Conference Agenda

Wellbeing in education has gained increasing attention in recent years as a vital factor in the overall success and happiness of all students (Spratt, 2017; Norwich, Moore, Stentiford, & Hall, 2021). Wellbeing for children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is equally important as it is for other children´s overall development and quality of life. Children with ADHD often need specialized support services to meet their unique needs and experience holistic wellbeing. Psychological and educational counseling, hereafter termed ‘support services’ are labeled and organized differently in various countries. Albeit the various labeling and organizations, the main objective of support systems globally is to help schools and teachers to develop supportive and inclusive learning environments for all children with a distinctive focus on children with special needs. The study aims to offer a review of how support services understand, perceive, and approach the concept of wellbeing. There are different reasons why a focus on wellbeing in relation to support services is important. First, children with special needs are globally known to suffer from lower levels of wellbeing compared to the general student population (Moreira. et al., 2015). Second, support services are also increasingly expected to help schools develop inclusive learning environments for all learners. So, there is a need to investigate how support services perceive and approach the concept of wellbeing in their work. This study seeks to contribute by providing a comprehensive, systemic, and unbiased overview of the current state of knowledge on the topic. Further, the study contributes to identifying gaps in the literature that may inform future research.

Theoretical framework: Holistic and comprehensive wellbeing

well-being is a complex construct (Ryan and Deci, 2017). Although the meaning of wellbeing has not been adequately worked out in education (Dodge, Daly, Huyton, & Sanders, 2012)., and there is little consensus on the definition of wellbeing (Hooker et al., 2020), wellbeing theories do generally agree that wellbeing is multidimensional with the number of wellbeing dimensions ranging from 3 to 12 (Roscoe, 2009). The consistency that exists in describing the nature of wellbeing in most of the models and definitions, presents common threads. First, most authors base their definition on WHO´s definition that wellbeing is not merely the absence of sickness and infirmity (Roscoe, 2009). Second, according to Roscoe, wellbeing is described as multidimensional in terms of various factors that interact in a complex, integrated and synergistic fashion. Each dimension is integral to the whole and no one dimension operates independently. They are eight dimensions that are reviewed by major theories so far (Hooker et al., 2020). They are social, physical, psychological, intellectual, spiritual, emotional, environmental, and financial (Roscoe, 2009; Adams et al, 2000; Linton, et al., 2016; Hooker, et al., 2020; Montoya, et al., 2021). Holistic and comprehensive wellbeing approach allows students to maintain a level of psychological balance that impacts their physical, social, emotional, and spiritual dimensions. A focus on strengths and personal responsibility rather than dependence or problems and a belief in the capacity to exert personal control in managing total needs. The notion of holistic and comprehensive wellbeing approach is distinct due to its focus on students’ interests, skills, strengths, abilities, and potential to achieve personal goals (Hargreaves, & Shirley, 2021). This approach engenders a positive attitude rather than focusing only on problems and issues. This perspective sparks internal motivation and strengthens an optimistic attitude. This approach offers a holistic framework in which to view a child as a whole being (physical, emotional, social, intellectual, environmental, psychological, cultural, and spiritual dimensions). This approach capitalizes on strengths, abilities, and personal aspirations to take on and fulfill meaningful roles in their learning and development.

An inclusive and equitable education is at the core of democratic societies. Over the past decades, the educational landscape has been reshaped by numerous societal changes, with the most recent pandemic highlighting educational inequalities for disadvantaged students in unprecedented ways. Mid-way through the Global Goals 2030 agenda, ensuring inclusive and equitable education for all (SGD#4) is still pivotal for promoting social democracy.  

Traditionally, research in inclusive education has addressed diversity and equality from multiple stances, with a particular interest in the school contexts and the way that teachers respond to the increasingly diverse student population. Teachers’ attitudes have been identified as one of the main elements to create an inclusive environment within mainstream school settings (EADSNE, 2010) and research on this topic is one of most prolific in the field of inclusive education (Hernández-Torrano et al., 2020).  Attitudes have been defined by Eagly and Chaiken as “a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favour or disfavour” (1993, p.1). In the school context, teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education can determine the level of inclusive practice in the classroom, where positive attitudes correspond to a higher level of inclusion for all learners (Avradimis & Norwich, 2002).

