As a contribution to National Integration Week during 1992, BILD organised a special one day conference to explore the arguments for and against the integration of all children with disabilities into ordinary schools. The Great Integration Debate provided a forum for parents, teachers and other professionals and students who had experienced different forms of special educational provision. The motion under debate was quite simply ‘special schools should be abolished’. The debate created a great deal of interest and it was suggested that the main position of papers might be of interest to a much wider audience than was able to attend on the day. Papers based on other presentations appear in other issues of the jour