Thai preschool teachers' views about inclusive education for young children with disabilities

It is generally assumed that preschool teachers play a crucial daily role in the inclusion of young children with a disability in education settings. In many countries, however, there are little available data to inform such a view. Part of a larger project with 528 preschool teachers from northern Thailand, the aim of the study reported here was to examine Thai preschool teachers' views of inclusive education for young Thai children with disabilities. Twenty preschool teachers with a range of attitudes to the inclusion of young children with a disability were interviewed about their views and five themes developed from the interview analysis. Those themes were the current situation, teachers' knowledge and expertise, teachers' attitude towards inclusion and disability, collaboration, and challenges for future inclusion.     

Interdisciplinary collaboration as a prerequisite for inclusive education

This article reports on findings from a research project on interdisciplinary collaboration between mainstream school teachers and special school teachers. The aim of the research project has been to examine the knowledge of special school teachers and how this knowledge can contribute to the development of an inclusive learning environment in mainstream schools. Not as a simple task of transferring knowledge, but as a process of transforming knowledge through interdisciplinary collaboration and co-teaching. The design of the study is inspired by the notion of participation within action research as a research approach. Thus the thick data generated from reflective activities in the study design are analysed within a narrative and practice directed strategy of analysis.     

The idealism of education policies and the realities in schools: the implementation of inclusive education in South Africa

Inclusive education as a global movement emerged over the past 30 years to ensure quality mainstream education for all learners. Since 1994 the newly democratic South Africa also had expectations as well as the political will to change education by adjusting legislation and policies. However, the vision of a truly inclusive education system in South Africa has been difficult to achieve and results regarding the implementation of inclusive education remain questionable. There has been a growing realisation that the advent of democracy was not in itself a sufficient condition for the elimination of historical and structural inequalities in education with as recurring theme the dissonance between the government's socio-political imperative for change and economic realities. This article focuses on the development of policy and guidelines on inclusive education in dynamic interaction with the complexity of realities in South African schools with a special focus on the policy recommendations regarding the development of full-service schools. The constant comparative analysis of the two phased case study of a full-service school in a rural town revealed interesting results illustrating the complexities regarding the implementation of inclusive education and the challenges and opportunities in bridging the gap between the idealism of policies and the realities in schools.     

Insights into inclusive education through a small Finnish case study of an inclusive school context

This study seeks to present data and discussion arising from a case study of a school in Finland renowned for its practice in the inclusion of learners with additional support requirements due to cognitive and physical disabilities. It aims to establish how the school staff understand their practice with inclusion through day-to-day professional experiences. The process of reflexive dialogue has enabled authors to reconceptualise our understanding of inclusive education through gaining deep contextual insight. The case study emerges as an inspiring effort to reduce exclusion and isolation through skilful manipulation of physical, institutional and communicative contexts, from which we may draw valuable lessons. The case study demonstrated high levels of personal motivation in teachers and assistants, used as a force for participation in inclusive education – bottom-up, via dialogue, consultation, voluntary involvement and transformation by exposure. This democratic approach was evident in and supported through leadership and management, teaching and learning, and the involvement of the wider community.     

Student teachers' attitudes and beliefs towards using ICT within inclusive education and practice

The areas of education inclusion and digital inclusion have recently received growing interest from the research community while addressing the wider concern of social inclusion, but little research has been carried out exploring the relationship between the two areas. Central to both areas, this paper presents a study that investigated student teachers' attitudes towards using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for equality as part of inclusive education and practice, and explored the extent to which it is important that student teachers are prepared for both education and digital inclusion. The study focused on the attitudes of student teachers who had taken a new reformed course on inclusive education and practice within a Scottish University. Results from the study showed that student teachers' attitudes towards using ICT for teaching and learning were strongly positive, and were also strongly positive towards inclusive education. Their attitudes towards inclusive practice and using ICT for inclusive practice were slightly less positive. This seemed to result in ICT being used less in terms of inclusive education and more from the perspective of accessibility to the curriculum. The study provided evidence that the impact of ICT as part of inclusive practice is not well understood by student teachers and that student teachers' attitudes towards digital equality do not feature highly in inclusive practices. Consequently, greater attention to ways in which ICT is used for inclusive purposes is needed in Initial Teacher Education and in education policies in order to improve student teachers' preparedness for education inclusion.     

