Towards inclusive education: the case of Finland

The article examines the Finnish system of basic education and the means it employs to support good learning and healthy growth and development for all students. The excellent learning outcomes of the Finnish comprehensive school indicate that it is possible to develop a system with both quality teaching and learning, and equity and equality for students. Throughout the article, special needs education is seen as an important, but not dominant, aspect of Finland’s inclusive policies. The article concludes with five theses central to a working model of inclusive education.     

Exploring organisational perspectives on implementing educational inclusion in mainstream schools

Achieving equality remains a major challenge in schools globally. In Hong Kong, the current education policy has a core value that all students have the right to learn. Policy-makers and school personnel are struggling to find ways of catering for diverse learning needs in schools. Early in 2006, a self-initiated inclusive educational project has linked one mainstream school and a special school. Their project can be seen as a pioneer in the field of education, for it provides concrete recommendations to other education practitioners on initiating whole-school participation and joint-school partnerships, integrating such collaborations into the culture of the school, and encouraging teachers committed to student voice and engagement. This article records the qualitative case study comprising the teachers' self reports to demonstrate how teachers re-shaped their perceptions, beliefs and behaviours as they developed and implemented a school-based inclusion project. It is expected that the findings of this study will assist educators to further understand present challenges in the school system regarding managing diversity and attaining inclusive education goals. In particular, local schools are now facing the challenge to implement inclusive education.     

Subtle discourses on equality in the Finnish curricula of upper secondary education: reflections of the imagined society

Assurance of citizens’ social rights and minimization of social differences have been central tenets that have framed the educational policy of Finland and the other Nordic welfare states. Equality has been on the official agenda in educational politics and policies since the comprehensive school reforms of the 1960s and 1970s. However, the conceptualization of equality has fluctuated, reflecting the political climate in which the policy statements have been created. In this article, we analyse Finnish curricular documents concerning upper secondary education from the 1970s to the 2010s in order to find out how the aims of educational equality are presented. Drawing on different conceptualizations of equality and social justice, as well as feminist theorizations of intersectionality, we scrutinize how gendered, classed and ethnised patterns are emphasized, challenged or muted in documents. Through the longitudinal data of this study it is possible to analyse the growing impact of this neo-liberal educational restructuring into Finland, which has a reputation for equal education and excellent records in the Programme for International Student Assessment tests. Hence, we ask how the Finnish society as an imagined community is reflected in the documents of different decades.     

ADHD in the context of Finnish basic education

Students with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are a growing group served under special education services in many western societies. This article describes the history and current state of the services, as well as the assessment procedure. Our conclusion is that the status of students with ADHD in Finnish basic education (Grades 1 to 9) is still unclear. Based on the comparison of the prevalence and the population served in special education we can assume that this group is probably underserved in the Finnish school system. We also present findings from two recent studies among families with ADHD children in Finland. Family viewpoint can contribute to our knowledge and understanding about the diversity of the symptoms’ manifestation as well as the extent and completeness of the possible outcomes of the disorder. In the context of schooling, studying these families’ viewpoints can be of additional use in evaluating the present state of school practices in relation to institutional enactments established in educational acts. Future challenges about meeting the variety of pupils’ needs according to inclusive pedagogy are discussed.     

Understanding teachers’ attitudes and self-efficacy in inclusive education: implications for pre-service and in-service teacher education

Although there are clear differences in national policies regarding inclusive education, the international debate has not fully considered their impact on implementation within different countries, for example on teacher education. This paper reports on results from a comparative study of in-service teachers’ attitudes and self-efficacy in implementing inclusive practices in South Africa and Finland and its implications for teacher education in these countries. A sample of 319 South African and 822 Finnish primary and secondary education teachers completed a questionnaire containing a scale measuring sentiments, attitudes and concerns on inclusive education as well as a scale measuring teachers’ self-efficacy in implementing inclusive practices. A comparative analysis indicated that whereas the overall sentiments towards disabilities were positive in both countries, teachers had many concerns about the consequences of including children with disabilities in their classrooms. While the most positive aspect of self-efficacy among the South African teachers was their self-efficacy in managing behaviour, the Finnish teachers saw this as their weakest point. Self-efficacy, in particular efficacy in collaboration, was clearly related to overall attitudes towards inclusion. The implications of these findings for pre-service and in-service teacher education are discussed.     

