Focusing on the theme “Inclusive Education: the Way of the Future”, the Conclusions

and Recommendations of the 48th UNESCO International Conference on Education (ICE)

(Geneva, 2008) refer to a broadened conceptualization of inclusive education as a way

for addressing and responding to the needs of all learners. UNESCO has also defined

inclusive education as “a process of addressing and responding to the diversity of needs

of all learners through increasing participation in learning, cultures and communities,

and reducing exclusion within and from education ...”.1 Crucially, this definition moved

away from strong previous understandings of inclusive education as the sum of initiatives

and efforts in favour of specific groups or targeted categories, towards the progressive

understanding of inclusive education as the provision on quality learning opportunities

for all learners.