A Review of Mainstreaming/Inclusion Research in Elementary and Secondary Schools in Turkey (2006–2016)

The purpose of the study was to review the research studies thematically which were conducted in elementary and secondary schools in Turkey regarding inclusion. In order to determine the research studies to be reviewed some criteria were decided by the research team. The criteria were (a) the studies should be conducted in elementary or secondary schools, (b) participants of the studies (parents, teachers, students) should be a part of the inclusion process, (c) study should be conducted directly about inclusion process, (d) articles should be published in a peer-reviewed journal, and (e) the study should be eligible via electronic data base. Reviewing the research studies depending on these criterion; 78 master’s theses, 9 doctoral dissertations, 55 journal articles with a total of 142 studies were determined. Themes and subthemes were constituted from these studies through content analysis, which is one of the qualitative data analysis methods. According to the themes, there are many research studies conducted for determining the present situation regarding inclusion process in schools whereas there is a small number of studies conducted for solving the determined problems in the studies. In descriptive studies, many problems were determined about inclusion and individuals in the inclusion process. In the future studies, it can be recommended to conduct research studies to overcome the determined problems with the light of previous studies that were designed for solving the problems of inclusion process.