Over the past two decades, several reviews of the literature on teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion have provided an overview of the factors influencing educational practice (Guillemot et al., 2022). However, since 2002 (i.e., since the publication of the literature review conducted by Avramidis and Norwich), reviews published in this field have not adopted systematic methods or have solely focused on synthesising one type of research method design. For example, Van Steen and Wilson (2020) quantitatively summarised the individual and cultural predictors that influenced teachers’ attitudes, whereas Ewing et al. (2018) systematically reviewed the questionnaires used to explore teachers’ attitudes vis-á-vis inclusive education.

In the context of inclusive education, a mixed methods approach to investigate teachers’ attitudes, albeit limited to physical education, has been used to comprehensively synthesise empirical research evidence (Tarantino et al., 2022) and results offered an extensive view on physical education teachers’ attitude towards inclusive education. As researchers encourage the employment of mixed-methods systematic reviews to produce evidence synthesis of direct relevance to policy makers and practitioners (Pearson et al., 2015; Stern et al., 2020), this paper presents the first mixed-methods systematic review of the literature on teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education.

The aim of this review is to comprehensively synthesise quantitative and qualitative research evidence on teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education in mainstream primary and secondary schools published over the past two decades. The primary objective is to identify what influences teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education in mainstream schools. Illustrating evidence from qualitative and quantitative research designs will provide corroborating evidence for stakeholders, policy makers, and teachers educators.

Setting to be the most up-to-date comprehensive review of the literature on teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education in mainstream primary and secondary schools, this paper will offer a valuable contribution to the conference and will inform researchers and policy makers working in the field of inclusive education highlighting the implications for inclusive educational practice.

Purpose:

The purpose of this Ignite Talks presentation is to examine and discuss teacher awareness and methods of addressing various student achievement gaps and issues in Scottish secondary council schools. Emphasis will be placed on discussing those acknowledged variables that are recognized by Scottish educators as tangible factors to inhibiting student achievement at the secondary levels. This presentation will also present possible solutions currently being used globally by other educational entities with similar diverse student populations.

Current Policies in Place:

The Scottish Educational System is a devolved one in which the Scottish Government has delegated authority and autonomy to local authorities to determine catchment or district improvement plans for their local student populations. These improvement plans may vary from district to district. This is seen globally and reflects the current educational policies of the United Nations G4 Right to a Quality Education. Scotland recognizes that its students are diverse yet marginalized through various inequities. There is an acknowledged commitment to address these inequities through the educational system. The methodology used to do so is yet to be determined or implemented at this time.

Stakeholders in the Educational Process:

The presentation will also discuss the importance of the intersection of recognition and participation of all educational stakeholders (parents, community partners, teachers, therapeutic support and head teachers) in a child’s life. While it is globally acknowledged that this is a global best practice in education, the Scottish educational framework will be examined through this presentation for tangible evidence of a framework to achieve this intersection of educational stakeholders.

Teacher Agency and Activism:

The current educational climate in the United kingdom underscores that teacher agency and activism for positive educational change is visibly evident. Teachers are currently requesting that working conditions, curriculum, assessments and therapeutic support for students must be reviewed for restructuring and tangible change. Teacher preparation at the university level is also being reviewed and revised to meet the needs of a diverse and marginalized student population. Potential teachers are questioning the current status quo with respect to methodology, curriculum content and teacher practice. All of which will be discussed in this presentation.

Student Agency and Participation:

There appears to be no student agency and activism at the secondary level in Scottish Schools. How are educators empowering students to take ownership over their learning process? Do educators in Scotland see this as viable as global educators? How Can Scottish teachers empower their students to become classroom leaders and thus create sustained student learning engagement in their classrooms?

Parental Engagement and Empowerment:

Marginalized parents in an educational environment may be so for a number of reasons: they may have come through the very system their children are in and were marginalized themselves causing systemic educational trauma for them and their children. Language may be a barrier. And socio-economic constraints may be a factor. None of this precludes meaningful participation in their children’s education. How do educators in Scottish council schools partner with community stakeholders to empower parents to effectively advocate for their children’s education?

