Preparing teachers to teach pupils with special educational needs in more inclusive schools: evaluating a PGCE development

As we move towards a more inclusive education system in the UK, there is a real need to equip teachers to work in more diverse classrooms from the start of their teaching careers. In this article, Gill Golder, teaching and research fellow (physical education), Brahm Norwich, Professor of Educational Psychology and Special Educational Needs, and Phil Bayliss, senior lecturer in special educational needs and education studies, all based in the School of Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of Exeter, describe developments in Exeter's secondary phase Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) programme. The authors set their account in the context of policy requirements in England and international trends towards more inclusive teacher education. They report on an initiative designed to enhance the knowledge, skills and attitudes of trainee teachers and to equip them to differentiate their teaching to meet the individual needs of all pupils, including those with special educational needs. This initiative involved all trainees working intensively with one pupil, supported by the SENCo in their teaching practice school. Building towards a form of dispersed teacher preparation that may have applications in other contexts, the programme offered student teachers a systematic strategy for individualised teaching and the support of web-based resources. Gill Golder, Brahm Norwich and Phil Bayliss include evaluations from student teachers, SENCos and principal subject tutors in their report. They conclude that this is a promising way of working, which highlights the national and international need to develop practical ways of enhancing initial teacher education in relation to special educational needs and inclusion.     

The development of the special educational needs coordinator role in a higher education setting

UK higher education appears to have generally been slow to adopt an organised means of provision for special educational needs for its students. This may be due to the fact that, historically, relatively few disabled students entered UK higher education. However, there is a growing number of disabled students entering UK higher education institutions, and the figure is likely to increase. It is therefore important and, under the UK Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (2001), legally binding, that UK higher education institutions make appropriate adjustments to their activities so as not to disadvantage or discriminate against disabled students. In this article Mark Taylor examines the development of the special educational needs coordinator role in a higher education setting based upon a two‐year case study in a UK university.     

Inclusive special education: development of a new theory for the education of children with special educational needs and disabilities

Inclusive education and special education are based on different philosophies and provide alternative views of education for children with special educational needs and disabilities. They are increasingly regarded as diametrically opposed in their approaches. This article presents a theory of inclusive special education that comprises a synthesis of the philosophy, values and practices of inclusive education with the interventions, strategies and procedures of special education. Development of inclusive special education aims to provide a vision and guidelines for policies, procedures and teaching strategies that will facilitate the provision of effective education for all children with special educational needs and disabilities.     

Ideology influencing action: special educational needs co‐ordinator and learning support assistant role conceptualisations and experiences of special needs education in England

One outcome of England's Code of Practice’ (DfE, 1994) was an increase, first, in the number of learning support assistants (LSAs) working in mainstream schools and, second, the establishment of the role of special educational needs co‐ordinator (SENCO). Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with SENCOs and LSAs to explore: (i) why they chose their occupation; (ii) how they conceptualise their role and (iii) the decisions they make when endeavouring (or not) to cultivate an inclusive culture in schools. Many SENCOs sought the role in order to increase the educational attainment and life chances of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Inclusive concepts such as fairness, equality and social justice underpinned their rationales. LSA justification was more pragmatic and often related to how the role would help them to achieve a further career ambition, or because it was compatible with personal circumstances. Younger participants thought that they could strengthen their teacher training applications by using the role of LSA to gain more experience working in schools generally, and with pupils with SEND in particular. The role of both SENCO and LSA has been found to be extremely diverse in England, depending largely on the needs and resources of the schools in which these two groups find themselves.     

The identification by teachers of special educational needs in primary school pupils and factors associated with referral to special education

This paper addresses the identification of pupils with special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream primary schools by their teachers. Data were analysed from two consecutive measurement occasions of a large cohort study in the Netherlands. The types and severity of pupils’ problems, and their school careers were studied. Around 25% of the pupils were considered by their teachers to have SEN. Results show that a substantial percentage of pupils who had been identified with SEN at the first measurement occasion were not identified with SEN three years later, whereas the same percentage had not been identified with SEN at the first occasion but was at the second occasion. Significant predictors of being identified with SEN include results from skills tests, and the teacher’s views on the pupil performing below expectations, having a less favourable attitude to work, being less popular with classmates, and being more dependent on the teacher. In addition, boys are more likely to be identified with SEN in comparison to girls. Cognitive impairment and/or delayed cognitive development proved to be the most influential predictor of referral to special education. In addition, chances of a pupil being referred to special education are influenced by several other pupil characteristics. Implications of these outcomes are discussed.     