How to make the neighbourhood school a school for all?

A new special education strategy was launched in Finland by the Ministry of Education in 2007. The new Basic Act was enacted in 2010 and the new national core curriculum concerning three‐tiered support for pupils in 2011. Since the 1990s, teachers across Finland have participated in developing Finnish basic education towards greater inclusion. The goal of this study was to enhance understanding of the implementation of the Finnish educational reforms. In this study, teachers' perceptions of good inclusive teaching arrangements were analysed and compared with the theories of inclusive education. There is still a lack of information available on the implementation of inclusive education practices, and especially about teachers' experiences of teaching in inclusive classrooms. In 2010, basic education teachers (N = 327) in Lapland, Finland, were asked to describe their experiences and perceptions of inclusive teaching arrangements. The results indicated that teaching practices have become more diverse, flexible and differentiated, enabling teaching of diverse groups. More and more teachers preferred teaching in teams and planning their work together, showing that changes in schools change the teacher's profession too. In this study, a framework for inclusive schools was constructed through implementing the indexes of inclusion created by Booth and Ainscow.     

The end of modernist approaches to school funding policy in Australia: a new rationale for funding with inclusive implications for all Australian schools?

The Australian Senate Employment, Workplace Relations and Education References Committee has been asked to examine the principles of Commonwealth Funding for schools, with particular emphasis on how these principles apply in meeting the current future needs of government and non‐government schools and whether they ensure efficiency in the allocation of school funding. The Committee will also investigate accountability arrangements including and through the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs. This paper provides a critical discourse analysis of recent developments, tracking two themes: the construction of ‘efficiency and effectiveness’ in the allocation of school funding in Australia, and the impact of such a construction on a discourse of inclusive education for all schools in Australia. Through this analysis, it is argued that the current enquiry creates an opportunity for a substantial shift in focus — from funding government and non‐government schools in relation to government schools, to both government and non‐government schools — within a framework of presumptive equality and inclusion. It is also argued that extant policy, removing the substantial Catholic sector from its hitherto hybridized and separate funding position and bringing government and non‐government schools into sector‐specific funding competition with each other, realigns and rearticulates federal involvement in school funding policy areas that have been the traditional preserve of state governments and territories. In the process, responsibility for instilling and supporting inclusive educational practices is currently solely that of the states and territories where, in many cases, funding as well as inclusive education policies and programmes have been determined at local levels. The endorsement by the federal government of new principles in funding, as proposed here, linked with renewed requirements in relation to school access and participation, creates a space that potentially enables new strategies for inclusive education to be conjoined with funding allocation policy in Australian schools, to the economic and social benefits of all schools as well as the polity.     

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.     

芬兰"研究为本"的教师教育课程设置探析

芬兰基础教育能兼顾质量和公平的优异表现引起各国注目,高质量的教师和极具特色的"研究为本"的教师教育课程设置被认为是重要原因之一.本文旨在探讨芬兰中小学教师培养的课程设置框架,首先对芬兰教育体制进行简单介绍,继而论述教师教育模式的理论渊源和"研究为本"的教育模式理论及实践,最后基于理论和实践论述提出值得我国教师教育培养借鉴的特色.     

Physical Education Curriculum Reform in Finland

The Finnish education system has received worldwide attention due to the top academic performance of Finnish school students. Physical education, as an integral part of the Finnish education curriculum, potentially contributes to the overall success. The purpose of this article is to summarize Finnish physical education reform during the past decades and to review and critique recent literature that has examined the effectiveness of Finnish physical education programs. This review concludes that physical education has a solid foundation in Finnish schools and that it enjoys strong support in Finnish society. Although physical education contact time has diminished across four decades, the current basic education reform has begun to allocate more time and funding for elementary and middle school physical education. The literature review, however, revealed limited evidence on the effectiveness of physical education programs. In the future, robust studies are needed to provide evidence of the effectiveness of physical education. It is likely that with rigorous research evidence, the current efforts to allocate more time for physical education should be more easily justified and supported.     

