Die Thematisierung von Integration und Inklusion in Kindergartenkonzeptionen

This paper deals with the guidelines and pedagogical beliefs about integration and inclusion in early childhood educational institutions. Using the kindergarten conceptions from the study “Kinder und Kitas in Deutschland” (K2ID), we use topic modeling and standardized content analysis to examine how integration and inclusion are addressed in these documents. The text passages that specifically deal with the topics of integration and/or inclusion form our text corpus. The analyses show that children with disabilities are very often addressed as a target group—just as frequently in conceptions that use the term inclusion as in conceptions that use the term integration. In conceptions using the integration term, a compensatory perspective is more common than in conceptions using the term inclusion, while the occurrence of participation does not differ. The results of the topic modeling also show typical combinations of integration and inclusion aspects. For example, the combination of a focus on “integration children”, a compensatory perspective, and a central role of (special education) specialists can be characterized as an assimilative integration approach, while the topic “inclusion: diversity and participation of all” is representative of a broad inclusion approach. However, our findings reveal other combinations and emphases as well (e.g., living and learning together for children with and without disabilities; social and cultural integration). Thus, the consideration of different aspects and dimensions of integration and inclusion has proven fruitful.