Includ-ed, red europea de educación inclusiva

Summary

In this article the authors focus on the importance to prepare teachers in training to work in an inclusive educational setting. Through in-depth interviews with teachers in inclusive education, 5 basic competences for teachers could be withdrawn. These include:

• a) to increase the well-being of each child in the class;
• b) to differentiate without exclusion;
• c) to broaden the cooperation with parents;
• d) to cooperate with external people and colleagues within the classroom;
• e) to be flexible and responsible for the whole class.

All the competences are relevant and obtained at the end of the training. But especially the frame of reference to look at these competences is important. The authors focus on the framework of diversity thinking and propose that teachers in training should be trained to become reflective practitioners.

Project object:

Throughout the past decade, we see a shift in paradigm in looking at education broadly and specifically in education towards children with disabilities. No longer the children must fit in the classroom, but the school and the class must fit the children. Diversity becomes more the norm, children are very divers and go together to the same school. The shift is a shift from integration of children towards inclusion (Avramidis & Kayva, 2007, Mortier, 2010).

With the ratification of the UN convention on the Rights of Persons with a disability (2006) Belgium agreed to develop a more inclusive educational system. Every child had the right to go to a regular school (article 24). Furthermore, in March 2014, the Flemish government agreed on a decree to include more children with special needs into the regular classroom. However in practice, we still see a large tendency to exclusion, because of our two-track system in the education of children with a disability. We have a very broad special education and a rather limited range of possibilities for support in regular education. The transfer of the ideology of inclusion into practice remains a major challenge.

What is the definition of inclusive education? The authors agree with the following statement related to inclusive education: ‘All students are welcomed in general education classes in their local schools. Therefore, the general education classroom in the school that a student would attend if he or she did not have a disability is the first placement option considered. Appropriate supports, regardless of disability type or severity, are available.’ (Giangreco, 2002). Inclusive education is not only about putting children in a regular class, it is also about the way and the condition that children can learn (Angelides et al, 2006).

Thus the role of the teacher is more than recognizing diversity (Sandoval, 2007, as cited in Forlin, Cedillo, Romero-Contreras, Fletcher, & Hernández, 2010) , it is about the way children can participate in education. The teacher needs to adapt the learning trajectory to make learning meaningful for all children. This means that teachers in their classroom meet and work with a greater diversity of students. Teachers perceive this as a major challenge (Lebeer, 2006). Next to that, the chances of success of inclusive education strongly depend on the skills and the way in which inclusion is put it into practice (Hodkinson, 2006). Loreman (2005) concluded that teachers do not feel adequately prepared to meet the needs for some children with special educational needs.

Within the teacher training department at the University College we feel the strong responsibility to train pre-service teachers to be competent to work in an inclusive setting. After all, the attitudes of a teacher towards his students is a critical factor in the way they teach and play an important role in how inclusion can succeed. (Avramadis & Kalyva, 2007, Forlin, Keen & Barrett, 2008, Van Hove et al, 2012). To focus on competences in a teacher training is important, but also the frame of reference to work with these competence is very important. If teachers feel competent to handle in an inclusive setting and if they are convinced of ‘diversity thinking’ , where every learner can learn in his or hers own way, inclusion will succeed. Diversity thinking is the framework we use in our department to state that all children are welcome in class, where diversity is a reality and the norm. Education must be adapted to children’s needs, instead of children who should adapt to the curriculum. In this diversity thinking parents play an important role and are seen as equal partners with useful experiences according to the support of their children. Additionally in this thinking, professionals are able to cooperate with other relevant partners in class and are more in need of support ‘on the spot’, in the classroom, then specific training needs on different kind of ‘problems’ children can have.

Methodology

The aim of the research was to look into a preliminary theoretical framework on basic competences on inclusion the teacher training department has developed, based on professional experiences of the headmasters at the University College and supported by literature (Flem et al, 2004, Booth et al, 2003).

This preliminary framework included:

• a) Improving the quality of life of every child in the classroom;
• b) To differentiate without exclusion;
• c) To broaden the cooperation with parents;
• d) To cooperate with colleagues and external support;
• e) To have specific knowledge on different kind of labels children can have.
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In order to validate the preliminary framework the researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with 8 teachers within primary school. The teachers were selected on different criteria, including experience in inclusive education, different types of elementary schools and classes, and on the assumption that the researchers wanted to have teachers with an open mind about inclusion. In each class of the participants there was at least one child with a very visible disability (eg. Downsyndrom) or less visible disabilities, but all the children had a clear individual trajectory.

The aim of the research was not to evaluate the inclusion process, but to investigate which competences a teacher needs in inclusive education. Even though much research has been done on inclusive education, the voice of the teachers with experience in an inclusive classroom is often not heard.

The data were generated from semi-structured in-depth interviews, including following topics: attitude of the teacher towards inclusive education, the roll of the teacher within inclusive education, the competences (knowledge, skills and attitudes) a teacher needs in inclusive education and the consequences for the training of teachers. Interview transcripts were analysed to identify patterns and regularities, with emerging words used to create categorical themes. Two researchers independently coded the interviews, which augmented the internal reliability (Bogdan & Biklen, 1998, Maso & Smaling, 2004). In total 263 coded statements were put into the ten different categories of basic competences and attitudes a teacher must obtain, as set down by the Flemish government. After the first categorization in this framework, a second series of interviews was conducted with the same teachers and with two additional teachers with experience in inclusive education, to see if all the themes were covered or if elements were still missing.