A systematic review of the roles of social workers in inclusive education for children with disabilities

Abstract

International and local communities have made commitments to ensure that children with disabilities have equal opportunities in education, just like their non-disabled counterparts. Regardless of the increasing research about the development of inclusive education for children with disabilities, inclusive education is not achieved. This calls for a focus on what other professionals, like social workers, can contribute to the successful implementation of inclusive education. A systematic review yielding 11 studies revealed that social workers perform well-known generalist practitioner roles like advocacy, collaboration, education, facilitation and provider of psychosocial support which emphasises the need to involve social workers in inclusive schools.

Keywords

Children with disabilities inclusive education mainstream schools social worker roles systematic review

Introduction

The inclusion of children with disabilities in mainstream schools has evolved, receiving widespread recognition and acceptance in many countries (Kalambouka et al., 2007; MacFarlane and Woolfson, 2013; Pereira et al., 2010). The United Nations’ 1990 Education For All conference in Jomtien, Thailand, which promoted global awareness about the need to provide education for all, including children with disabilities (Kuyini and Desai, 2007; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO], 2000), has partly contributed to the global acceptance of inclusive education. Moreover, the growing research in the area has promoted inclusive education and helped in the development of ideas about ways to facilitate the inclusion of children with disabilities in mainstream schools (Garrote et al., 2017; Roberts and Simpson, 2016). Social workers have vital functions in providing support to vulnerable people such as children with special education needs, including children with disabilities in mainstream schools. For example, Wong (2013) observed that social workers could provide counselling support for children with disabilities, which helps them in their relationships with non-disabled peers.

Furthermore, school social workers can create a conducive school environment where children with disabilities are accepted in inclusive schools because of the awareness creation they promote among stakeholders in education. Research on inclusive education has shown that children with disabilities face challenges in accessing relevant resources to facilitate their inclusion, have difficulties with being accepted by teachers and non-disabled students, and are sometimes criticised by the educational system for impeding the pace of academic work (Garrote et al., 2017; Sakız and Woods, 2015; Shaw, 2017). As a result, children with disabilities in mainstream schools can feel isolated, discriminated against and marginalised. This can make it difficult for them to form social relationships with peers in schools, and they may not be willing to be involved in academic and non-academic activities in mainstream schools (Ravenscroft et al., 2017; Rose and Shevlin, 2017). As professionals with knowledge and skills to address the psychosocial problems of vulnerable groups like children with disabilities, social workers have crucial roles to play in inclusive education of these children. The review synthesises existing research about the roles of social workers in schools with children with disabilities and shows the implications these have for promoting inclusive education.

Establishing the role of social workers in inclusive education

The contributions of social workers in educational establishments began several years ago in many countries. In particular, studies had documented that it started over a century ago when in 1906 four school districts in the United States of America hired social workers to support children with behavioural problems and their parents to access the necessary assistance to improve upon the functioning of these children (Kelly et al., 2010). The social work forebears who first worked in schools were called ‘visiting teachers’ (Kelly et al., 2010: 3). Ever since, social workers have provided psychosocial support in schools in many parts of the world. The NASW (National Association of Social Workers) Standards for School Social Work Services, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and disability policies of countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Ghana, among others, mandate that social workers be part of interdisciplinary leadership and collaborative teams or individualised education planning teams. The goal is to create a conducive school climate, work collaboratively with schools, families and professionals within the community, and observe the child both in their home and in their school to further understand their psychosocial and developmental needs (National Association of Social Workers [NASW], Education Bureau Circular Memorandum No. 36/2018, 2018; Ministry of Education [MoE], 2015; Poon-McBrayer, 2012). Despite the contributions of social workers in education, available empirical studies have revealed that social work involvement in inclusive education has received little attention in research globally. In addition, today, inclusive education has become a new transformative and universal education strategy fully incorporated into Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG): ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting life-long learning opportunities for all’ by 2030 (Loewe, 2012; UNESCO, 2015). Achieving this global goal requires the involvement of social workers in inclusive education in light of systemic discrimination of children with special education needs (Green et al., 2005; Shang et al., 2011). The review recognises this critical task and attempts to address the present and future considerations of involving social workers in inclusive education practice considering the numerous roles social workers perform in schools. Consequently, the review aims to ascertain the various social work contributions, the ways they are put into practice, and more importantly, to provide an integrated discussion of social work interventions in the arena of inclusive education.

