The challenge of inclusion: A full continuum model of educational provision for children with EBD in Germany

An enduring part of the history of education is the story of how adults, particularly pedagogues, approach the teaching and support of troubling and troubled students.

Today, most national school and education systems use different formal and informal categorizations to describe these often disturbing children and young people. At least half of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries use an official national special educational needs category of emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD) (OECD 2007). While those believing in the inclusion of all children in mainstream school have proposed the abandonment of such categorization, not allocating a label can lead to the neglect of an individual child’s specific needs. For example, Dworet and Maich (2007: 36) criticize the ‘overall trend toward non-categorization for students with E/BD’ within the Canadian inclusive education system, for leading to under-identification.