The role of collaboration in a comprehensive programme design process in inclusive education

This study focused on the role of collaboration in a comprehensive programme design process in inclusive education. The participants were six members of an inclusive education team and an educational designer who together comprised the design team. The study examined whether collaboration was evident in the practice of programme design and associated institutional processes. This was determined through an examination of institutional documents and reflections on collaborative practice provided by design team members in semi-structured interviews about their experiences. The study found that designing the programme collaboratively was more time intensive and at times challenging but ultimately produced a more coherent programme with transparent design, structure and content for students and teachers.     

Opportunities for a democratic pedagogy: a comparative study of South African and Swedish teachers' attitudes to inclusive education

This paper is based upon the collaboration between two research groups from Stockholm University and the University of South Africa. The main objective is to compare attitudes between South African (SA) and Swedish teachers regarding inclusive education (IE). IE in this paper is examined as a distinct part of the Swedish welfare system. The method used can be characterised as a combined, quantitative and qualitative research design with a purposive sampling. A similar adapted questionnaire was distributed in the two countries. The Swedish teachers in our data are more pro‐inclusion and more hesitating to accommodate learners with barriers in special schools. However, both the Swedish and the SA teachers in the study are hesitating towards the feasibility to implement IE practically. A team approach is concluded to be an adequate pedagogy for supporting IE both in South Africa and Sweden.     

The role of inter-professional collaboration in developing inclusive education: experiences of teachers and occupational therapists in Slovenia

This was the first qualitative study of the inclusion of children with special needs into regular schools in Slovenia that focused on inter-professional collaboration and its contributions to the inclusion process. Focus groups and individual interviews were conducted with primary school teachers (N?=?36) and occupational therapists (N?=?9) to explore their personal experiences. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis (Strauss, A., and J. Corbin. 1998. Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage). Two categories pertaining to inter-professional collaboration emerged from the analysis. They described different barriers and strategies that either inhibited or facilitated the cooperation process. The experiences of teachers and occupational therapists differed; however, both professional groups expressed frustration with organisational and systemic factors that often prevented better exchange of knowledge and information. Due to the organisation of work and financial issues, occupational therapists had limited access to the school environment; therefore, they generally showed more eagerness to increase the level of collaboration and their presence at the school. The study also pointed out how the roles of certain professionals are not recognised, suggesting the need for more promotional work. If inclusion in Slovenia is to be fully implemented, collaboration between different professionals working with children with special needs must strengthen. This will require some significant organisational, cultural and also personal transformations.     

A community of practice as an inclusive model to support children with social,emotional and behavioural difficulties in school contexts

Many school children throughout the world who exhibit antisocial or destructive behaviour or have social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) do not receive the support they need. As a result, they are caught up in a cycle of vulnerability. Systemic collaborative support is needed to counter this. Although in some cases teachers and other professionals join forces, interventions are usually affected by individual professionals outside the framework of inclusive education. This literature review paper explores the support children with SEBD in school contexts receive. The findings of the thematic document analysis highlight the vulnerability of children with SEBD, the success or otherwise of attempts made by various approaches and intervention programmes to provide support to these children, and the barriers to inclusive support. We argue the merits of adopting a Community of Practice as an inclusive model to support school children with SEBD. This kind of inclusive model strengthens constructive partnerships that provide these children with opportunities to acquire the social capital they need to engage meaningfully at schools and in their future life.     

Stimulating tensions in special education teachers' figured world: an approach toward inclusive education

I examine special educators’ professional identity emergence and tensions within a researcher-facilitated teacher learning community. I introduced tools to evoke and challenge inequities in educational systems and via which participants examined and planned general education instruction for students with dis/abilities. Initially, professional identity, or figured world, emerged as performance of pathologising and relatedly, remediating students. Over time, participants expressed tensions as they engaged tools to examine structural limitations and design more universally accessible instruction; figured worlds shifted to critical sense-making about their positioning by general education colleagues and school structural barriers, and procedural identity performance tied to investigating student assets. Findings suggest potential for purposefully designed artefacts to mediate special educators’ development as (more) inclusive educators.     