A contribution of this review is filling a gap in the existing literature concerning the roles of social work in inclusive education for children with disabilities and creating awareness among social workers to consider accepting their roles in inclusive schools. It could further help to throw more light on the potential contributions social workers can make when working in teams with other human service professionals. A central research question, ‘What roles do social workers have to play in inclusive education?’, guided the systematic review.

The authors state that caution should be taken when considering social workers’ roles in inclusive education, due to international differences about who qualifies to be called a social worker. Throughout the review, the authors assume the position that social workers take on an eclectic place within discussions of human service professionals where a goal is to promote social justice and uphold the rights of disadvantaged groups such as children with disabilities. As academics with a professional social work background, the review is partly motivated by the authors’ interest in seeing the ways through which social workers can promote inclusive education. Notwithstanding, it is worth stating that the focus of the review is to highlight the roles of human service professionals in inclusive education, but not necessarily to promote the profession of social work even though it has significance for inclusive education. However, considering that these roles are commonly identified with social workers, the authors often referred to social workers throughout the study.

Method

Before conducting this review, a search was conducted with PROSPERO to find out about ongoing or published reports focusing on social workers’ involvement in inclusive education. There were no records about similar studies on the subject, which may suggest that this is the first systematic review on the topic. This systematic review was initially guided by Oliver et al. (2015), who highlighted the following seven stages for conducting a review: ‘review initiation, review question, search for studies, description of papers, quality assessment, synthesis and writing the review’ (p. 3). The process of identifying relevant studies followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) strategy for conducting systematic reviews. In initiating this review, the lead investigator discussed the focus of the study with the co-authors to provide an understanding of key focus areas. More than four meetings were held between the first and the third authors over 2 months to make decisions on the potential research question and relevant databases to use for the review. Following this, three databases – EBSCOhost, Scopus and PsycINFO – were identified as critical sources of information for the topic. The keywords or phrases used as initial search terms comprised social workers, inclusive education, mainstream schools and children or students with disabilities. These keywords were used on all the databases using the Boolean operator ‘AND’. Table 1 presents the Boolean search terms. From May 2016 to February 2019, the authors conducted an iterative literature search using the databases. The search produced 6276 articles which were screened against the inclusion criteria.

Table 1.

Boolean search terms.

Social workers OR paraprofessionals
AND
Inclusive education OR mainstream schools
AND
Children with disabilities OR students with disabilities

In order to be included in the review, the papers had to satisfy the following inclusion criteria: (1) scholarly peer-reviewed, (2) empirical studies, (3) inclusion in mainstream education, (4) all forms of disabilities and (5) written in English. Papers excluded were (1) theses, (2) government reports, (3) papers written in other languages and (4) review papers or commentaries. Empirical studies were articles based on primary data as in qualitative interviews and questionnaire distribution in quantitative studies or articles reporting on case studies. Mainstream education describes general education schools where children with disabilities are not involved. The review included studies practising inclusive education in such schools.

The authors did an independent screening of papers before reaching consensus on which articles to include in this study. A consensus meeting was organised after the independent selection of the materials and studies had been excluded after reading the titles and abstracts. In cases where disagreements occurred over which articles to include based on the screening of the titles and the abstracts, the authors decided to include those that included the words ‘social workers’, ‘inclusive education’ and ‘school social workers’. The remaining papers (n = 99) were further screened using the inclusion and exclusion criteria, resulting in 25 articles for full-text reading. After full-text reading and analysis of the remaining 25 papers, 11 articles were identified as satisfying all the inclusion criteria. Out of the 11 studies, 2 (Balli, 2016; Bolin et al., 2018) emerged through the snowballing method (see Table 2 for a summary of the included studies). The snowballing process refers to a situation where an article is identified through the references of an included study.

