The overall aim of this document is to explore and determine whether all, some or no children with special educational needs should be included and educated in traditional schools. I found it interesting how this debate has been growing for more than thirty years among politicians, educators and parents, bringing much controversy and different interpretations to the term “inclusive education”. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The history of special education in the UK dates back to the 1760s, when charitable institutions opened for blind, deaf and learning disabled children. Later, throughout the nineteenth century, there were religious and charitable institutions that educated children with a variety of disabilities and impairments. For example, “in London in 1899 approximately 2,000 “mentally retarded” pupils were taught in 43 locations” (Safford, 1996). In the 1890s, government interest in special education was conveyed through legislation, which required school authorities to grant the right to education to blind and deaf children, aged five to seventeen. Further legislation was provided in 1918 to make the education of "physically defective and epileptic" children compulsory. Despite efforts, the general education system tended to reinforce the isolation and confinement of children with disabilities and it was believed that it was better to separate children with “defects” from “normal” children. The Education Act (1944) categorized all children with special educational needs due to their disability and labeled them as “misfits” or “educationally subnormal”. It established eleven categories of “handicap” and a partial recognition that there might be some benefits to mainstream education. Despite this, it was not until many years later that students with disabilities were accepted as individuals with the right to an adequate education. Until the 1970s, many children suffering from any form of disability “were excluded from full citizenship rights (Borsay, 2005), were considered “uneducated” and taken away from their homes to spend their lives in institutions. It was not until 1971 that “the rights of disabled children to education were formally recognised” (Tilstone and Layton, 2004). It was the Education Act 1970 that made local education authorities responsible for the education of all children, ensuring that no child was deemed 'uneducable'. As a result, “children with disabilities very often found themselves in special schools, separated from mainstream education” (Wall, 2011). These certain choices about the education and placement of disabled children have produced an ostracized population and society that have been “institutionalised, segregated, uneducated, socially rejected, physically excluded and rendered unemployed” (Oliver, 1996, Carrington, 1999, Vlachou , 1997). . This segregation of children with disabilities has been strongly criticized and it has been argued that “any form of segregation on the basis of disability or learning difficulties is morally wrong” (Lindsay, 2003), and the integration of children with disabilities into mainstream schools it was seen as the best move to end segregation, achieving equal opportunities and the right to education for all. Erving Goffman (1968) questioned the assumption that the separation of a portion of the public into segregated institutions was actually a good thing and emphasized that these types of institutions present themselves “as the rational and humane solution to people's difficulties, but in fact they actually work’.