致力于更加公平的教育:义务教育政策三十年——基于改革开放30年义务教育政策与法制建设的思考

改革开放30年来,具有中国特色的义务教育法律体系初步形成,同时在政策领域,采取了小学升初中免试就近入学、均衡发展政策,针对社会弱势儿童实施了"两免一补"政策、随班就读政策、"两为主"政策等,形成了相对全面的普及和救助政策体系,致力于更加公平的教育是改革开放30年来义务教育政策和法制建设的主旋律。尽管如此,还存在着义务教育发展尚不均衡、弱势儿童的受教育机会尚未得到全面保障等突出问题。为此,要强化政府的义务教育公平责任,建立和完善保护儿童受教育权利的政策和法律机制,实现教育公共服务均等化,以保障每一个儿童都能上好学。     

A critical and contextual approach to inclusive education: perspectives from an Indian context

Post Salamanca, inclusive education was incorporated in government policies in countries of the North and South. Since then there have been numerous books, articles, and academic debates on the topic but with little representation from the South. This article examines how inclusive education is conceptualised in India, within four recent government policies and in practice. It draws on interview data from a larger study conducted in the metropolitan city of Kolkata and document data. The findings suggest the term inclusive education is well established in government policies and amongst school heads, special educators, and counsellors. While there is consensus on the ‘goodness' of inclusive education and it being synonymous with children with disabilities, there are multiple meanings assigned to inclusive education, inclusive schools, and the includable child. Variations and discrepancies were visible not only between school staff and policy documents but even within policies and schools, respectively. A visible change is schools emerging but varying ‘consciousness of responsibility' towards children with disabilities. Based on the persisting ambiguities surrounding inclusive education, the article argues for developing contextual understanding of how education of children with disabilities can take place in India and adopting a critical stance towards inclusive education.     

From margins to mainstream: Private school outreach inclusion processes for out-of-school children in India

This paper centres upon understanding processes involved in mainstreaming ‘out-of-school’ children from non-formal education programmes to formal schooling. Three ‘private school outreach’ initiatives in India provide the empirical base for the discussion, with the focal point being a key dilemma faced by their managements: between providing out-of-school children with an education that will give them equality of opportunity, and an education that is appropriate to their needs. The attempted resolutions of this dilemma and their corresponding practices and policies are examined and compared in the three cases and the findings are discussed in the light of literature on ‘inclusive education’.     

Trekking back to mainstream for inclusive education,is it there?

This paper explores the ecosystemic management strategies for inclusive schools due to challenges faced by the schools in the mainstream school where learners from the specialised institutions are referred back to mainstream for inclusive education. Ecosystemic perspective on inclusive education, ecological theories and systems theories underpin this paper. The study was done through interviews, field notes and observations of 120 participants comprising the SMTs, educators and parents. The findings indicate that schools face great challenges in managing inclusive schools. A lot has been published on inclusive education, but none of them offers ecosystemic management strategies for the school management to follow. The article concludes by offering ecosystemic management strategies for successful implementation of inclusive education.     

Analysing support in inclusive education systems – a comparison of inclusive school development in Iceland and Canada since the 1980s focusing on policy and in-school support

ABSTRACT

This paper compares the systems of support in inclusive education in Canadian and Icelandic schools. The rationale for comparing these two support systems is grounded in the idea that they were developed in two countries with a long tradition of inclusive school development. They shifted the responsibility and the necessity of support for all learners towards the regular school, as it is embedded in the Salamanca Statement. The comparison is based on research findings from two comprehensive qualitative studies on inclusive education (Óskarsdóttir 2017. “Constructing Support as Inclusive Practice: A Self-Study.” Doctoral Thesis University of Iceland, Reykjavík; Koepfer 2013. Inclusion in Canada. Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt) and is focused on the role of support as an integral part of inclusive practices. A system of support can be considered an inevitable pillar of inclusive education, in order to remove barriers, to enable participation in educational and social activities and to ensure equitable access to learning. Although the organisation and implementation of support is contextualised and bound in different historical and political frameworks, this international comparison shows that both countries – with all its ambivalences and conflictual settings – emphasise a human-rights based understanding of inclusion. They on a cultural transformation process of schools to implement support for all pupils.     