Disability and adult life: dependence on social security among former students with special educational needs in their late twenties

This article, by Jon Olav Myklebust from Volda University, Norway, presents analyses of social security dependence among students with special educational needs in Norway who at the start of upper secondary school had various disabilities – of a somatic, psychological and/or social nature. They were all educated in ordinary schools, in special or regular classes. These young people have been followed prospectively from their first years in upper secondary school and into their late twenties. The analyses indicate which circumstances contribute to social security dependence, with an emphasis on how the independent variables differently influence social security dependence among men and women.     

Classroom behaviour management strategies in response to problematic behaviours of primary school children with special educational needs: views of special educational needs coordinators

Children identified with special educational needs (SEN) and behavioural difficulties present extra challenges to educators and require additional supports in school. This paper presents views from special educational needs coordinators (SENCos) on various strategies used by educators to support children identified with SEN and problematic behaviours. The data were collected from telephone interviews with six SENCos from the UK’s South West Peninsula. The SENCos were invited to participate because their school was participating in a cluster-randomised trial of a teacher classroom management course (Incredible Years). Using thematic analysis to analyse the data, this paper illustrates strategies deemed by SENCos to be successful in the support of children identified with SEN. The management strategies generated by participating SENCos were then mapped onto those taught as part of the classroom management course for comparison. Findings indicate that strategies from the training programme appear to be appropriate for children identified with both SEN and behavioural difficulties.     

Rethinking vocational education: a case study in care

The authors explain how development of employability and educational interest might be enhanced by a radically different division of labour between FECs (Further Education Colleges) and the institutions in which students live and work. They argue that, rather than looking for ways in which FECs could teach vocational knowledge in a more relevant way, the role of FECs might be to develop students’ educational interest through analytical reflection on their life and work. The authors tried out these ideas with 25 adult returners to formal education who hope to secure jobs as professional carers. The theoretical perspective known as situated learning is contrasted with one which implies that transfer of learning from classroom to workplaces is relatively unproblematic and that cognitive operations are relatively unaffected by culture.     

Making connections and making friends: social interactions between two children labelled with special educational needs and their peers in a nursery setting

This paper reports on a pilot study of the social interactions between two children labelled with special educational needs and their peers in an early years setting. Data from play observations and staff interviews are used to examine the dynamics of friendship groups that the two children have developed and the way that they attempt to make new connections with other children. Comparisons between the two children’s interactions with their recurrent playmates and less familiar peers are drawn and the significance of their agency in making decisions about developing relationships is highlighted. A theme that also emerges is that staff facilitating rather than directing interactions between the two children and their peers has the most positive impact. Areas for further investigation are suggested including the range of relationships that children identified with special educational needs establish with their peers and the nature of adult support that most effectively supports friendships between all children.     

From special tasks to extensive roles: the changing face of special needs teachers in Finnish vocational further education

Following the development of inclusive education in vocational education and training (VET), the discussion about the prevention of marginalisation and dropouts has increased. At the same time, the formal education system has strengthened the position of support services, such as special educational needs (SEN) teachers, social workers and counsellors. However, a confusion of roles in the work of SEN teachers seems evident. The changing work of SEN teachers has not been of great research interest in Finland. The focus has been mainly on SEN teachers at the secondary school level (Kivirauma and Kuorelahti, 2002; Ström, 1999). The work of vocational SEN teachers has been studied by Kaikkonen, 2010 and Hirvonen, 2006. SEN teachers comprise two groups in the field: one group supports vocational subjects and the other group supports general subjects. The aim of this study is to determine how SEN teachers of general subjects define the objectives of their work and how they organise pedagogical support. Ten SEN teachers in vocational colleges were interviewed. A qualitative analysis was performed. The main findings showed, on the one hand, an autonomous position and, on the other, a work model that can be described as a ‘traditional special needs education model’. However, the findings showed that the autonomous role was contradictory. SEN teachers did not emphasise the connection with the VET community or college‐based guidelines and directions. Moreover, although the consultative role exists, the findings showed that it is not a regular part of the work of SEN teachers.     

Changing policy,legislation and its effects on inclusive and special education: a perspective from Wales

This article, by Jean Ware of Bangor University School of Education, examines policy developments in education in Wales since devolution, and their implications for inclusive and special education. This is set in the context of the demographics of Wales, which, it is argued, have a significant influence on policy and on the nature of educational provision as a whole. The discussion initially focuses on issues related to the Welsh language. The article then discusses four policy initiatives (the Foundation Phase, the Literacy and Numeracy Framework, the Masters in Educational Practice and the proposed reform of initial teacher education and training), intended to respond to Wales's poor performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment, and their potential impact, as well as the White Paper on reforming the special educational needs system in Wales. It is too soon to discuss the impact of these special educational needs‐specific reforms, but the differences from the English special educational needs reforms highlight the inherent tensions in special educational needs systems. It is argued that the Tabberer Report's critique of the teacher education system in Wales, which emphasises the need for teacher education to be strongly connected to relevant research, provides an opportunity to improve the quality of education in Wales for all children; but that considerable investment, and a willingness to address the potential tensions between the different initiatives, is necessary to achieve such an outcome.     

