Abstract
Italy is one of the European country that early-established inclusive school systems with a history dating back to the 1960s of addressing segregating and discriminatory practices towards pupils with a disability. However, recent research data have shown the presence of pull-out and push-out phenomena (Nes, 2014; Demo & Nes, 2016), in which some pupils receive education in a dif-ferent place than their mates do. Despite of the fact that the few existing data suggest that the phenomenon is not marginal, only a few systematic research has been conducted in Italy. Most of the data focus on pupils with disabilities or with SEN (Ianes & Demo 2015), and from some well-documented national research projects show that the majority of the pupils with disability and/or with SEN in compulsory education spend part of their school time outside the class in order to re-ceive special support (Ianes et al. 2013). The main objective of this paper is to describe through some qualitative data the phenomenon of pull and push-out in Italy from the teachers’ point of view and understand which categories the teachers use to answer the open questions about pull and push-out. 6 focus groups with 6/8 teachers of primary, lower secondary and upper secondary school (compulsory education) have been conducted in Italy.