Perspectives on inclusive education: learning from each other

Many courses of study are currently available that address inclusive education and, increasingly, distance education is seen as a flexible and appropriately inclusive way to deliver such courses. In this article a team of colleagues, Kieron Sheehy, Jonathan Rix, Melanie Nind and Katy Simmons, discusses the development of an Open University course, E243 Inclusive Education: Learning from Each Other, which was launched in February 2004. The team reflects on their own process of learning from each other and from the rich network of people involved, mirroring some of the course themes in their own journeys. Collaborative learning became a key theme within the course, both as a method for teaching within the ‘inclusive classroom’ and also as the process for producing a course in a contested and challenging area. This experience allowed the team to change and develop their own perspectives on important issues and, it is suggested, allowed the course to include ways in which students could be supported in having the same opportunity.     

Teaching inclusive religious education impartially: an English perspective

The article draws on experience of teaching, teacher education and qualitative research related to an impartial approach to inclusive religious education (including pupils from families who identify with or do not identify with religion or belief groups), in publicly funded schools in England. Such religious education is considered to be intrinsically worthwhile and instrumentally important in contributing to pupils’ personal and social development. The approach considered is hermeneutical, bringing reliable information into relationship with knowledge and experience of pupils and teacher through active learning, including dialogue. Qualitative research on student and early career teachers suggests that appropriate skills and attitudes supporting an impartial approach can be developed, facilitating a relationship of trust between teacher and students. A condition is the development of teachers’ knowledge and understanding of the stances of pupils in their classes. However, some student teachers or teachers with very firmly held views find it very difficult to adopt an impartial approach. On the basis of examples from qualitative research, it is argued that good quality teacher education can assist in developing appropriate skills and attitudes for those wishing to take an impartial approach. Further research, ideally involving partnership between researchers and practitioners, is recommended.     

School teachers' perception about distributed leadership practices for inclusive education in primary schools in Bangladesh

This article reports on the third phase of a larger study that explored the perceptions of teachers about distributed leadership practices for inclusive education (IE) in primary schools involved in IE reform in Bangladesh. The Distributed Leadership Practice for Inclusive Education scale was developed specifically for this study to collect data. Participants for the present study were head teachers and teachers from 308 public primary schools. The results of this study indicate that teachers perceived that distributed leadership practices for IE were present in primary schools in Bangladesh. The findings indicate that teachers' perceptions about distributed leadership practices for IE have a significant positive correlation with their satisfaction about the implementation of IE policy.     

An ambiguous, contested terrain: governance models for a new South African education system

This paper reviews the development of education governance in South Africa during the 1990s. It outlines ambiguities within and between competing policies, tracing the historical trajectory and explaining its outcome. Apartheid governance, the attempts to reform it, policy options originating within the anti-apartheid movement, and the law passed in 1996 by the new Parliament, are discussed. Trends in South Africa during this decade have been consistent with trends in international education: decentralization, ‘rolling back the state’, privatization, increased class and/or regional disparities, and greater parental governance responsibilities.     

Teacher and parental views on inclusive education policy lending in the Czech Republic

In international education policy articulations by organisations such as the UNESCO, inclusive education is defined rather vaguely, usually in terms of human rights. Yet, national reception it is more or less taken for granted. Analyses of policy lending show that when national education traditions are not respected, the lack of clarity about the concrete form of inclusion is further augmented by resistance to a foreign import. Taking the example of the implementation of inclusive education in the Czech Republic, a secondary analysis of survey results on responses from teachers and parents is presented. This analysis contributes to a better understanding of the reactions of two groups of actors who have had only a marginal involvement in preparing the implementation of inclusion; specifically, teachers at ordinary schools and parents of pupils with special education needs. Teachers are critical of inclusion, which they regard as special care for individual pupils with special education needs. It is only in schools which have lengthy experience with integration that a transformation of the school culture and the teaching profession in the direction of greater teamwork has taken place. The imperative of inclusion coming from above is regarded more as interference with what is a spontaneous development. The view of parents to pupils with special education needs was that systemic support to inclusion was lacking. Parents are forced to be intermediaries between other actors, but often do not have enough information and are not respected by teachers as experts on their children.     

