Special education in Swedish and Finnish schools: seeing the forest or the trees?

The purpose of this research was to study the content of the work of two special education professions in Sweden, special teachers and special pedagogues. In addition, we compare their work to the work of Finnish special teachers. The Swedish participants were 74 special educators: 27 special teachers and 47 special pedagogues. The Finnish data were from an earlier study, involving 133 special teachers. Participants in both countries were approached via a questionnaire. The results show that Swedish special pedagogues do more consultative work and Swedish special teachers more direct work with pupils. However, there is plenty of overlap in the work profiles of Swedish special pedagogues and special teachers. Most of the work content is in line with the Finnish findings, except that Finnish special teachers had a minor consultative role. It seems that the work duties across the two professions, special pedagogues and special teachers, are somewhat similar. Their ways of working in practice are discussed.     

"A good future for deaf children": a five-year sign language intervention project

Deaf preschoolers and hearing family members learned sign language in a 5-year intervention project. Once weekly, each child met with a teacher who was deaf. Parents, siblings, and other relatives met about once monthly to study sign language, and all families in the project signed together about twice yearly. The present study addressed four questions asked of parents about the project: (a) How did the children learn to sign? (b) Did both the parents and the children benefit from the project? (c) What was the position of sign language in the family? (d) Did the project have some impact on the family's social network? The families indicated satisfaction with the project; they learned to sign and their social networks expanded. Parents favored bilingual education: Sign language was the main language but learning Finnish was also important. Learning sign language was not easy, especially for the fathers. The families that were most actively involved in the lessons learned the most.     

Russia as a returning donor – four roles in development assistance to education

This article analyses the role of Russia in development assistance to education in light of the changing architecture of development assistance – the variety of positions identified with both ‘new’ and ‘old’ donor countries. We shed light on Russia's aims and agenda in the field of development assistance in general and specifically within the Russia Education Aid for Development programme, initiated in 2008 by agreement between the World Bank and the Russian Federation. Our analysis is based on existing research, policy documents on development assistance and READ documents, as well as interview data with relevant experts and staff. It yields a distinction between four different roles played by Russia as a donor.     

Inclusion seen by student teachers in special education: differences among Finnish,Norwegian and Swedish students

This article describes various views of special teacher students towards inclusion. In order to examine these, we analysed a series of statements made by students in Finland, Norway and Sweden. The specific aims were to see how these views can be seen as supportive or challenging for inclusion in schools. A questionnaire with one closed question and two open-ended questions was used in all countries. The results show that students in similar Nordic countries have different views about inclusion. Norwegian students mostly supported inclusion while Finnish students expressed the most reservations. The arguments about inclusion by Norwegian students were the most pupil-focused; those by Finns were teacher-focused, with Swedes being in between. The results seem to reflect the educational policy in these countries. Discussions, more information, as well as good models of inclusion seem to be needed. The implications of these findings for special and regular teacher education are also discussed.     

Parents' views on the success of integration of students with special education needs

This study investigated how parents' views on important aspects of integration correlate with parents' actual experiences concerning the integration into mainstream education of their child with special education needs. It was assumed that the degree of discrepancy between perceived importance and corresponding actual experience contributes to the overall perceived success of integration. The data for the study were collected in 2006 from parents (N?=?219) whose special needs children were integrated into mainstream education in Helsinki, Finland. Quantitatively analysed findings were reflected against background variables. Results showed that the importance of the given statements were affected by the child's gender and school level. The parents' actual experiences were affected by two factors. The first showed that teachers at the primary level were evaluated as being more skilful than teachers at the secondary level, and at the secondary level, teaching was more individualised than at the primary level. Second, a child's self-worth was shown to be higher when integrated into the neighbourhood school. Parents' views on the success of integration were related to their actual experiences, especially in those statements rated as important. Possible explanations for these findings and practical implications are discussed.     

A one-year study of the development of co-teaching in four Finnish schools

In this follow-up study, development of co-teaching was studied in four different schools in Helsinki, Finland. Teachers, altogether 54, 51 and 26, respectively, responded to an electronic questionnaire three times during one year. The attitudes towards co-teaching were positive although the frequency of co-teaching remained low. Co-teaching was seen as a developing mode of teaching and it was said to be suitable for all school subjects. Special teachers and class teachers had the most experience with co-teaching. The majority of respondents co-taught 2–5 lessons per week and that did not change during the follow-up, although monetary incentive was available to those who increased their co-teaching during the study period. For class-teachers, another class-teacher was most often the chosen co-teaching partner. Special teachers were frequent co-teaching partners for all teachers. The most common reason for not co-teaching was the lack of planning time. However, 15 minutes were considered enough to plan one lesson. The respondents had no education about co-teaching. Receiving more attention was the most often mentioned benefit of co-teaching for the students. Sharing and well-being were regarded as the greatest benefits of co-teaching for the teachers. The advantages and obstacles of co-teaching are discussed and some practical advice is given.     

Hearing-impaired pupils in mainstream education in Finland: teachers’ experiences of inclusion and support

Today, in Finland, the majority of hearing-impaired pupils attend regular schools. This is in line with inclusive policy. This study aims to investigate do these pupils receive support from teachers, what kind of support is given and how is inclusion functioning. A questionnaire was used with 109 Finnish teachers, with both closed- and open-ended questions. All teachers taught hearing-impaired pupils in mainstream education, at primary or at secondary stage. According to the results, the main support categories were pedagogical and technical support. However, 48% of teachers gave no support. Inclusion was successful according to teachers. Various forms of support and key areas of teaching are discussed.     

Finnish teachers’ views on co-teaching

Co-teaching has become a well-known way of working among Finnish teachers in recent years. Teachers’ collaboration is becoming increasingly important in light of the rising number of diverse students in regular classes. In an ideal co-teaching context, teachers collaborate as equals, recognise and respect each other’s skills and competencies, and strengthen and support each other. In this study, we examine teachers’ views on co-teaching and investigate which background factors explain teachers’ views concerning the benefits and the challenges of co-teaching. The data obtained from Finnish basic education teachers’ (N = 694) responses to an online questionnaire are analysed quantitatively. The results show some differences among the teachers’ views. Subject teachers perceive more challenges in co-teaching than class and special education teachers. Class teachers perceive the fewest challenges. Although teachers are generally interested in co-teaching and some of them co-teach regularly, they also report several barriers to its application. The explanatory factors concerning the differences in teachers’ views are gender, teachers’ co-teaching experiences, the amount of co-teaching per week and working as a class teacher.     

An Empirical Test of Three Instructional Scenarios for Hypervideo Use in a Vocational Education Lesson

Recent technological advances are rekindling educational interest in hypervideo (HV). HV provides a good opportunity for enhanced teaching and learning thanks to its affordances for interactivity (advanced navigation control, hyperlinking with supplementary materials, and communication options). This study investigated how these functionalities can be employed in a vocational education context by examining the design of three prototypical HV lesson scenarios (expository, individual learning, and collaborative learning) and comparing their effectiveness with that of a traditional lesson. Effects on motivation and knowledge acquisition were assessed. Results indicated that the HV lessons supported learning more effectively than traditional lessons. On a delayed posttest, all experimental conditions scored significantly higher than the control condition. The special benefits of HV use for expository instruction are singled out for discussion. This study provides an encouraging starting point for scholars who would like to investigate the functional integration of HV in educational practices.