Exploring Social Inclusion of People with Intellectual Disabilities in the Global South

Dear Colleagues,

Research published to date on the social inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities (IDs) has predominantly been contributed by researchers in the Global North, and the focus of these accounts is not primarily on the Global South. Accordingly, the majority of programs for the promotion of social inclusion and ways of implementing them have been conceptualized in the Global North, yet they are largely intended for implementation in the Global South. In fact, scholars from the Global North investigate social inclusion for people with IDs commonly in their “home” countries, and it is even relatively rare for those scholars to link their studies to global trends, policies and, above all, cultural specificities in international development.

The idea for this Special Issue emerged in the first two years of working together in the context of a Research Collaborative of the Special Olympics Global Center for Inclusion in Education. The Guest Editors actively contributed to “A Global Research Agenda for Building Inclusive Learning Environments” that was released in April 2025 in connection with the Global Disability Summit in Berlin.

Due to a research deficit regarding coverage of the Global South in this field, the overall aim of this Special Issue is to bring together academic work on the social inclusion of people with IDs in (mainly sub-Saharan) Africa, featuring various areas of life, in the form of empirical research and theoretically informed articles, conceptual papers or reviews.

The primary focus of this Special Issue is addressing the research gap regarding the social inclusion of individuals with IDs in the Global South. The main purpose is to explore cultural perceptions and attitudes towards IDs across various countries in this region, emphasizing the importance of culturally sensitive approaches to inclusion.

The Special Issue will usefully supplement the existing literature on the social inclusion of people with IDs by adding perspectives on and from the Global South. With this international collection, the Guest-Editors seek to contribute to an interdisciplinary and transcultural understanding of the issues at hand, and establish a foundation for future scholarship. The articles in this collection are intended to contribute to the above-mentioned new Global Research Agenda.

Contributions should be make in the form of one of three categories of paper (article, conceptual paper or review) and should address topics that fall within the scope of the Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Florian Kiuppis
Dr. Tamara Chansa-Kabali
Dr. Amani Karisa
Dr. Judith McKenzie
Guest Editors

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• inclusive education
• intellectual disabilities
• Global South
• Africa
• comparative and international research
• inclusive learning environments
• child development
• community-based inclusive development
• critical disability studies
• teacher professional development
• decolonial theory
• capacity building for inclusive education
• family integration of persons with disabilities