Widening perspectives of inclusive education in schools from predominately focusing on students with disability or special needs to broader notions of diversity (Claiborne & Balakrishnan, 2020), is connected to an increasing interleave between discourses on inclusion and diversity (Resch et al., 2021, 11). With regard to teacher education for inclusion, Florian and Camedda (2020, 6.) emphasize the “need to develop programmes that enable class teachers to deliver high quality inclusive education in diverse classrooms”. However, referring to a general and special education dual-degree teacher education programme, Pugach and Blanton (2012, 254) indicate that despite its goal of preparing teachers for “the full range of diversity in their student populations”, diversity was “defined more frequently as disability” (ibid., 262). Taking into account multiple, intersecting “difference categories” (Plösser & Mecheril, 2012, 797), Pugach et al. (2021, 237) emphasize the need to “complicate disability” by strengthening intersectional perspectives.

Questions of diversity also arise with regard to (future) teachers: Recently, diversity or rather the “lack of diversity within the teaching profession” (Heinz et al., 2022, 229) received more attention (e.g. on European level: Donlevy et al., 2016). Keane et al. (2022, 5) refer to the “international phenomenon” of “teaching bodies predominantly drawn from majority-group socio-demographic backgrounds”. They emphasize that “representation matters” without considering “the diversification of teaching profession as a social justice panacea” (Keane et al., 2022, 7.). Previous research on experiences of “teachers from under-represented groups” problematized “the essentialisation of minority and ‘working class’ teachers and their high levels of stress and over-burdening” (ibid.). Heinz (2015) emphasizes broadening perspectives to challenge “highly normative debates often surrounding (student) teacher’s job motivations” and to stop treating teacher education students “as one homogenous group”. This implies not only to include different “’dimensions’ of diversity” (Keane et al., 2022, 13) in research, but also questioning essentialist, often binary notions of difference: For instance, Rosen and Jacob (2021) problematize the reference to “migration background” in research on minority teachers. As pairing of ‘inclusion’ and ‘diversity’ often remains vague, Shure (2017, 649) calls for perspectives on diversity which engage with complexities, ambiguities and multiple belonging. Diversity as an analytical perspective (Sievers et al., 2013) sheds light on (re)production of “structures of power and inequality” (Ploesser & Mecheril, 2012, 799). This implies critical reflection on “perils of reification” (Kertzer, 2017) in research.

Biographical research approaches empirically analyze educational stories, understandings of belonging and positions in a contextualized way, which emphasizes complexity and ambiguity (Dausien, 2009). We present results from the ongoing project „Pathways to Teaching – (Educational) Biographies of Teacher Education Students”. Based on a reconstructive biographical research approach (Rosenthal, 2018), teacher education students’ life-historical constructions form a starting point for the overall aim to gain a deeper understanding of diversity in teaching and teacher education. The main research question is: What are the specific pathways and experiences as well as orientations of teacher education students? In this context, we are interested in the specific relevance of intersecting ‘dimensions’ of diversity and questions of (multiple) belongings as well as experiences of exclusion. Our biographical study focuses on teacher education students in the German context. Referring to Neary’s (2022) work on LGBTQI+ teachers in Ireland, Mc Daid et al. (2022, 216) point out that this reflects “a very particular social and legislative context”, while raising more general questions. By thus, taking a closer look at teacher students’ biographies in one national context, contributes to ongoing discussions on diversity and diversification concerning the (future) teaching workforce at both European and international level.

Social and education legislation and policy internationally are underpinned by the expectation that educators remove barriers to learning, emphasize inclusion, and improve access for all learners (e.g. European Union, European Education Area; UNESCO, Sustainable Development Goal 4). Research on inclusive education (Ainscow, 2022; Bešić, 2020) highlights that a shift is required from ideas of inclusive education that focus on disability, to more broadly encompassing perspectives associated with diversity framed by social justice and underpinned by theories of intersectionality and equity. Extensive investment has provided support to assist teachers to adopt these inclusive education approaches, and yet institutional (government, school) systems and traditions, along with public discourse can undermine the intent and efforts of teachers (Florian, 2021; Jensen 2018). For teachers tensions exist where on the one hand policies advocate for ‘education for all’ yet the system reflects a ‘deficit’ model through funding approaches that are focused on the individual student and their particular needs.

