Affordances and limitations of a special school practicum as a means to prepare pre-service teachers for inclusive education

As education systems worldwide embrace inclusive education in some form, pre-service teachers need to be prepared to be pedagogically responsive to diverse students and learning needs. While much learning for inclusion takes place in course work in higher education institutions, field experiences, including practicum placements, can complement this learning. Using Loreman's [2010a. “Essential Inclusive Education-Related Outcomes for Alberta Preservice Teachers.” The Alberta Journal of Educational Research 56 (2): 124–142] seven areas of essential learning for inclusion, with the addition of Waitoller and Kozleski's [2010. “Inclusive Professional Learning Schools.” In Teacher Education for Inclusion, edited by C. Forlin, 65–73. London: Routledge] idea of ‘critical sensibilities’, this article considers the extent to which a practicum experience in a special school might contribute to learning for inclusion. The main findings of a small-scale qualitative study with 15 South African pre-service teachers suggest that the practicum placement exposes them to children with disabilities and learning difficulties, resulting in a growth of understanding of their learning needs. It also enhances pre-service teachers' ability to plan lessons and draw on a range of instructional strategies to enable learning for all. For some pre-service teachers, however, the practicum convinced them of the benefits of separate special education and the unfeasibility of inclusion. We conclude that a special school practicum has value for pre-service teachers, provided that opportunities are made available for critical engagement with the potential for both inclusion and exclusion of students with special educational needs in different types of school.     

A Comparative Study of Special Education Contrasting Denmark,Sweden, and the United States of America

Many background factors, such as demography, size of the country and the history development, have created different atmospheres and have influenced philosophies, laws, and procedures for dealing with handicapped students in educational settings in Denmark, Sweden, and the United States of America. Yet, despite the differences, these three countries have developed educational systems that are more similar than different. This report examines both similarities and differences and aims to spread information that could be useful in developing the special education systems of different countries. The authors represent special educational research in the United States of America and Sweden.     

Unlocking education through relationship building: Identity and agency in English educational institutions during Covid-19

This paper reports on a longitudinal study in the North of England with 13 educators in schools, colleges and universities during two lockdowns. The project was designed to ‘unlock’ education by providing spaces to co-create new ways of thinking about education in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. Focus groups were conducted with school and college teachers as well as university staff at the end of the first and second English lockdowns, in summer 2020 and spring 2021. An initial analysis identified issues with expectations and communication between educators and executive management as well as a lack of agency of educators, and how participants framed them as impacting on their identity as educators. Therefore, the framework of tactics of intersubjectivity was adopted to explore how educators discursively positioned themselves and others through constructions of similarity and difference, realness and power, and how their professional identities were affected by the experience of working through the pandemic and by those around them. Whilst educators took opportunities to authenticate their identity and reimagine education, their agency was undermined by top-down governing involving little successful communication, leading to denaturalising and illegitimising experiences for educators. Executive management were perceived as lacking engagement with staff and understanding of the implications of their decisions on them. The findings call for relationship building and recognition of educators' voice.     

“Helping” Versus “Being a Helper”: Invoking the Self to Increase Helping in Young Children

Can a subtle linguistic cue that invokes the self motivate children to help? In two experiments, 3‐ to 6‐year‐old children (N = 149) were exposed to the idea of “being a helper” (noun condition) or “helping” (verb condition). Noun wording fosters the perception that a behavior reflects an identity—the kind of person one is. Both when children interacted with an adult who referenced “being a helper” or “helping” ( 2 ) and with a new adult ( 3 ), children in the noun condition helped significantly more across four tasks than children in the verb condition or a baseline control condition. The results demonstrate that children are motivated to pursue a positive identity. Moreover, this motivation can be leveraged to encourage prosocial behavior.     

The Experiences of African American Physical Education Teacher Candidates at Secondary Urban Schools

Presently, most physical education teachers in the United States are White Americans and from middle class families. In fact, 83 % of all teachers in public schools are White Americans, whereas approximately 10 % of all African American teachers are representative of all teachers in the United States. A student might feel cultural dissonance that she or he is behaving appropriately based on the student’s cultural norm and upbringing, but the teachers who have different cultural and ethnic backgrounds than the students may inappropriately interpret or respond to the behavior. Therefore, it is important to study African American pre-service physical education teachers’ student teaching and field-based experiences with ethnically diverse adolescence (e.g., African American students), because they have the potential to develop a positive relationship between school support, teacher support, and academic achievement and influence student learning, motivation, and engagement in physical education. The purpose of this study was to describe and explain the experiences of African American physical education teacher education (PETE) candidates at secondary urban schools. The research design was explanatory multiple-case study situated in activity theory. Participants were seven African American PETE candidates. The qualitative data sources were interviews, weekly journal reflections, and e-portfolios. The results were (a) navigating power relationships between cooperative teachers and students, (b) a ‘shocking’ experience: Feeling under-prepared, and (c) encountered cultural normalcies and stereotypes in teaching physical education. PETE programs must better prepare teacher candidates for working in urban schools with greater cultural competence and higher self-efficacy.