On the necessary co-existence of special and inclusive education

ABSTRACT

While many distinctions between ‘special’ and ‘inclusive’ education have been made and continue to be forcefully debated, the two concepts remain strongly evident in policy and practice in many countries. This paper discusses the interrelated history of these concepts. It explores how conceptualisations of them have changed since Salamanca and reflects on whether inclusive education has, can or should replace special education. It considers the extent to which ‘special’ and ‘inclusive’ education are understood as the same or different today. The paper argues for a clear a distinction to be made between how special educators can work in support of inclusive education and the task of inclusive education which addresses the barriers to participation faced by members of marginalised groups.     

Assessing Thai early childhood teachers' knowledge of inclusive education

An ever-increasing number of children with and without disabilities are attending early childhood programmes and learning together. Early childhood inclusion considers all children with and without disabilities, and their families as full members of the early childhood community. Although many early childhood teachers accept the educational rights of children with disabilities and the core principle of inclusion – that early childhood learning programmes should provide for the needs of all the children in their centres, regardless of ability and disability, there remain significant barriers in terms of teacher professional knowledge in achieving these goals. In this article, we report a study on Thai preschool teachers' knowledge of inclusive early childhood education. Quantitative data obtained through a questionnaire were supplemented by teacher interviews. Both the quantitative and qualitative data focused on the teachers' assessment of their professional knowledge. Findings from this study can inform effective professional development programmes in preparing early childhood teachers for successful inclusive practices.     

The inclusive practice project in Scotland: Teacher education for inclusive education

While differences in national contexts are associated with variations in how teachers are trained and school systems are organised, the conceptual and philosophical problems of equity and inclusion in schooling are shared concerns. This paper describes how the structure and content of an initial teacher education programme for primary and secondary teachers has been revised to ensure that social and educational inclusion is addressed within the core programme. A rationale is presented for the development of ‘inclusive practice’, followed by a discussion of the reforms and an outline of the effects that are expected in the classroom practices of teachers in schools.     

Creating conversations: an inclusive approach to the international networking of knowledge about education

Networking has been central to human communication and social engagement for centuries, but has changed dramatically with the advent of new technology. However, the practice of networking has received little academic attention and tends to be undertheorised. This paper considers the impact of the global digital and communication divide, and the contested nature of inclusive education, on the task of promoting information sharing internationally. A summative case study is presented of a network, established to support the documentation of promising practice on inclusive education in countries with limited access to information and material resources. The case study uses autoethnographic methods to identify key principles for the development of an inclusive network. The significance of this paper is in its proposition of a working model of inclusive networking, which has potential to be developed into a theory.     

How television production specialists learn distance education skills and knowledge

The purpose of this study was to examine how television‐production specialists, who had no previous experience or educational background in the field of distance education, learned the distance education‐related skills and obtained the knowledge necessary to perform their jobs. The purposive sample for this study comprised 12 full‐time television production specialists who were employed for at least one year at universities across the United States to produce live, interactive, video‐based educational programs, but who, prior to employment at their respective universities, had no experience or educational background in the field of distance education. Qualitative methods, including semi‐structured interviews, observation, and concept maps, were used to collect data. This study found that television production specialists used both incidental and informal learning strategies to learn the necessary skills and knowledge they needed to perform their jobs. Participants learned predominantly by three means: assessing previously held assumptions and beliefs; learning by doing through a trial‐and‐error‐type format; and watching other's videoconference programs. Participants also experienced a ‘mindset change’, brought about by such factors as identifying audience and subject‐matter specialists’ needs, in how they viewed their own performance.     

Belonging to higher education: inclusive education for students with intellectual disabilities

Abstract

The college experience in Iceland has traditionally been reserved for those who have passed the matriculation examination and meet the admission requirements of higher educational institutions. Since 2007, the University of Iceland has offered a Vocational Diploma Programme for people with intellectual disabilities in inclusive settings. The purpose of this article is to describe the diploma programme as well as exploring students’ sense of belonging to the college community. The diploma programme is located at the School of Education and students trained to work at pre-primary schools, after school clubs and within the field of disability such as self-advocacy. Inclusion has been achievable by adapting the general curriculum and learning outcomes to individual needs, flexible teaching methods and the cooperation between academic faculty members, programme coordinators, student mentors and the diploma students themselves. The diploma students receive academic and social support from student mentors who are other undergraduate students at the School of Education. The collaboration with student mentors has proven to be valuable, expanded diploma students’ social networks and contributed to a sense of belonging. Regardless of various attitudinal and structural hindrances, there is much evidence that the diploma students are not only tolerated but welcomed at the School of Education and belong to the college community.     