As initial teacher educators we, like colleagues internationally (see European Journal of Teacher Education, Vol43, 2020, Special Issue on Inclusive Education), are responding to the challenge to consider inclusive education in its broadest sense. We have a professional responsibility to ensure pre-service teachers can “respect the diversity of [learners] heritage, language, identity, and culture; … and… promote inclusive practices to support the needs of all learners” (Education Council, 2017, p.10). This aligns with the requirements to become (provisionally) registered teachers and is paralleled across European contexts and in the rhetoric of education policies. Our aim is to develop student’s critical thinking and awareness about diversity, engage students in self-reflection of their privilege and positionality within a diverse society, and present pedagogical practices that enable equitable education ‘for all’. To do this we have developed a paper/course Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing that is framed by intersectionality and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). As Banks (2023) notes teachers need access to ‘the conversation’ about diversity and inclusion to develop inclusive practices and to change systems that segregate students. This reflects the systemic approach that Guðjónsdóttir & Óskarsdóttir (2020) note is needed given that ‘teachers alone cannot be held responsible for inclusive practices’ when the conditions of schools and broader educational frameworks do not reflect diversity in the broadest sense.

The redevelopment of the 1-year (graduate/postgraduate) initial teacher education programmes offered at the University of Waikato, the Graduate Diploma in Teaching (GDipT) and parallel Postgraduate Diploma of Teaching (PGDipT), provided the opportunity to examine what teaching and learning opportunities support teaching students to enact diversity/intersectionality as inclusive and differentiated practice and pedagogies. Broadly we are framing our work as developing activist (Sachs, 2001), transformative (Mockler, 2005) professionals who are aware and able to work effectively towards developing schools that are places of diversity and are inclusive ‘of all’. Underpinned this is a commitment to social justice as a goal and a process (Bell, 2016), we drew on socio-cultural perspectives (Wenger, 1998) in acknowledging that knowing, doing, and thinking does not reside with the individual student teacher, but is site specific, temporal, and distributed across the ecological arrangements in which pre-service teachers learn and practice.

In line with the work of Florian (2012), who examined on course reforms for a similar one-year Postgraduate ITE programme in Scotland, the aim of this study was to better understand ‘How ITE curriculum and pedagogical practices (including assessments) focused on diversity, intersectionality, and differentiated practice, support pre-service teachers to develop as critical, activist, transformative professionals (effective disruptors) who can enact inclusive education in their practices as teachers?’

Early childhood education and 'school readiness are considered to be significant phases of growth and development which influence outcomes across an individual’s entire life and provides an important period of opportunity and a foundation for lifelong learning and participation (World Health Organisation 2012). Over the past 15 years, global interest in promoting school readiness has increased significantly with emerging evidence for the effectiveness of combined sector programmes particularly if provided in the first 1000 days of life (Black et al. 2017). The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations 1989) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (United Nations 2006) affirm that all children have the right to develop to their full potential and that governments should guarantee that young children with disabilities receive high-quality education.

In this presentation, drawing on a systematic literature review, I will highlight the importance of the sociocultural context of development when researching children with disabilities drawing on sociocultural theorists to conceptualise the development of the young child with a disability (Skinner and Weisner (2007), Rogoff (2003), Artiles and Kozleski (2016). I will then draw on bioecological systems theory of human development (Bronfenbrenner, 2005) to help unpack the different complexities that can arise when assessing the specific learning and care needs of a child with disability. ) Results from the systematic review will be used to compare some of the tensions that exisit on the use of the construct of 'school readiness'[ in relation to early childhood disability in UK, European and international countries.

This contribution presents the progress of a doctoral research project that aims to respond to the needs and possibilities that families have to meet and provide educational support to a son or daughter who was born with profound deafness and who has undergone cochlear implantation. According to various researchers (Bruin, 2018; Holt, Beer, Kronenberger, Pisoni & Lalonde, 2012), cooperation between different educational agents is vital for the comprehensive development of minors, with the family being a first-order entity. There are few studies in this regard, hence the importance of recovering the experiences of families to develop an inclusive education.