Improving the educational experience of children and young people in public care: a Scottish perspective

The context for this paper relates to the policy and practice implications of efforts to achieve social justice for Scotland’s 12,000 children and young people in the care of local government authorities. The paper is located within a growing evidence base of the educational experience of young people in care and leaving care. The data on attainment and exclusion from school in particular are reviewed and confirm that looked‐after children in Scotland, as elsewhere in the UK, typically leave education with significantly fewer school leaving qualifications than is now the common expectation for young people in their age group and are significantly more likely to lose time in school due to exclusion. However, the review also shows the devastating impact of being in care on young children’s attainment in reading, writing and mathematics. The implications of the data reviewed are discussed in relation to the concepts of social justice, resilience and the educationally rich environment.     

Continuing professional development (CPD) as a means to reducing barriers to inclusive education: research study of the education of refugee children in the Czech Republic

This article discusses the extent to which former special needs students – now in their late 20s – achieve economic independence. The emphasis is on class placement – that is, whether being educated in special or regular classes in upper secondary school contributes to favourable occupational outcomes. The empirical evidence is based on interviews of 373 young Norwegians who were surveyed regularly for more than 10 years. The analyses reveal that nearly half of the young adults found jobs that made them economically independent. Students schooled in regular classes attained vocational or academic competence and obtained a driving licence to a much greater degree than did students educated in special classes. In turn this increased the chances of earning a living. That is the indirect effect of class placement. The direct positive effect of schooling in regular classes was observed among people with rather low functional abilities and among those who did not succeed in attaining competence or obtaining a driving licence.     

Lecturer experiences of TVET College challenges in the post-apartheid era: a case of unintended consequences of educational reform in South Africa

Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in South Africa has undergone major institutional, structural and curricular changes over the last fourteen years. Drawing on figurational sociology by Norbert Elias, the study worked within a qualitative research paradigm and used open-ended interviews to investigate lecturers’ experiences of TVET challenges in the post-apartheid educational reform era. Findings revealed lack of compatibility between curricular reforms, student type and lecturers’ adaptability to the reform. Research further disclosed unintended consequences of educational change and existence of tensions between perceptions, vision and experiences of lecturers and students with the national vision of skills development for the country’s economic benefits.     

The initial training of teachers to teach children with special educational needs: A national survey of English Post Graduate Certificate of Education programmes

With moves towards inclusive education, there are demands for developments in initial teacher education as regards special needs and inclusive education. This paper outlines initial training in England within an international context. It then reports findings of a recent national survey of Programme directors and subject tutors of Post Graduate Certificate in Education programmes (PGCE) for primary and secondary teachers about the initial training provision in this aspect teaching. The main findings are about varied practices across placement schools, the commitment to the training partnership, coordination problems across the partnership and organising teaching experience of pupils with SEN. The implications of the study are also discussed in national and international terms.     

Thin versus thick democracy in education: Porto alegre and the creation of alternatives to neo-liberalism

In this article, the authors describe the ways in which a set of policies has had what seem to be extensive and long lasting effects precisely because these policies are coherently linked to larger dynamics of social transformation and to a coherent strategy that aims to change the mechanisms of the state and the rules of participation in the formation of state policies. They describe and analyze the policies of the 'Popular Administration' in Porto Alegre, Brasil but, more specifically, they focus on the 'Citizen School' and on proposals that are explicitly designed to radically change both the municipal schools and the relationship between communities, the state, and education. This set of polices and the accompanying processes of implementation are constitutive parts of a clear and explicit project aimed at constructing not only a better school for the excluded, but also a larger project of radical and thick democracy. The reforms being built in Porto Alegre are still in formation, but the authors argue that they have crucial implications for how we might think about the politics of education policy and its role in social transformation.     

Collaboration and contestation in further and higher education partnerships in England: a Bourdieusian field analysis

Internationally, ‘College for All’ policies are creating new forms of vocational higher education (HE), and shifting relationships between HE and further education (FE) institutions. In this paper, we consider the way in which this is being implemented in England, drawing on a detailed qualitative case study of a regional HE–FE partnership to widen participation. We focus on the complex mix of collaboration and contestation that arose within it, and how these affected socially differentiated groups of students following high- and low-status routes through its provision. We outline Bourdieu’s concept of ‘field’ as a framework for our analysis and interpretation, including its theoretical ambiguities regarding the definition and scale of fields. Through hermeneutic dialogue between data and theory, we tentatively suggest that such partnerships represent bridges between HE and FE. These bridges are strong between higher-status institutions, but highly contested between lower-status institutions competing closely for distinction. We conclude that the trajectories and outcomes for socially disadvantaged students require attention and collective action to address the inequalities they face, and that our theoretical approach may have wider international relevance beyond the English case.     

