Equity,democracy, and neoliberal assaults on teacher education

Although in the long run, neoliberalism has a track record of undermining equity and democracy, in the short run it has directed attention to education needs that have been inadequately addressed. This article sketches what teacher education in the US can do to advance equity and democracy in five areas: recruitment and admission, early fieldwork, professional coursework, student teaching, and on-going professional development. The article then examines three neoliberal pressures teacher education: (1) away from explicit equity-oriented teacher preparation, and toward preparing teachers as technicians; (2) away from defining teacher quality in terms of professional knowledge, and toward defining it terms testable content knowledge; and (3) toward shortening university-based teacher education or by-passing it altogether. It concludes by emphasizing the importance of collaborating with underserved communities as a way of pushing back against neoliberalism.     

Democracy, citizenship education and inclusion: a multi-dimensional approach

Both democratic citizenship education and inclusion share a common ethos and language based on concerns for human rights, social justice, and a sense of community. Both aim at the building of democratic relationships. But it is fair to say that for a long time citizenship educators and advocates of inclusion have either spoken past each other, or have not communicated or articulated their arguments. This essay offers a multi-dimensional framework under which citizenship educators and advocates of inclusion can share a common agenda, seeking socially just and democratic schools.

Country Briefing: Special education in Denmark

Denmark is a country with a relatively high expenditure on education, and was one of the first countries in the Integration movement. Now the country is including all but 1.25 per cent of all pupils in a comprehensive school. The 1.25 per cent are attending special schools or special classes. To make this possible, 13 per cent of all students in regular schools on a yearly basis receive special needs education support as a supplement to regular education. Special education within the regular school system has existed for 99 years, and special teacher training has a 66-year history, originating in training of speech therapists. At present, the prevalence of special needs education is between 25 and 35 per cent, and this gives rise to questions about the relation between special needs education and differentiation of instruction which, in turn, has implications for training of teachers in special needs education.     

Special education under the modernity. From restricted liberty,through organized modernity,to extended liberty and a plurality of practices

The philosophers of the Enlightenment formulated a set of new ideas and visions about access to knowledge and education for all citizens. The main discourse of modernity is linked to liberty, democracy and equality, but modernity is also an ambiguous project, characterized by an ongoing conflict between individual freedom and discipline. Modernity has been transformed through different phases and the related crises that have marked the transition between them. In this conflicting history the ideological and socio‐political conditions for special education during modernity is also described. The article uses examples from Norwegian special education policy and practice in describing and discussing developments and discourses in the field through different phases of modernity, from the early rise of the field within the frames of the charity institutions to the discourses on integration and inclusion in the latest decades.     

An alternative model of special education teacher education socialization

The process of organizational socialization sheds light on the difficulty of a university program to effectively socialize its special education teacher candidates into believing and acting on theories of inclusion for students with disabilities in public schools. In general, people are socialized by prior experiences, then the university, then the workplace. In this case, the workplace socialization exists prior to participation in the university setting and in conjunction with it potentially complicating traditional university socialization. This study explores how prospective special education teachers in a moderate/severe special education teacher credential program adopt, adapt, and redefine the concept of inclusion. An analysis of their use of the term “inclusion” in semi-structured interviews draws attention to the degree to which they have or have not been socialized into believing and acting on inclusion at their schools.     

Institutional separation in schools of education: Understanding the functions of space in general and special education teacher preparation

The purpose of this spatial study is to understand the function space play in a combined credential program in the US in helping or hindering the program’s inclusive mission. The study examines how physical and social manifestations of general and special education are (re)organized in the new program. The data provides evidence for the pervasive separation between general and special education within the new program. This study points to the importance of examining space in relation to teacher education reform as a way to highlight where policy, institutional, programmatic, physical, and pedagogic changes are needed to support inclusive teacher preparation.     

Special needs education in light of the inclusion principle: an exploratory study of special needs education practice in Belarusian and Norwegian preschools

The purpose of this study is to investigate possible practical consequences of the ideological principle of inclusion. In this article, we investigate, compare and discuss how employees of Norwegian and Belarusian preschools perceive their own, and their preschools’, special needs education practices related to children with language difficulties. This study has a qualitative case design. The investigation contains 10 semistructured interviews of five employees from five preschools in each country. The analysis of the empirical material shows that the interviews primarily revolve around two topics: competence and sense of mastery and self-understanding. Among the staff of the Norwegian preschools, perceptions of a relatively low average competence, unsatisfactory guidance from external professionals and a low sense of mastery are prevalent. The informants from Belarusian preschools perceive a high and more specialised competence, available special needs education competence and a high degree of sense of mastery. Despite different situations and contexts, this study suggests that the preschool sector in both countries face the same challenge; how preschools can implement a form of inclusive educational practice, without at the same time relinquishing valuable special needs education competence.     