Table 2.

Summary of included studies.

No.	Reference	Study type	Country of study	Study purpose	Roles identified
1	Bolin et al. (2018)	Qualitative interviews	The United States	Sought the views of social workers on providing sexuality education to children with disabilities	Advocacy, collaborator
2	Hunter et al. (2017)	Qualitative case study	The United States	Social workers’ involvement in collaboration with parents and schools to support children’s literacy development	Psychosocial support, collaborator
3	Kwan and Cheung (2017)	A case study examining the effectiveness of an inclusive education programme involving social workers	Hong Kong	How volunteers can provide support to students with special education needs (SEN)	Advocate, educator, broker
4	Salm (2017)	Qualitative interviews	Canada	How interprofessional collaboration is experienced by professionals providing support to students	Collaborator
5	Balli D (2016)	Qualitative, in-depth interviews	Albania	Identify social workers’ roles towards the inclusiveness of students with disabilities	Facilitator, mediator, multi-disciplinary team member, scientist practitioner
6	Wong (2013)	Content analysis	China	Social workers’ role in helping children with disabilities recover from a natural disaster	Psychosocial support
7	Burton and Goodman (2011)	Qualitative, semi-structured interviews	The United Kingdom	The role of professionals in supporting inclusive practice	Facilitator
8	Angelides et al. (2009)	Qualitative, interviews and observations	Cyprus	The role of paraprofessionals in inclusive education	Facilitator, educator
9	Webb et al. (2008)	Qualitative interviews	The United Kingdom	The involvement of educational professionals in meeting the needs of children with disabilities	Facilitator
10	Agresta (2004)	Quantitative survey	The United States	The role perception of social workers as counsellors	Psychosocial support
11	Pryor et al. (1996)	Qualitative case studies	The United States	Using vignettes to explore the roles of social workers in inclusive schools	Advocate, consultant, teacher, liaison officer

The decision for 11 studies was reached after the authors had comprehensively discussed the papers and decided that the excluded research did not touch on social workers’ role in inclusive education. Some of the assessment criteria for exclusion were that the documents only mentioned the roles of social workers as implications or recommendations from their study’s findings and some of the studies did not have clear demonstrations of the social worker role. Figure 1 delineates the process of selecting studies. It is worth noting that there were several complexities in the use of the terms social workers and inclusive education throughout the paper, particularly in reporting the results. The term social workers was used to refer to human service professionals dedicated to the values of the profession such as service, the dignity and worth of persons, importance of human relationships and social justice (Kirst-Ashman, 2010). Therefore, although some of the studies did not explicitly mention social workers, the roles described by the professionals in the studies represented the generalist social work practitioner roles highlighted by Kirst-Ashman (2010).

Consequently, the authors agreed to classify professionals, such as support staff and teaching assistants (commonly known in the United Kingdom), as social workers because of their roles in ensuring that children with disabilities integrate into mainstream schools. Similarly, some of the studies referred to the terms counsellors and SENCOs (Special Education Needs Coordinators) having similarities with the social worker role. In doing so, the authors hope to create awareness about what social workers can contribute to the development of inclusive education. Essentially, even though the term social work was not explicitly used in some studies, it is essential to exercise some flexibility considering the international focus of the review and the fact that different countries could have different ways of labelling the profession. Nevertheless, the core values remain at the heart of the profession.

Inclusive education was used in some cases to present a way of involving children with disabilities in mainstream schools but not necessarily as an observed practice within the schools. This is because some of the studies investigated the support provided to children with disabilities in schools and not how inclusive education is promoted. This is a focus of the review where the support provided by the professionals is considered a way to involve social workers in inclusive education.

