Experience of Inclusion in Higher Education in One of the Swedish Industrial Cities in the North (the University of Gävle)

This paper focuses on understanding the Nordic, Bologna-based platform for inclusive higher education of students with SEN and the implementation of this platform according to the Swedish program of NAIS on national and local (University of Gävle) operational levels. The analysis of Bologna documents shows that expansion of inclusive processes in European HE represents a ‘social dimension in education’ and is essential to the implementation of the Bologna Declaration. Inclusion of students with SEN has approximately a 50-year history, and the foundation of the University of Gävle is the result of the diversification of Swedish HE in the 1960–70s. A systematic special education support service for students with SEN in Sweden has developed during the last two decades. During this period, educational support for students’ service of the University of Gävle has become an integral part of the well-functioning network among several Swedish national actors: special education services of HEIs, UHR, SPSM27 and Stockholm University. Remaining autonomous in carrying out their functions, coordinators of the educational support service at the University of Gävle cooperate with other Swedish universities and develop their high-quality professionalism. Examining the theoretical foundation engendered conceptual approaches to understanding inclusion in HEIs from both individual and institutional perspectives. Responding to the expansion and belief in the fundamental value of inclusion for European HE, the Swedish Council for Higher Education (UHR) initiated the development of a new program for standardizing different aspects of the inclusion of students with SEN in HEIs, creating NAIS and started its cross-country university functional network implementation in 2017, linking it with 32 HEIs all over Sweden. Introduction to this study data, collected by the NAIS program, is of great interest for the further development of university and societal knowledge about the inclusion of young people with special educational needs in HEIs. The questions discussed and formulated in this paper reveal that understanding inclusion in HE requires further investigation.Kapitel i rapportNordic Council of Ministers, ‘Promoting the Social Inclusion of Youth in Northern Industrial Towns: Experiences in Finland, Sweden, and Russia’, No. 18113, call ‘Civil Society & Human Rights Initiative’, Nordic-Russian co-operation