Special education students in the labour market: four case studies

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the employment status of 10 young men 10 years after leaving classes for the socially maladjusted. On the basis of their work careers, they were placed in one of 4 labour market sectors using the criteria (1) employed/unemployed at the time of the interview, and (2) history of long‐term/short‐term employment. Half of the young men were unemployed, 4 were working and 1 in prison. The large percentage of unemployed respondents was due to the exceptionally difficult economic situation prevailing in Finland at the time the interviews were carried out, as a result of which the national unemployment rate approached almost 20 per cent. Despite a lack of vocational education, all the young men but one had a positive attitude towards work, and those unemployed were actively seeking a job. There was almost no relation between the young men's school career and their work career, since those who had the longest‐lasting jobs were those young men who had had the most difficulties in school. When measured in terms of length of employment, the attachment of these young men to working life differed greatly: one had been for the entire postschool period (almost 10 years) in the service of the same employer, while another had had several jobs of a few months’ duration interspersed with periods of unemployment.     

Ultra-orthodox Jewish teachers' self-efficacy and willingness for inclusion of pupils with special needs

The main aim of the present study was to investigate the attitudes of boys' teachers (N = 68), and girls' teachers (N = 68), in the independent educational system of the ultra-orthodox (Haredi) community, towards inclusion of pupils with special needs in regular classrooms. Forty of the subjects lived and taught in two major cities in which reside, beside other citizens, the majority of the Haredi community in Israel, and 73 of them lived in a small town in which reside only the Haredi community. Results show that willingness to include pupils with special needs in their class of teachers in the cities is significantly more positive than their counterparts in the small town. In addition, within those cities the willingness to include of the boys' teachers is more positive towards inclusion of mildly disabled children, while the willingness to include of girls' teachers is more positive towards inclusion of severely disabled pupils. Findings indicate also that the Haredi teachers, males and females alike, have a different perception of disability as compared to the common spread of the professional perception of this term. Results indicate the effects of a major change in the state's educational policy on its independent minorities' educators.     

Policies on special needs education: competing strategies and discourses

This paper critically examines the array of policy approaches that have been adopted in the field of special needs education in Scotland over recent years. These are characterized in the following ways: (1) supporting or changing the child—an individualized approach; (2) making schools inclusive for all—a systems approach; (3) challenging the mainstream—an anti‐discrimination approach. Each approach creates different distributions of power, accountability and resource allocation. They formulate categories and eligibility requirements that can both include and exclude children (and their parents), and create rights and duties with varied potential and limitations. Thus, the policy approaches may aver their promotion of inclusion but, in fact, they create a new quilt of inclusive and exclusive policies and practice. This is further examined through the analysis of official statistics, which suggests that there has been little difference in the proportion of children who are excluded spatially from mainstream schools and classrooms. Recent legislation, the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004, claims to underpin a radical new approach to promoting inclusion. However, many features of the Act suggest that it will reinforce the power of professional groups, rather than investing more power in children and their parents. There is a real danger that, whilst policy frameworks shift, practices remain the same as a result of inertia and resistance to change.     

Robust hope,democracy and early childhood education

This paper discusses a recent Australian study of boys' education using case studies to determine successful practices. It focuses on an early childhood site where access to ‘discourses of power’ for students and parents and a valuing of students' ‘action knowledge’ created a particular democratic culture achieving improved outcomes for boys. The data are drawn from focus groups with families, interviews with educators, conversations with children and on‐site observations over two days. The findings are discussed in terms of those factors deriving from Henry Giroux's work on democracy and hope. In addition, we build on the work of Giroux by discussing the site as an exemplar of what we have come to call ‘robust hope’.     

浅谈特殊教育学校教育保障评估的内涵、依据与要求

特殊教育是现代国民教育体系的重要组成部分,教育保障是办好让人民满意的特殊教育学校的基础。要想制订特殊教育学校教育保障的评估标准,则须先厘清特殊教育学校教育保障评估的基本内涵、法理依据和要求。特殊教育学校的教育保障虽然与普通学校一样,主要包括人力保障、财力保障与物力保障,但由于其教育对象的特殊性,评估的基本内涵应该不尽相同。本文从人力保障、财力保障与物力保障方面探讨了特殊教育学校教育保障评估的基本内涵、法理依据和具体要求。     

Ideologies and utopias: education professionals' views of inclusion

The paper addresses the contrast between different elements in thinking about the appropriate educational placement for children with special educational needs. In particular, it is concerned with the tension between the widespread expressions of support for the principle of inclusion and a continuing level of support for separate special school provision. Evidence from interviews with education officers and headteachers of both special and mainstream schools in the UK demonstrates the support for inclusion as an ideal but also the relatively limited influence of such an ideal on education policy. Considerable reservations were expressed about the feasibility of inclusion, based on the types and severity of children's difficulties and the capacity of mainstream schools to meet them. Contrasting with support for inclusion was a set of views which stressed the primacy of meeting children's individual needs as overriding an ideological commitment to inclusionist ideals. Themes within utopian thinking, in particular, the distinction between hope and desire and the different functions which can be served by utopian ideals, are used to explore tensions and contradictions in the interview responses and in educational thinking more generally.     