We can say that we are living in a unique moment in terms of medical and technological advances in the world of deafness that minimize the consequences of this disability in a society that culturally still needs to open possibilities for diversities.

One of the most notable advances is that referred to hearing. One is the hearing aid, which is an electronic device that amplifies sound and is placed behind the ear or inside the ear and is used for those who have mild or medium hearing loss. Parallel to the advances in hearing aids, in the mid-20th century important achievements were made in another type of prosthesis, the so-called cochlear implants (CI), for people with profound bilateral hearing loss. According to the Spanish Confederation of Families of Deaf People (FIAPAS), this device is recognized by the scientific community as one of the historical advances of the last century, which has changed the lives of more than half a million people in the world (... ), making it possible for deaf children to have better access to oral language at an early age and to the learning that derives from it.

Together with speech therapists, schools and health professionals, the involvement of parents with minors is considered a key to achieving the success of mentioned rehabilitation (Juan, 2016; Santana & Moreno-Torres, 2012). As Schlesinger points out (in Lutterman, 2009), the best predictor of literacy for these children is found in the linguistic interaction between parents/guardians and children, which he called the elusive “X factor”. This factor turned out to be of greater importance than social class, economic status of families or IQ.

On the other hand, article number 9 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNESCO, 2006), defines “accessibility as a necessary condition for persons with disabilities to be able to enjoy the same goods and services on equal terms. And in its article 24, it explains that "disabled people can access inclusive, quality education, on an equal footing with others and in the communities in which they live", therefore promoting access to this type of resource or interventions becomes essential to ensure the rights of people with disabilities.

Within this framework, this research seeks to deepen the understanding of the role of normal-hearing families with deaf children with CI and, in this way, attend to the different experiences, strategies and trajectories that ensure inclusion. It focuses on studying family contexts of CI users for two reasons: on the one hand, it is an autoethnographic study, since the doctoral student is the mother of an implanted child and, on the other hand, although many of the strategies and experiences can be similar to that of minors with hearing aids, many of the family knowledge networks move through different spaces since the type of prosthesis generates differences in care, in programming, and in the resources around them.

It is well established that educational outcomes and schooling experiences can be enhanced when parents are involved in and engaged in their child’s education (Wilder, 2014; Yotyodying & Wild, 2019). Communicating and working with parents is an important part of a teacher’s role, yet there is little published that shares parents’ experiences of these interactions (Ellis et al., 2015), especially the experiences of parents of children with specific educational needs (Paccaud et al., 2021). It has been reported that parents of children with disability can find it more difficult to communicate with teachers than parents of children without disability (Leenders et al., 2019); therefore, this is an important area for further research in the field of inclusive education. This aim of this qualitative study was to learn about the experiences of parents of primary school aged children with disability specifically relating to their communication, consultation and collaboration with teachers on relating to teaching and learning. The decision was made to compare the experiences of parents of children with disability in Australia and Ireland given the similar disability legislation and teacher professional standards in each country. In both countries, teachers are legally required to consult and collaborate with parents of children with disability in the educative process (Commonwealth of Australia, 1992, 2005; Houses of the Oireachtas, 2005). Furthermore, teachers in both countries are also expected to work with and communicate sensitively and effectively with parents in the educative process as part of meeting teacher professional standards (AITSL, 2017; Teaching Council, 2016). However, little information or elaboration is provided for teachers and schools about consultation or what effective communication with parents should look like. Therefore, it is understandable that communication and consultation between teachers and parents is variable given the lack of clarity and information for teachers about this important aspect of their role. While legislation and professional standards place an emphasis on teachers consulting and communicating with parents in the educative process, reviews of legislation in Australia have reported that parents often feel frustrated and excluded from decisions about their child’s education as well as feeling that their knowledge about their child and their disability is not valued by teachers or school leaders (DESE, 2021).