Mapping inequality in access to meaningful learning in secondary education in Ethiopia: implications for sustainable development

ABSTRACT

The rapid expansion of primary education in Ethiopia has enabled most children to attend primary education—or at least to start schooling. This expansion, however, is largely “symbolic” rather than “substantive” where “substantive” refers to access that generates meaningful learning. The article explores spatial inequality in access to meaningful learning in secondary education in Ethiopia with a particular focus on the Amhara region, and addresses the question: Is substantive learning equitably distributed? To operationalise this question, “access-to-learning” is conceptualised using a new method of constructing a learning-oriented measure of educational quality that combines grade survival (access) and test score (quality). Moreover, the “zones of exclusion” framework has been used to see the systematic loss of students from the education system at different points in time. Using GIS tools, the extent of spatial inequality in access-to-learning was determined by mapping the proportion of students who achieved the required level of performance, and geographical variation in the distribution of inequality factors. The paper concludes with implications for educational policy and planning and recommendations for further research.     

Education,health and social welfare in the late colonial context: the International Missionary Council and educational transition in the interwar years with specific reference to colonial Africa

Mission schools in Africa in the first half of the twentieth century were in many ways microcosms of the great educational debates of the times. The objectives of policies regarding access, governance and curriculum were part of a historical evolution of mission education but they were also increasingly a reflection of significant new trends that were to reshape the theory and practice of colonial education. New forms of educational research and professional expertise were to play an ever‐increasing role in shaping the forms and content of the education provided. The brief of the mission churches was to meet with the increasing demand for schooling. Church and state gradually expanded their cooperation in the field as the costs of education outstripped the resources of the missions and the demand for mass education came to be linked to nationalist demands for political and economic rights. This paper is concerned to map the background to those international influences that shaped the policy and practices of mission education and the increasing engagement of colonial governments with the field of education. It addresses the question of the worldwide Protestant mission church’s response to the changing political, social and economic environment of the first half of the twentieth century. In particular it seeks to explore how mission initiatives shaped thinking about education in Asia, Africa, Oceania and Latin America by the 1930s. It also attempts to situate those issues within a wider educational framework by linking them to the emergent debate concerning pragmatism and utilitarianism in regard to progressive education in the USA and the quest for social democratic education in the United Kingdom and Europe as part of a response to socialism, nationalism and totalitarianism. In short, the paper explores the influence of the Christian mission churches with regard to social policy, in general, and the provision of education, in particular, during the interwar years, with special reference to areas influenced by the work of the International Missionary Council. At a time when there was a crisis of support for ‘foreign missions’ how did the debates between fundamentalist‐evangelicals and supporters of a ‘social gospel’ transform themselves into debates regarding the role of missions in non‐Western societies? And how did these essentially ecclesiastical/theological issues come to influence public policy, specifically educational policy, in the long term? The conclusions are that mission churches had a very significant influence on the shaping of educational thinking in the colonial and imperial context at a time when state influence in the sector was still often quite weak. The origins of the conference and research culture that has informed educational policy since the establishment of the United Nations Organization had its roots in the broad context of the Charter of the League of Nations, with a meeting of religious and secular goals, prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. Between 1910 and 1939 there was a significant history of educational reform and community development that has only been partially documented in relation to its global significance. This is an attempt to build a framework for understanding the nature of those changes and what was achieved. The investigation is conducted through an exploration of the three great World Mission Conferences of the International Missionary Council (IMC) held at Edinburgh (1910), Jerusalem (1928) and Tambaram, India (1938). The attempts of Christian churches to engage with dramatic social changes associated with industrialisation, urbanisation, poverty, cultural change and the rise of anti‐colonialism, with specific regard to the field of educational policy, are documented and analysed.     

RESEARCH SECTION: Between a rock and a hard place: parents' attitudes to the inclusion of children with special educational needs in mainstream and special schools

In this paper, Katherine Runswick‐Cole, a researcher at the Research Institute for Health and Social Change at Manchester Metropolitan University, engages with parents' attitudes to the placement of their children with special educational needs in mainstream and special schools. She sets her review of parents' views within the current policy and legislative context. She then moves on to explore parents' attitudes to inclusion by drawing on the social model of disability as an analytical tool and developing a typology of parental school choices. The study reported in this paper involved 24 parents who were contacted through voluntary organisations and interviewed, either in their own homes or on the telephone. The views of seven professionals were also gathered. The findings reveal that parents' attitudes to mainstream and special schooling are influenced by their engagement with models of disability. The parents' experiences suggest that, despite the shifts in policy we have seen since 1997, the process of inclusive education continues to be fragile.