Special education pre-service teachers' interest,subject knowledge,and teacher efficacy beliefs in mathematics

Teacher efficacy beliefs is an important characteristic to predict instructional quality and the level of cognitive activation and educational support. Since teacher efficacy beliefs are context and domain specific, this study focuses on how special education pre-service teachers' individual interest and subject knowledge in mathematics predict their efficacy beliefs in teaching mathematics. Data were collected from 57 special education pre-service teachers. The results indicated that the individual interest of pre-service teachers has a strong effect on teacher efficacy beliefs, while subject knowledge has only an indirect effect.     

A framework for conducting research on collaborative teacher education

The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for conducting research on teacher education programmes that practise collaboration between special and general education faculty to advance inclusion. Such a framework can establish a common language for collaborative teacher education and provide a structure for conducting research on individual programmes as well as cross-site comparisons. It is based on the assumption that collaboration represents a robust, systematic integration of special and general education across all aspects of the preservice curriculum. The proposed framework includes three collaborative program models and five programme dimensions.     

Using teachers' prior knowledge,attitudes and beliefs to develop in-service teacher education courses for inclusion

This paper examines one important dimension of inclusive education: the development of in-service teacher education courses. Using an example from Cyprus, it discusses the issue of contextualizing teacher training courses to suit teachers' prior knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about inclusion. The paper considers some of the findings of a survey about issues relating to inclusion. The findings suggest that teachers' conceptualizations of inclusion are problematic. According to the findings, teachers tend to think on the basis of a medical and charity model and they favour special schooling for specific groups of children. The discussion considers how a training course for inclusion can be academically robust and professionally useful, while at the same time taking into consideration teachers' prior knowledge and expectations.     

Teacher preparation for inclusion in Norway: a study of beliefs,skills, and intended practices

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between the educational experiences of teacher education students and their attitudes towards planning and making adaptations for children with learning disabilities in inclusive classrooms. Participants comprised pre-service teachers in the second and fourth years of teacher preparation at a major Norwegian university. Fourth-year students were completing a 1-year elective in special education (n = 34) or coursework in other subjects (n = 30). Second-year students were grouped based on their intention to take special education (n = 26) or other coursework (n = 62). Participants rated their beliefs, skills, and intended practices with regard to planning and making adaptations. No significant differences were found between second- and fourth-year students in general education courses. However, students in the special education programme held significantly higher ratings of beliefs, skills, and intended practices than did second-year students; yet, only beliefs and practices were higher for this group when compared to other fourth-year students. Findings suggest that coursework in special education can have a positive impact on attitudes towards inclusion. However, teachers’ confidence in their ability to use these adaptations may be far more difficult to foster.     

Special educational needs and art and design education: plural perspectives on exclusion

Abstract

Education policy proposals by the UK Coalition government appeared to be based on a process of consultation, participation and representation. However, policy formation seems to prioritise and confirm particular ways of knowing and being in the world. This article recognises the ontological and epistemological invalidation at work in education policy by examining the shared context for policy formation in special educational needs (SEN/D) and art and design education. There is value in recognising plurality, acknowledging the ways in which apparently singular policies relating to special education are understood through subject or disciplinary perspectives. The neoliberal aim to foster an economically productive ‘subject’ is evident in policy formation relating to art and design education as well as SEN/D. Both subjects, the disabled child and art and design education, are defined as excessive and are excluded where they do not conform to particular notions of productivity. The article explores theoretical frameworks that are essential for recognising meaning in education when subjects cannot be put to work.     

Disability and education: The longest road to inclusion

Children with disabilities are one of the many groups of children still not enrolled in primary education in developing countries. However, their educational exclusion and right to education are now receiving more policy attention. This paper reviews some of the key issues and challenges in relation to disability, education and development: definitions and data, policies, service delivery and finance, and capacity development. Drawing on a review of education sector planning and provision in 28 developing countries and other literature, the paper makes comparative reference to policy and practice in a number of developed and developing country contexts.