To assist or not to assist? A study of teachers’ views of the roles of learning support assistants in the provision of inclusive physical education in England

This paper examines teachers’ perceptions of their working relationships with learning support assistants (LSAs) when seeking to incorporate young disabled people and pupils with special educational needs (SEN) within mainstream physical education (PE), an area that has been a largely neglected aspect of research in inclusive education. The findings indicate that teachers spoke positively of these relationships when LSAs were perceived as making a positive contribution to the development of pupils’ learning and when they supported teachers as they did in other school subjects. Conversely, when LSAs and other support staff failed to provide teachers with information that was related to pupils’ needs in PE, and when LSAs did not possess the required skills, knowledge and expertise of the subject, teachers were rather critical of their relationships with them. In this regard, LSAs were seen as placing a particularly significant constraint on teachers’ ability to meet the needs of pupils in PE lessons. It is concluded that teachers’ perceptions of the constraints they experience from working with LSAs to help support pupils, and the extent and quality of support they receive, cannot be understood adequately unless they are located within the context of the relational constraints experienced by teachers.     

尊重学生的多样性和异质性:满足学生特殊需要的教育自觉新解——基于一则教学案例的思考

基于对一则教学案例的剖析,本文就新条件下教师如何应对学生的多样性和异质性,满足学生的特殊教育需要进行了思考。新时代条件下,为使教育发挥更为积极的作用,教师需要更加自觉地发现和尊重学生的多样性和异质性,尊重学生的个体生活经历和生活经验,更加自觉地创设机会和情境使少数群体学生得到表达,更加自觉地审视自身身份和观念,增强开放包容的意识。     

Achievers,confidence-builders,advocates, relationship-developers and system-changers: what ‘making a difference’ means to those who work with children with special educational needs – a typology of rewards

Previous research on the rewards found that teachers gain satisfaction in a sense of vocation, ‘making a difference’, and the emotional rewards of ‘care’ and ‘love’, especially in whole-class teaching. The meaning of ‘making a difference’ often remains unexplored however, and this article is an attempt to rectify this gap in the literature and aims to construct a typology of the rewards that staff find in working with children with special educational needs (SEN). SEN co-ordinators and teachers of children with SEN were studied using four focus groups (n?=?20) and 12 semi-structured interviews (total sample, n?=?32). A narrative, life-history approach was taken to analyse the rewards over time of working with children. Making a difference was mentioned as a phrase 47 times across the sample of 32. A typology of the kinds of rewards experienced by teachers was constructed and the rewards were found in improving attainment, being an advocate, confidence-building and ‘system changing’. Some respondents defined ‘making a difference’ in disparate ways. The article found that those having the longest career in school found that being an advocate for parents was the most rewarding aspect of their job. The study concludes by drawing out the implications for the retention of staff in a time of policy change.     

我国教育旅游可持续发展初探

本文探讨了作为特种旅游之一的教育旅游的可持续发展的基本目标以及当前我国教育旅游可持续发展的现实意义，并结合实际从宏观层面上讨论了我国教育旅游可持续发展的基本途径。     

The ethics of intervention

Policy with regard to children with special educational needs has been continuously discussed and revised over the last 25 years to try to ensure that all children receive their rights to appropriate educational opportunities. However, as Georgina Glenny argues in this article, these efforts have led to a focus on the assessment and definition of need at the expense of attention to the quality of the intervention that follows. This relative lack of attention to the quality of the intervention raises serious questions for teachers, schools and local authorities as to the nature of their responsibilities for the children entrusted to their care. It is proposed that more systematic monitoring of the effectiveness of interventions would assist in refocusing attention on to the quality of children's learning experiences.     

The professional development needs of learning support coordinators in Singapore primary schools May Ling Quah and Kevin Jones

ABSTRACT

‘Support for learning’ can be conceptualized in many different ways. This paper examines the role of the learning support coordinator in relation to the breadth of factors which cause pupils to experience learning difficulties in primary classrooms. It is against this background that the professional development needs of learning support coordinators is considered. The paper focuses, in particular, upon the needs of learning support teachers who work in primary schools in Singapore. The shortcomings of traditional inservice courses which focus upon curriculum development and pedagogy are discussed in relation to the wide ranging roles which learning support coordinators are expected to fulfil. The assumption that pupil achievement can be enhanced when teachers are ‘trained’ to employ certain teaching methods is questioned and the relevance of an ecological or interpretive model of staff development is discussed. Finally, the particular professional development needs of learning support coordinators in Singapore are considered.     

“Special Support” in Preschools in Sweden: Preschool staff’s definition of the construct

This study investigates the definitions of the construct “young children in need of special support” given by preschool staff in Sweden in 540 preschool units. The study has a mixed‐methods design based on qualitative analysis of an open‐ended question and quantitative analysis of questionnaire responses. The results reveal two general perspectives in definitions of the construct, a child perspective and an organisational perspective. Units with a child perspective had a higher proportion of children in need of special support, especially girls. The study highlights that the term “children in need of special support” is partially socially constructed and is partially based on perceived child characteristics. The perceptions of what is considered to be a child in need of special support held by staff in a unit may impact on the services provided to children in need of special support.     

重庆市特殊教育教师心理健康与社会支持研究

本研究采用症状自评量表(SCL-90)与社会支持评定量表(SSRS)对重庆市132例特殊教育教师进行调查,利用SPSS统计软件采用t检验与相关性分析对各项指标均数进行统计分析。结果显示重庆市特殊教育教师除敌对因子之外,其余9个因子均明显低于国内成人常模;30岁以上和30岁以下、已婚和未婚、教龄在10年以上和10年以下的特殊教育教师在社会支持评定中的主观支持得分和社会支持总分差异显著;对SCL-90的10个因子得分与SSRS的3个维度得分及总分进行相关系数分析及回归分析,表明社会支持中的客观支持维度与SCL-90中的各个因子相关程度不显著;社会支持总分对强迫症状和抑郁具有显著的预测作用;主观支持对焦虑具有显著的预测作用,主观支持、支持利用度对强迫症状、抑郁和人际关系都有显著的预测度。