The successful education sector development in Tanzania – comment on gender balance and inclusive education

In this paper we discuss to what extent the international and national equality goals regarding gender balance and inclusive education have been reached in the education sector development in Tanzania. According to recent reports, the development trend has been generally positive, and the country is close to achieving its primary education targets. More detailed reviews suggest, however, that current monitoring and evaluation mechanisms are too narrow to catch the critical factors regarding equality, particularly in secondary education. Our comment concerns the achievements and challenges, and emphasises the significance of a multidimensional set of information including in‐depth qualitative research on connections between socio‐cultural factors and education.     

Teachers' attitudes and self-efficacy on implementing inclusive education in Japan and Finland: A comparative study using multi-group structural equation modelling

This study aims to explore relationships between teachers' attitudes, self-efficacy, and background variables regarding inclusive education by using a sample of 359 Japanese and 872 Finnish teachers. A multi-group structural equation modelling was conducted to find similarities and differences in how the background variables predict teachers' attitudes and self-efficacy. Experience in teaching students with disabilities had a positive effect on teachers' attitudes and self-efficacy in both countries. However, teachers' teaching career and the amount of inclusive education training affected them differently in Japan and Finland. The findings could be used to improve inclusive education training for pre- and in-service teachers.     

Measuring Inequality of Opportunity in Education by Combining Information on Coverage and Achievement in PISA

Measuring the distance between countries and the goal of equality of opportunity in education has been the focus of recent contributions in the economic literature, which have concentrated either on intergroup gaps in access to a given level of studies or on intergroup gaps in educational achievement. We argue that both aspects are important and interrelated and, as a consequence, should be measured simultaneously and combined in a composite index of equality of opportunity in education. Employing recent PISA data for a selected set of countries, rank reversals are observed with respect to orderings based upon a single dimension. The index can be generalized to include further dimensions, such as average scores or dissimilarity in access.     

The rationale for a wider concept of inclusive education for teacher education: A case study of Serbia

Teacher education for inclusive education (IE) is recognized as vital for improving quality and equity in education globally. In the Western Balkan countries it is also part of the transition process towards joining the European Union and has attracted international funding for IE-related projects. A key finding from research funded by the European Training Foundation, carried out by the authors as members of a seven-country research team in 2009?C2010, was that the prevailing local understanding of IE was very narrow. In this article we hypothesize the reasons for this finding. We use a case study of school and teacher education systems in Serbia to explore how this understanding has constrained the development of IE and associated teacher education and limited the efficacy of some recent internationally supported developments. We identify both challenges and possible ways forward for teacher education for IE based on promoting a concept of IE that is both collaboratively agreed and comprehensive.     

Comprehensive schools and traditional education in the Federal Republic of Germany

This article first presents some general information on the traditional tripartite system of education in Germany (Hauptschule, Realschule, Gymnasium). It describes the changes this system has undergone since the 1960s: because of the increased demand for schooling offering higher qualification certificates, the Hauptschule has declined in image and importance. The following passage shows both the political and social reasons that led to an experimental phase of the integrated comprehensive schools in all of the eleven states at the end of the 1960s. The integrated comprehensive school was not able to supersede the tripartite school system in the development of educational policies but only managed to be accepted as a fourth possibility. In the course of the experimental phase a wide, decentralized evaluation research programme was carried out. The most important results (horizontal mobility, equality of educational opportunity, school climate, academic achievement) are mentioned in context. The findings of the evaluation research programme do not provide any proof of the political failure of the educational reform in favour of a comprehensive system.