The authors used thematic analysis to analyse the full texts of the 11 papers. Guidelines from Braun and Clarke (2006) were used in the analysis and presentation of the results. Review of the documents begun by reading through the papers to gain a general sense of initial ideas from the studies. The initial ideas were presented in a meeting attended by the authors to discuss both agreements and disagreements emerging from the analysis. Codes were further developed by engaging in a close reading of the texts. The codes were compared among all authors to ensure agreement. Codes such as ‘access to resources’, ‘change mindset’ and ‘social workers have a role’ were developed. These codes were further grouped into abstract ideas to generate the roles of social workers. Codes that represented similar ideas were merged into potential themes. The themes were further refined to ensure that ideas within them described the roles of social workers in the inclusion of children with disabilities in mainstream schools.

Quality assessment

The assessment of the quality of studies was done by following the screening template used by Salzmann-Erikson and Dahlén (2017). A template is provided that includes questions to determine the quality of the studies that are being reported. Questions such as ‘Does the study’s title correspond with its content?’, ‘Is the study’s purpose clearly formulated?’, ‘Is the data systematically collected?’ and ‘Are the results credibly described?’ were asked of the studies. Overall, the template has 25 questions with Yes (1 point) or No (0 point) responses. Articles with 0–17 points score ‘Low’, those with a sum of 18–20 have ‘Medium’ score and articles with a total of 19–25 are given a ‘High’ score. The quality assessment template by Salzmann-Erikson and Dahlén (2017) appears to be well suited for qualitative studies. As this review included studies using both qualitative and quantitative methods, some questions were modified to suit quantitative approaches. Their criterion was used because 8 of the 11 studies were qualitative. Three of the studies recorded a low score, four had an average score and one reported as high. For the three quantitative studies, two had a low score and one scored an average. The same template was used for both methods because the authors agreed that the questions in the guide were appropriate for all, regardless of the method used.

Study characteristics

Five of the studies specifically investigated the roles of social workers in inclusive education. In contrast, the remaining studies focused on broader topics but included findings that highlighted what contributions social workers make in inclusive education for children with disabilities. Of the 11 studies, 8 used qualitative methods with semi-structured in-depth interviews, observations and telephone interviews as primary data collection tools. For example, the study by Salm (2017) used both in-person and telephone semi-structured interviews in collecting data from an interprofessional team of social workers, educators, psychologists and nurses providing services for school-children with disabilities. Two studies adopted quantitative methods, and one was a case study. The dominance of qualitative studies in investigating the topic may not be surprising, as research on the involvement of social workers in inclusive education is not an established research area. With regard to the countries of origin of the articles identified, studies appeared across most parts of the continents except for Africa and Australia. There were studies from the United States (n = 4), the United Kingdom (n = 2), China (n = 2), and one each from Albania, Cyprus and Canada. During the review, it was challenging to find studies with specific reference to the term social workers. Out of the 11 studies, 7 referred to social workers and the work they do in inclusive education settings. The others referred to SENCOs or support staff. Social workers are referred to in this review as human service professionals performing the roles of support staff and SENCOs, as articulated by the included studies.

Results

Roles including facilitator, advocate, collaborator, provider of psychosocial support and educator were the traditional functions of social workers found after analysing the selected studies. The social worker roles and examples of how they can be performed are highlighted in Table 3. These roles have been clarified further in the following sections.

Table 3.

Social worker roles with some pointers on how they can be performed.

No.	Social worker role	Example of the role description
1	Facilitator	Teach children with disabilities relationship-building skills to form healthy relationships with non-disabled peers. Social workers should put in place measures so that the classroom environment is welcoming for children with disabilities.
2	Advocate	Support the participation of children with disabilities in school activities to challenge discourses concerning their vulnerabilities. Social workers should reach out to organisations or individuals for relevant resources required by children with disabilities to promote their inclusion in schools.
3	Collaborator	Social workers should acknowledge limitations in their practice/knowledge and work with other professionals to best meet the diverse and unique needs of children with disabilities.
4	Psychosocial support	Social workers should provide one-on-one counselling to children with disabilities facing difficulties in school adjustment. Also involve parents, teachers and other relevant members in discussions where needed.
5	Educator/teacher	Educate relevant stakeholders (teachers, headteachers, parents, non-disabled students, etc.) in inclusive education about how to engage in supportive practices for children with disabilities.