In this study, the decision was made to focus on the experiences of parents of children with the most common neurodevelopmental disorders (specifically autism spectrum disorder, attention hyperactivity disorder and specific learning disorders), as children with these disabilities have specific educational needs. The focus on parents of primary school aged children was chosen as it has been identified that parental involvement is especially important at this stage of schooling (Leenders et al., 2019). This study draws on literature from the fields of inclusive education, family-school partnerships, teacher professional standards, and parent voice to learn more about the experiences of parents of children with disability in both Australia and Ireland to inform teacher preparation and policy relating to this aspect of inclusive education.

In the course of inclusion and the digital transformation processes in schools and teaching, writing is taking on an increasingly significant role. However, the DESI study (Deutsch Englisch Schülerleistungen International) in Germany and the NAEP study (National Assessment of Educational Progress) in the USA show that many students fail to successfully write high-quality texts (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012, 2019; Neumann & Lehmann, 2008). There is a high demand for appropriate and effective support tools for inclusive education. For this reason, the digital application "Reise nach Narrativa digital - eine Welt voller Geschichten" (Journey to Narrativa digital - A World full of Stories) was developed for 5th grade students, which uses a structured set-up to guide students systematically and motivationally through the complex writing process from an initial collection of ideas to a finished story (Schröder & Vierbuchen, 2021). In this study, the question is investigated whether this digital support application supports heterogeneous learning groups in class 5 in writing their stories.
A quantitative longitudinal main study in a pre-post follow-up control group design was chosen as the research design to examine the effectiveness in terms of the positive development of quantitative and qualitative text quality as indicators of narrative writing competence. The web application was tested on a sample of n=243 students in seven middle schools in Lower Saxony in Germany over a period of eight weeks. The results show a mixed picture. The quantity of stories written improved only marginally for the pupils in the experimental group. The quality of the stories, which is subdivided into holistic and analytical text quality, shows a positive development trend at the post time compared to the control group, which decreases at the third measurement point. Students with a diagnosed special educational need for learning benefit especially from writing with the digital writing support tool, which was demonstrated by the significant improvement in the quantity of their stories. In addition, it was found that the characteristic of the students, such as gender and family language background, made no difference to the support.
Overall, the web application, as a meaningful didactic embedding in the classroom, can contribute to the support of narrative writing competence and helps the students in their writing process.

Assessments play an important role in the education of all students. They measure skills or knowledge in a standardized way and provide important information for further support (Lai & Schildkamp, 2013). In school performance, for example, they refer to crucial skills, such as reading. Reading is essential for academic success, and early identification of reading difficulties is important for providing appropriate support (Hakkarainen et al., 2013). Reading screenings therefore are well established in practice and can be used in combination with formative diagnostics (Fuchs et al. 2007). Supporting students with learning disabilities (LD) is an important aspect of inclusive education and early identification of reading difficulties is crucial for providing appropriate support (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2011). To measure more reliably, more quickly and thus more efficiently, the use of technology in education has grown significantly in recent years, and the integration of digital tools in assessment practices has the potential to improve the assessment process (Timmis et al. 2016). Adaptive assessments, in particular, present a perspective on the simultaneous testing of a heterogeneous, diverse student body (Stone & Davey, 2011).

The study is embedded in a larger project, in which a digital adaptive reading screening is to be developed freely available for teachers. Therefore, the study investigates the results of two data collections using different versions of the German inclusive reading screening “Les-In”. The initial version of the screening was developed as a paper-based test (Ebenbeck et al., 2022) and administered to a sample of 700 third graders, with 5% of the students having a LD. Results indicated that two out of four subtests did not measure as broad as expected (subtest 2: Mdn_σ=-0.14, M_σ=0, SD_σ=1.70; subtest 3: Mdn_σ=-0.12, M_σ=0, SD_σ=0.66). Also, ceiling effects in the summative scores (subtest 2: n_items=34, Mdn_sum=31 , M_sum=29.30, SD_sum=3.22; subtest 3: n_items=25, Mdn_sum=25, M_sum=23.37, SD=4.08) indicate the missing of harder items. Because of those reasons, the subtests were modified. The modified tasks were then integrated into a digital version of the test on the web-based platform Levumi.de (Jungjohann et al., 2018). The digital test was administered to a sample of 400 second to fourth graders, with 7% of the students having a LD.

