Parent input: shaping inclusive education for students with disabilities

Over the past 20 years, significant developments have occurred in Jordan to create more inclusive school settings. This is in part due to new national policies such as 2017 Public Law no. 20, Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and partly a result of international organizations' support and funding. The collective efforts are dismantling historical attitudes and beliefs about disability, yet often, intellectual disabilities remain marginalised in schools and communities. The current study explores the perceptions of parents whose children are attending inclusive public schools. Data was collected through focus groups in three districts representing central, northern and southern Jordan as a part of a needs assessment for broader inclusion work in these districts. Past research reveals that parents in Jordan are often divided on their support of inclusive education, and the survey research results do not clearly explain this division. The data indicates that parents welcome the idea of their children attending inclusive schools while expressing concerns about bullying and isolation at the hands of the other students. This is compounded by a worry that teachers lack sufficient experience supporting students with disabilities. These findings align with international research with parents of youth with disabilities and have significance within Jordan, where inclusion continues to be at the forefront of the educational agenda. The implications for this research indicate that while inclusive education is more prominent and disability is more widely discussed, there are still traditional challenges to enactment.