Facilitator

The facilitative role of the social worker involves organising people towards the resolution of a shared goal or changing efforts through intragroup support, community development, self-advocacy, interactions, feedback as well as sharing information (DuBois and Miley, 2013). Four studies (Angelides et al., 2009; Balli, 2016; Burton and Goodman, 2011; Webb et al., 2008) reported on the facilitative roles of social workers and other professionals in inclusive schools. One study (Burton and Goodman, 2011) reported that the availability of professionals working with children with special education needs is vital to facilitate inclusion. Rose and Doveston (2008) posit that a positive relationship is required in order to facilitate open discussions as well as reasonable student-to-staff ratio for students to discuss their difficulties with professionals. This relationship building with individuals is key to social workers as it is part of their education and training (Kirst-Ashman, 2010).

There are some studies that have investigated the role of teachers in promoting an open dialogue with children with special education needs to identify appropriate ways to assist in meeting the goals of inclusive education. Nevertheless, most of the teachers may not have adequate training to establish positive working relationships with students with disabilities. This is because they are mostly trained to impart knowledge through teaching. The role of social workers is vital as they are expertly trained to provide psychosocial support to vulnerable groups, including children with disabilities. The study by Burton and Goodman (2011) suggests that professionals working with children with special education needs, and teachers, may have similar interests or positions within the inclusive education discourse. Notably, within the context of a case where a child with special education needs fails in class, a professional may focus on why the student failed while the teacher focuses on the bad grades. Teachers are generally pressured by educational officials to meet specific academic standards which do not always meet the needs of children with special education needs, such as children with disabilities (Asamoah et al., 2018). Therefore, teachers may not be in a better position to play a facilitative role to ensure inclusive education. Social workers, support staff and SENCOs, however, are in better areas to play this role because they have little or no teaching responsibilities.

An observation conducted by Angelides et al. (2009) in Cyprus revealed that the presence of paraprofessionals in classrooms and settings where there are interactions between children with special education needs and peers without disabilities promoted inclusion by facilitating increasing participation of students in the learning process. There are pieces of evidence indicating that encouraging students with special needs was a significant factor contributing to their increased self-esteem (Angelides et al., 2009). Furthermore, interviews conducted by professionals from England and Wales suggest that support staff educate students with special education needs on how to form social relationships with peers without disabilities (Webb et al., 2008). This enables them to engage in friendly communication with people outside their network and to feel confident about themselves and what they can do. Therefore, there must be regular contact between professionals and students with special education needs in settings with more interactions between students to ensure the provision of support to these students in inclusive practices.

Advocate

Advocacy relates to the purposeful engagement of social workers in appealing and fighting to advance the rights, opportunities and courses of individuals and groups who are vulnerable, most deprived and marginalised by speaking on behalf of them when others are reluctant to listen, and empower them to have a voice on decisions concerning their lives (Cox et al., 2017). Three studies (Bolin et al., 2018; Kwan and Cheung, 2017; Pryor et al., 1996) identified the advocacy role of social workers in inclusive schools. Social workers play the roles of advocates to promote social justice and to ensure that the people they work with have the voice to speak for themselves (Pryor et al., 1996). In the long run, social workers taking advocacy roles aim to make people independent of support from service providers.

