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Educational policy of the European Union on special education from 1981 to this day - the example of Greece: (Master thesis)

Πατρώνας, Χρήστος/ Patronas, Christos

The object of this work is the study of the E.U. educational policy concerning special education and systematically examines how it has been formed and presented by the European institutions from the eighties to this day. At the same time, we investigated the policy followed by Greece in the field of special education by joining (1981) in the European Union to this day. The results of the study show that the European Union started shaping educational policy for special education during the 1980s mainly through the adoption of Community programs while the legal framework for taking further initiatives and actions in education in the context of subsidiarity to support Member States was established after the Treaty of Maastricht. Since the mid-1990s the European Union has implemented a new strategy for special education which seeks the elimination of existing barriers and supports equal access to education. A comparative approach shows that Greece has shaped education policy taking into account developments to the European level and the directions emanating from the European institutions as well as its attempts, as an E.U. member to organize school structures supporting educational inclusion