Communities of practice in inclusive education

The data in this paper represent the experiences and perspectives of parents and teachers who worked as communities of practice, designing support plans for the inclusion of three students with intellectual disabilities in general education classrooms. Their reflections, obtained through interviews and questionnaires, show how they constructed relevant knowledge to support these children with special educational needs in their class. The findings show the potential benefits of partnerships and local knowledge in addressing the educational challenge of inclusion.     

Statistical trends and developments within inclusive education in Turkey

The education of students with special needs in an inclusive environment is becoming more widespread throughout the world. Similarly, in Turkey, the inclusion of students with disabilities has also improved. However, current statistical trends and developments within inclusive education are not well known. The purpose of this study is to provide a statistical analysis of special education data, which were obtained from the Ministry of National Education of Turkey. The findings indicate that some statistical components of special education are missing from most official publications of educational statistics and the number of students and the proportions of special education categories in inclusive education vary from year to year. However, in Turkey, the percentage of students in inclusive education, of all students with special needs, is higher than many European countries. The results show that the number of students with special needs, as well as students in inclusive education, has rapidly increased. Turkey needs to focus on improving the schooling rate of students with special needs, and the quality and variety of special education services within inclusive education.     

Learning for professional life: Student teachers' and graduated teachers' views of learning,responsibility and collaboration

The focus of this study is on how final-semester students and newly-graduated teachers experience the formal objectives of teacher education, with a particular view of the concepts of learning, responsibility and collaboration. The ways of experiencing these concepts varied from conceptions in which only one dimension is discerned from in the student teachers group to conceptions in which several dimensions of the phenomena are discerned in the graduate teachers group.     

Early childhood teachers' understanding of inclusive education and associated practices: reflections from Greece

This paper focuses on Greek regular and special preschool teachers' understanding of inclusion; their views about the engagement of children with disabilities in typical day routines/activities; and their preferred strategies for facilitating children's engagement in classroom activities. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with 77 teachers (45 regular and 32 special educators) drawn from 47 preschool mainstream settings in Greece. The analysis revealed that teachers hold conflicting and restrictive beliefs about inclusive education. Further, the teachers' accounts indicated that most of the children with disabilities were experiencing significant difficulties in their engagement during free-play as well as structured/semi-structured activities. Lastly, teachers identified a range of strategies that they deployed for promoting children's involvement in classroom activities. The paper concludes by highlighting the need to shift away from a narrow individualistic-deficit assumption of disability towards a socio-constructivist conceptualisation of ‘diversity’ and the establishment of genuinely inclusive school cultures.     

The attitudes of teachers towards inclusive education in Vojvodina

The aim of this study was to examine the attitudes of preschool, primary, secondary and high school teachers towards inclusive education of children with special educational needs. In addition, the study established the correlation between these attitudes and gender, education level, teaching experience, formal training in the special education field, and the duration and quality of work experience with children with special education needs. The sample comprised 322 teachers from the Serbian province of Vojvodina. The My Thinking about Inclusion Scale (Stoiber, K. C., M. Gettinger, and D. Goetz. 1998. “Exploring Factors Influencing Parents' and Early Childhood Practitioners Beliefs about Inclusion.” Early Childhood Research Quarterly 13 (1): 107–131) was used. The results show that, in general, the participants held neutral attitudes towards inclusive education and more positive expectations regarding the outcomes of inclusion. This study also emphasised teaching performance in an inclusive class as a subject of great concern. The high school and preschool teachers as well as the teachers with previous positive experience with working in an inclusive environment reported more positive attitudes towards inclusive education than those from primary and secondary schools and those with negative experiences with the implementation of inclusive practices.