The study by Kwan and Cheung (2017) identified the successful using of the social workers’ advocacy and brokerage roles in an intervention programme: the ‘volunteer mentorship scheme’ (also known as the scheme) designed in Hong Kong. The focus of this intervention is to champion the needs of children with disabilities through collaboration between them and the ‘Youth Service Centre’ (Kwan and Cheung, 2017: 4). In this intervention, the partnership between children with special education needs and the volunteers are advocated while providing opportunities for engaging in activities such as social workgroups, training workshops and outdoor programmes. By exposing children with special education needs to activities such as ‘Africa drum, drama and Chinese shadow puppet play’, opportunities were provided to showcase the skills through entertaining the elderly and some other persons at various locations (Kwan and Cheung, 2016). The outcome of this intervention since its inception has been of immense benefit, facilitating the inclusion of students with special education needs through participation and bringing about acceptance and embracing individual differences. Although this scheme may be limited to Hong Kong, it provides an understanding of the different ways that social workers can engage children with disabilities to promote inclusive practices in educational settings. The study by Bolin et al. (2018) showed what roles social workers can perform while working with other professionals in school settings. They found that social workers can advocate for relevant resources in support of the education of children with disabilities. Their study focused on services related to sexuality for children with disabilities. Although social workers did not directly provide sexuality services for children with disabilities, they were able to advocate for the relevant services for children with disabilities requiring them (Bolin et al., 2018).

Collaborator

Studies included in this review often represented social workers as working together with other professionals in mainstream schools. Two studies by Bolin et al. (2018) and Salm (2017) identified this function of the social worker. The study by Salm (2017) revealed that social workers have a collaborative role with other professionals in providing services for children with intellectual and mental disabilities. It was further revealed that such partnerships should be interdependent, as different competencies and skills put together could signify the provision of better services to children with disabilities. Bolin et al. (2018) mentioned that social workers could provide sexuality support for children with disabilities in school, usually in collaboration with other professionals. Bolin et al. (2018) found that professionals, including school counsellors, psychologists, teachers, nurses and administrators, approach social workers to assist in giving sexuality support for children with disabilities. Social workers help children with disabilities to understand intimate relationships, issues related to their physiology and how to understand some biological changes.

In schools, teams have the responsibility of creating a positive academic climate by removing barriers, facilitating understanding of factors in the home, school or community that impact negatively students’ educational outcomes. In addition, they collaborate to implement school-based programmes for the well-being and positive academic outcomes of children with disabilities. The social work practitioner uses his or her knowledge of community resources and expertise to connect children having special education needs to the available resources. Also, they connect the school to the homes of these children, provide information concerning families and family dynamics, and engage with family members therapeutically. The aim is to minimise the effects of discrimination and exclusion of these children in inclusive education.

Provider of psychosocial support

Three studies (Agresta, 2004; Hunter et al., 2017; Wong, 2013) further revealed that social workers provide a range of psychoeducation and social services within inclusive education settings. Wong (2013) observed in his study in Hong Kong that social workers have the responsibility to support children with disabilities with their emotional problems to help them thrive in their relationships. According to Wong (2013), children with disabilities may face difficulties building relationships with their non-disabled peers. Therefore, it is expected that school social workers would use their expertise to provide appropriate intervention. Not only children with disabilities but social workers also need to empower teachers to understand the conditions of children with disabilities to be able to facilitate their participation in inclusive schools. Another way in which social workers could assist children with disabilities is to facilitate the process of adaptation to their physical environment and structures. The study conducted by Wong in 2013 was a response following an earthquake in China which caused disabilities for several students. Newly disabled students may face difficulties adapting to their physical changes and how to go about their daily activities within the school premises. Therefore, social workers assist in this area to ensure that children with disabilities can adapt to their environment.

Agresta (2004) also revealed that social workers provided psychosocial services in the form of counselling for schools. Out of 183 school social workers identified for the study, 168 reported on their roles in providing group and individual counselling (Agresta, 2004). Considering that children with disabilities face difficulties building social relationships with their non-disabled peers (Rose and Shevlin, 2017), Agresta (2004) makes an important point to consider social workers’ roles in inclusive education. Indeed, professional social workers can provide the needed support for children with disabilities to improve their relationship-building skills and enable non-disabled students to engage in more supportive behaviours. The provision of counselling services reduces the effects of negative sociocultural tendencies such as discriminatory attitudes, superstitious beliefs and difficulty in accepting persons with disabilities together with their non-disabled counterparts in the same classroom.

Furthermore, Hunter et al. (2017) identified that school social workers have an essential role to play in interdisciplinary teams as they serve to be the link between the home and the school environment. They ensure that children with disabilities have healthy relationships not only at school but also at home. This is possible because of the social worker’s understanding of family processes and dynamics and what resources may be useful for children with disabilities in dealing with challenges at home and school (Hunter et al., 2017).