Marking time: using music to create inclusive religious education and inclusive schools

Religious education (RE) is a vital subject in the inclusion of pupils and staff alike, as it brings together ways of life and communities, the personal and the social. Based on the philosophy of community of John Macmurray, and the philosophy of dialogue of Martin Buber, Julian Stern investigates ways of ‘marking time’, understanding and celebrating times and events in schools. Music, embedded in religious and other ways of life, adds a communicative dimension that strengthens inclusive RE and intercultural communication. RE with music can be used as a form of community‐making of the most comprehensive (i.e. inclusive) kind, engaging the imagination to such an extent that pupils, teachers and all members of school communities can, in Buber's words, ‘imagine the real’.     

Not just skills: what a focus on knowledge means for vocational education

This contribution to the symposium on Michael Young’s article ‘Overcoming the crisis in curriculum theory: a knowledge based approach’, supports his contention that curriculum theory has lost sight of its object—‘what is taught and learned in schools’, and argues that this has particularly deleterious consequences for vocational education and training (VET). VET is unproblematically positioned as applied, experiential and work-focused learning, and it is seen as a solution for those who are alienated from or unsuccessful in more traditional forms of academic education. This article argues that rather than being a mechanism for social inclusion, VET is instead a key way in which social inequality is mediated and reproduced because it excludes students from accessing the theoretical knowledge they need to participate in debates and controversies in society and in their occupational field of practice. It presents a social realist analysis to argue why VET students need access to theoretical knowledge, how a focus on experiential and applied learning constitutes a mechanism for social exclusion and what a ‘knowledge rich’ VET curriculum would look like.     

Teacher knowledge and initial teacher education in the English learning and skills sector

Recent reforms of initial teacher education (ITE) in the learning and skills sector (LSS) in England are standards based and emphasise subject specialism. The reforms are underpinned by objectivist epistemological assumptions which are incompatible with socio‐cultural theories of professional knowledge, and ignore the diverse teaching roles and contexts in the sector and wider systemic issues. A qualitative scoping study found that LSS in‐service trainee teachers drew on three types of knowledge resources, or clusters of ‘rules’ for practice, in their teaching: these were related to their subject/vocational area, generic teaching and learning processes and specific learners and groups. Trainees generated knowledge resources through participation in their workplace, ITE course and other social contexts, and from embedded and encoded workplace knowledge. Trainees’ beliefs, values and prior experiences were both a knowledge resource and influenced their engagement with knowledge generation activities. It is argued that using a knowledge resources perspective, which recognises how trainees generate knowledge and seeks to bridge gaps in their access to knowledge resources, would be more effective in supporting trainees’ development than the current reforms.     

Effective civic education: an educational effectiveness model for explaining students' civic knowledge

In this study, a comprehensive educational effectiveness model is tested in relation to student's civic knowledge. Multilevel analysis was applied on the dataset of the IEA Civic Education Study (CIVED; Torney-Purta, Lehmann, Oswald, & Schulz, 2001 Torney-Purta, J., Lehmann, R., Oswald, H. and Schulz, W. 2001. Citizenship and education in twenty-eight countries: Civic knowledge and engagement at age fourteen, Amsterdam, The Netherlands: IEA.  [Google Scholar]), which was conducted among junior secondary-school students (age 14), their schools, and their teachers. In total, 28 countries, 4,136 classrooms, and 93,565 students were included in the analysis. The results indicated that the influences on students' civic knowledge are multilevel. Students' civic knowledge and skills were partially explained by individual characteristics, by factors related to quality and opportunities for civic learning offered by classrooms and class composition, and by factors at the national context level. We conclude that most effectiveness factors are relevant for the field of civic and citizenship education and that schooling and educational policy matter for students' success in this field.     

