaching all children together in regular schools. Practically inclusion means that a student with special needs attends the neighbourhood school and he/she is not being relocated in a special school. Sense of belonging as a concept can be defined as a person’s personal experience in participation in some system or environment in a way that the person self feels being a part of it. Although sense of belonging is a very personal issue, it is possible for a person’s environment to have an either strengthening or impairing impact on it. Sense of belonging is often being associated with the social atmosphere in school and it consists of social relationships that a student forms with his/her teacher and other students. This literature review will be used as a basis for my Master’s degree. In my Master’s degree I plan to research how students with special needs, who study in a regular class, feel they belong to the group.