Educator

Social workers perform the role of the educator when they engage in activities involving teaching, training, sensitisation and research by facilitating information sharing, discovering new knowledge and ideas, and suggesting services and policies addressing critical issues affecting the client system (DuBois and Miley, 2013; Hepworth et al., 2017). Two of the studies (Angelides et al., 2009; Kwan and Cheung, 2017) included in the review found that social workers are needed in inclusive schools to educate stakeholders involved in the practice of inclusive education. Social workers’ education was generally to ensure that individuals, including children without disabilities, children with disabilities, teachers and support staff, have an understanding of the need to provide equal access to education for all children. Kwan and Cheung (2017) noted that social workers do not only provide direct services to children with disabilities, but they also work with their mentors to orient them in understanding inclusive education. The mentors in their study were young people (18–25 years) who have gone through training programmes on how to work with students with special education needs. Although the involvement of the mentors appeared to improve the confidence of special education needs students (Kwan and Cheung, 2017), the mentors may not have adequate education on how to promote the needs of children with special needs, such as those with disabilities, in inclusive education. However, because the mentors worked along with social workers, it is possible to argue that they provided outstanding support to the children.

Implications for practice

Results from the review show that social workers have significant roles to play in mainstream schools regarding the inclusion of children with disabilities. Roles including facilitator, advocate, collaborator, provider of psychosocial support or counsellor, and educator found in this review are conventional roles of a social worker identified in the literature (Kirst-Ashman, 2010). This emphasises the need to involve social workers in the development of inclusive education for children with disabilities. The review suggests that social workers should spend time in schools to ensure that children with special education needs can keep up with the pace of academic work. Clark (2007) also argues that social workers can enhance the capacities of students with special needs to cope with the demands of mainstream classroom activities. Within this context, social workers can work with other support staff to ensure that children with disabilities have access to required learning aids and can use them appropriately. There are concerns regarding the successful implementation of inclusive education, as both teachers and students without disabilities have raised issues about the slow pace of academic work (Opoku et al., 2019). Therefore, the role of social workers as facilitators becomes vital as they assist children with disabilities to move through these processes without extreme challenges. The absence of support from social workers and other support staff may lead to burnout among teachers in inclusive schools (Talmor et al., 2005). Complementary roles provided by social workers can help prevent excessive burnout among teachers to ensure that there are enough resources to facilitate and support children with disabilities in their learning and participation.

The review revealed that social workers play advocacy roles by ensuring that children with disabilities are engaged in community activities and provided with the relevant resources to promote their inclusion (Bolin et al., 2018; Kwan and Cheung, 2017). Meekosha and Dowse (2007) argue that social workers can effectively stand on behalf of or with students with disabilities if students with disabilities themselves are involved in the process of fighting for their rights. Primarily, social workers should involve children with disabilities in advocacy actions concerning securing resources, creating a welcoming school environment for their participation and educating relevant stakeholders about the rights of children with disabilities to education. Although research has shown that inclusive education promotes healthy competition among students in the exercising of one’s rights (Kirby, 2017; Opoku et al., 2019), this may not be enough if children with disabilities are not involved in the process of establishing or claiming their rights to education. While involving children with disabilities in making their rights to general education known to relevant stakeholders, social workers should ensure that children with disabilities are not stigmatised in the process.

The review further suggests that social workers work alongside other stakeholders such as teachers, support staff, psychologists and students without disabilities to ensure the success of inclusive education (Bolin et al., 2018; Salm, 2017). A reason for collaboration within inclusive education is that social workers bring knowledge and skills that teachers may be unable to apply to encourage students’ participation. The above is particularly evident in classroom teaching and learning where some children with disabilities facing problems building social relationships may be unable to concentrate in class regardless of the teachers’ efforts. Therefore, social workers become relevant as they engage in therapeutic relationships with such children to build their self-confidence to ensure that they are not often isolated from their peers without disabilities (Frey and George-Nichols, 2003). In order to promote the practice of inclusive education, social workers should work with other professionals to ensure the utilisation of different expertise to meet the complex needs of children with disabilities. While teachers often concern themselves with the academic progress of students both with and without disabilities, psychologists, social workers and counsellors are more likely to be interested in addressing the emotional, social and behavioural challenges of children with disabilities.