Student engagement and inclusive education: reframing student engagement

Engagement, or student engagement, is widely used in educational research and public discourse to refer to the problem of public education. The underlying ontological and epistemological assumptions buoying engagement are rarely, if ever, addressed by educational researchers. The ‘silent omission’ (Sidorkin 2014. “On the Theoretical Limits of Education.” In Making a Difference in Theory: The Theory Question in Education and the Education Question in Theory, edited by Julie Allan Gert Biesta and Richard Edwards, 121–137. New York: Routledge) of engagement’s metaphysics has implications for inclusive education. This paper finds that despite being employed with good intent, engagement operates in a paradigm of normativity. In a gesture of bifocality (Weis and Fine 2012. “Critical Bifocality and Circuits of Privilege: Expanding Critical Ethnographic Theory and Design.” Harvard Educational Review 82 (2): 173–201), I critique engagement discourse and its historical context to find that it reproduces a longstanding tradition of psychologising public problems (Fine and Cross 2015. “Critical Race, Psychology and Social Policy: Refusing Damage, Cataloguing Oppression, and Documenting Desire.” In Contextualizing the Costs of Racism, edited by A. Alvarez and H. Neville. Washington, DC: APA Publications), thereby displacing conversations about what may be the most influential issue of public education: social and economic inequality. A reframing of engagement as [student/teacher] engagement is proposed. Highlighted in the reframing is the educational relationship and the context in which it is nested. Mitigated is the pathologising and exclusionary effect of engagement discourse which operates within a dialectic of normal/engaged // ab/normal/disengaged.     

Principals' and teachers' attitudes and knowledge of inclusive education as predictors of effective teaching practices in Ghana

Surveys and observations were undertaken in selected primary schools in Ghana to determine whether principals' and teachers' attitudes towards and knowledge of inclusive education, as well as principals' expectations of teachers in implementing inclusion, were predictors of effective teaching practices in their classrooms. The sample of 128 educators (20 principals and 108 teachers) drawn from 20 primary schools in two districts, were required to respond to questionnaire measures of Attitude Towards Inclusive Education Scale (ATIES), Knowledge of Inclusive Education Scale (KIES) and Principals' Expectations Scale (PES). Of the total number of teachers ( N  = 108), 37 were observed during instructional delivery in their classrooms. The data were analysed by a variety of statistical procedures including Regression Analysis and Discriminant Function Analysis. In the context of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1985), the results showed that whilst attitudes towards inclusion (attitude element) and knowledge of inclusion (perceived behavioural control element) predicted effective teaching practices, principals' expectations (subjective norm) did not. Implications for the implementation of effective inclusive practices in Ghanaian schools and the need for future research are discussed.     

全纳教育的理论基础及教育策略

全纳教育是一种国际性的教育思潮和实践。文章对全纳教育的理念和理论基础进行了分析,认为其要点在于接纳与融合、有效参与、满足学生的特殊教育需要、合作四方面,梳理了全纳教育的理论前提和目标定位,并据此提出在普通教育领域推广全纳教育实践的教育策略。     

Navigating plurilingual learning: An inclusive education approach

Language experiences and linguistic knowledge of teenage migrants can be valuable resources for their continued language learning. Yet, home languages and existing plurilingual skills are often framed as obstacles to learning that tag young migrants as at risk of school failure in the context of monolingual education systems. This article draws on a comparative education study carried out in Aotearoa New Zealand and France in 2017–2019, observing young migrants' use of their languages in classroom learning. A total of 42 secondary students from a mix of asylum-seeker, refugee, and migrant backgrounds participated, originating from 22 different countries and speaking 24 different languages. All of the students were in their first year of schooling in New Zealand or France at the time of the study. Findings draw on observations of how students made use of their existing knowledge of languages to (1) access learning in the language-of-schooling, (2) learn interactively through their home languages, and (3) navigate unfamiliar styles of teaching and learning, thus engaging with the unknown and developing behaviours for successful learning. Patterns across the cohort show that young migrants are adept at drawing on their existing language resources in learning. This suggests a re-framing of success at school as not only outcomes, but also as defined by effective learning processes that young migrants put in place. As a result, this study suggests ways that teachers can work inclusively with young migrants through their languages, to support processes of learning that could lead to better educational outcomes.     

INCLUSION: Special or inclusive education: future trends

In this article, Lani Florian, Professor of Social and Educational Inclusion at the University of Aberdeen, examines the relationships between ‘special’ and ‘inclusive’ education. She looks at the notion of specialist knowledge among teachers and at the roles adopted by staff working with pupils with ‘additional’ or ‘special’ needs in mainstream settings. She explores the implications of the use of the concept of ‘special needs’– especially in relation to attempts to implement inclusion in practice – and she notes the tensions that arise from these relationships. She goes on to ask a series of questions: How do teachers respond to differences among their pupils? What knowledge do teachers need in order to respond more effectively to diversity in their classrooms? What are the roles of teacher education and ongoing professional development? How can teachers be better prepared to work in mixed groupings of pupils? In seeking answers to these questions, Lani Florian concludes that we should look at educational practices and undertake a thorough examination of how teachers work in their classrooms. She suggests that it is through an examination of ‘the things that teachers can do’ that we will begin to bring meaning to the concept of inclusion.