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Across the education sector, we are drawn to international reference points, whether that’s via data-heavy reports such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) or when looking at other nations’ policies in areas such as inclusion or wellbeing.

Such perspectives can be invaluable - they challenge inward-looking thinking and remind us that current arrangements are the product of policy choices, not inevitability.

But when comparative evidence is used selectively, as proof that inclusion “works” rather than as a way of examining complexity, it risks becoming a policy comfort blanket rather than a tool for genuine reform.

The reality of inclusion policies

Take , often presented as a leading light in moving away from segregated provision. The reality, as the literature shows, is uneven and highly contingent.

Progress towards has depended on provincial priorities, legal frameworks, funding models and, crucially, sustained investment in mainstream capacity.

Even where special schools have closed, inclusion has not automatically flourished.

Instead, new forms of exclusion have often emerged, seen in internal segregation, informal gatekeeping or reliance on withdrawal and specialist units within apparently mainstream settings.

Desegregation has been a necessary part of systemic reform, but on its own it has not delivered inclusion.

This matters for England, where the policy rhetoric appears increasingly confident that structural change alone will lead to better outcomes.

Canada’s experience suggests that without depth and coherence in system redesign, exclusion is not dismantled so much as relocated.

What does success mean?

Portugal, too, is often cited approvingly. Almost all pupils with disabilities are educated in mainstream schools, and the legal framework is rightly lauded for its alignment with rights-based principles.

Yet the evidence raises important questions about what this “success” actually means. Presence, participation and achievement remain unevenly realised.

Although mainstream placement rates are high, practice often still depends on removing pupils from their regular classrooms for separate support, with limited expansion of specialist staffing and unconvincing national outcomes data.

Most strikingly, the Portuguese case highlights how inclusion can become fragile when resources are spread thinly across a widened definition of need.

Teachers report feeling underprepared; parents fear that pupils with complex needs are being left behind in the pursuit of universalism.

The lesson is not that Portugal has failed, but that inclusion without adequate capacity, workforce confidence and accountability carries significant risk.

The Italian question

Italy’s long history of inclusive education is perhaps . Since the 1970s, it has dismantled most special schools and embedded pupils with disabilities in mainstream classrooms.

Yet even after five decades, Italian researchers are candid about persistent challenges: a lingering medical model of entitlement, micro-exclusions within classrooms and heavy reliance on support teachers who are often perceived as “belonging to” individual pupils rather than the class as a whole - an issue that will be familiar to readers of Professor Rob Webster’s research in the English context.

What Italy teaches us is sobering: inclusion is not a destination reached by legislative decree; it is a continuous process requiring vigilance, investment and cultural change.

If a system with Italy’s depth of experience still grapples with fragmentation and inconsistency, England should be wary of assuming rapid transformation through structural reform alone.

The common thread across these examples is not settled success in mainstreaming inclusion; it is complexity. Progress has been slow, uneven and frequently accompanied by unintended consequences.

International evidence consistently points to the importance of long-term investment in teacher development, adaptable funding, multi-agency collaboration and honest engagement with trade-offs.

Context is key

This is where the English context becomes decisive.

England’s SEND system is embedded in a highly performative, market-orientated education environment, shaped by accountability pressures, increasing reliance on parental tribunal advocacy, and ongoing recruitment and retention challenges.

While the direction of reform aligns, in broad terms, with international evidence, the lack of specificity in current proposals raises serious questions about delivery and accountability.

Transplanting policy lessons without adapting them to these conditions is not evidence-based reform; it is policy borrowing without system context.

None of this is an argument against learning internationally. On the contrary, the sector is right to look outward.

But that engagement needs to be honest about the difficulties encountered elsewhere, and explicit about the conditions required for change. Otherwise, international evidence risks obscuring as much as it reveals.

What we need is borrowed realism: honesty about limits, respect for context and sustained investment in the unglamorous work that inclusion depends on.

Because the international evidence is clear: the grass is not always greener, and delivering inclusion is never straightforward.

Dr Nic Crossley is CEO of Liberty Academy Trust, which runs three special schools

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