Wong (2013) mentions the provision of psychosocial support as an essential role of social workers in addressing the psychological problems of children with disabilities. As social workers may not often be part of the classroom environment, they may provide some basic knowledge to teachers about signs that could suggest that children with disabilities are facing psychosocial problems. A referral can then be made to the experienced social worker who can work with the identified child to help address the issue. Social workers not only work with children with disabilities in the classroom or school settings, but they can also serve as an interface between the home and the school environment (Hunter et al., 2017). Necessarily, social workers should ensure that problems from home do not affect the child’s involvement in school activities. The above may happen when children with disabilities come from communities holding stigmatising views or attitudes towards persons with disabilities. In such cases, children with disabilities may not feel comfortable being part of a group of students with disabilities. When this happens, social workers may engage with the child’s family to ensure that children are reminded not to feel bad about themselves. The implication of the above is that social workers’ role in inclusive education is not limited to school settings, but extends to addressing the social and structural influences serving as barriers to inclusive education.

The review highlighted roles commonly performed by generalist social work practitioners. This signifies an appreciation of the potentials of social workers in inclusive education. Nevertheless, there is a need to evaluate the roles described above and consider how this supports inclusive education as well as how social workers can take on these roles in their practice.

Study limitations

This review was limited to empirical studies without considering government reports or opinion essays. With the limited studies in the area, such essays may provide valuable information about practices in local or international contexts that could be relevant to the study. Because of the limited studies on social workers’ role in inclusive education for children with disabilities, caution should be exercised not to overstate the involvement of social workers in inclusive education settings. Further studies need to be conducted in the area to develop best practices related to how social workers can be involved in inclusive education. This review constitutes a vital reference point for furthering studies in the area. Also, the voices of families and children who remain critical to inclusive education are missing in the review. Moreover, the number of studies on children’s views and what helps them in inclusive education is inadequate. The implication is that more studies are needed in this area to increase knowledge about ways to promote inclusive education. The review did not present enough information about the challenging aspects of social workers’ roles. Therefore, it might not be necessarily all positive contributions from social workers. There is a need for further investigations into the challenges. Finally, although the review had an international focus, the study was limited to materials written in English. Hence, we did not take into consideration studies from some non-English speaking countries written in other languages, even though they could have content relevant to the review.

Conclusion

Just like some previous studies have mentioned (Bolin et al., 2018; Wong, 2013), the review has shown that social workers have relevant roles to play in inclusive education for children with disabilities. Social workers are particularly concerned about addressing the psychological and social issues faced by children with disabilities, which undoubtedly have an impact on their academic performance. By addressing these psychosocial and emotional issues, children with disabilities can feel comfortable learning in the same school environment with their non-disabled peers. The review suggests that teachers may not be able to adequately address the psychosocial and emotional needs of children with disabilities as they are more focused on ensuring that students meet academic expectations (Asamoah et al., 2018). Findings from this review have implications for social work practice internationally. As many countries across the world have given their support for inclusive education for children with disabilities, the review could serve to guide countries in considering how social workers can contribute to a global agenda. However, the study’s international contribution should be considered with caution as the review did not find studies on the topic in low-income countries such as those in Africa.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Edward Asamoah

Author biographies

Edward Asamoah is a PhD student with the Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences at the City University of Hong Kong, researching inclusive education practices.

Cherry Hau-lin Tam, PhD, is an associate professor at the City University of Hong Kong with research interests in youth-related concerns and issues and social work development in China.

Ebenezer Cudjoe is a PhD student with the Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences at the City University of Hong Kong, researching the lived experiences of children in families where there is parental mental illness.

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