At the student level, the study examines the extent to which reading skills differ between students with and without LD and whether there is overlap between student groups. At the test level, the study examines whether the modification of the two tasks has added psychometrical value and whether the tasks can now more accurately measure students across a broader range of performance. For this purpose, the results of the digital screening are considered both individually and in comparison with the analog version. The results show that the change in tasks had the desired effect, and students with and without disabilities can now be measured more accurately across a broader range of performance (subtest 2: Mdn_σ=0.10, M_σ=0, SD_σ=0.89; subtest 3: Mdn_σ=-0.39, M_σ=0, SD_σ=0.81). The results also indicate that there are differences in the reading performance of students with and without LD, as students with LD show lower reading skills in the tasks. The extent to which the results can be used to expand the digital screening into an adaptive digital screening is further evaluated and discussed. Further discussed is the extent to which inclusive screening assessments should relate primarily to the low-ability domain, and the extent to which the value of diversity of students with and without disabilities and their individual learning levels and reading abilities can and must be considered in the development of assessments.

Digitalization can support inclusive teaching (Autenrieth & Nickel, 2020; Brüggemann, 2019). To successfully use digital learning materials in class, teacher attitudes towards the use of digital tools, devices and materials in the classroom matter (Schmidt-Hertha, 2020) and teacher training is necessary (Buchner, 2018; Lorenz & Endberg, 2019). To successfully implement (digital) materials in lessons with a diverse student body, often, the material needs to be adapted according to student needs, which can be achieved through differentiation (Kurth et al., 2015).

This paper introduces the project "RegiNaDiff” (Regional, Sustainable and Differentiated in Class. Starting the green transformation in School; 11/2021 to 01/2023) that combines different opportunities to provide inclusive teaching and learning. In the project, we trained teachers to produce, differentiate and digitalize content lesson materials to then implement it in their classrooms in order to teach inclusively.

In the predecessor project RegioDiff (Discovering the regions of Styria: Differentiated materials for inclusive content lessons in Grade 4; Paleczek, 2020), we developed a digital learning environment that provided students with differentiated texts and evidence-based tasks (Hattie, 2008; Spörer et al., 2009) on different topics. The implementation was evaluated, and the learning environment was adapted according to teacher and student feedback. One of the feedbacks provided by the teachers was that they would need more topics that are compatible with the curriculum as well as meeting their students individual learning needs and interests.

Therefore, we trained the teachers to produce their own digital materials in the project RegiNaDiff. Guided in a teacher training, teachers wrote texts on different sustainability topics. Then they differentiated them into four difficulty levels, enriched the material with tasks known to support reading comprehension: reading strategy, reading comprehension and cooperative tasks as well as a glossary for difficult words were added. In RegiNaDiff, we developed an editor that enabled the teachers to digitalize and embed this differentiated and enriched material in the browser-based learning management system that then could be used in their classrooms.

Twelve teachers from Grades 4 and 5 participated in the project-based teacher training in spring 2022. Working cooperatively in pairs, they created a total of seven different topics (e.g., second hand, environmental pollution, electricity) with texts and tasks in four different difficulty levels. We accompanied this process with a mixed-methods approach to answer the following research questions:

a) What part of the process (writing, differentiating, digitalizing) was most challenging for the teachers and why?

b) How did the teachers experience working with the editor in digitalizing their own content lesson materials? What adaptations regarding the usability of the editor did they suggest?

c) How did teachers perceive the teacher training and continuous feedback from the project team? How can future teacher trainings on creating differentiated digitized materials be designed to support teachers in the best possible way?

d) How did teachers and students evaluate the materials? Which elements of the digital texts (e.g., reading comprehension tasks, words in the glossary, cooperative working) did they like or dislike and why?

Since the 1980’s it has been widely argued that technology has the potential to improve the lives of people with learning disabilities. Education, health and social care professionals working with children and young adults with learning disabilities have therefore used a wide range of technologies in order to teach a wide range of skills including basic literacy and numeracy skills, communication and social skills and independent living skills such as shopping and wayfinding. (Seale, 2014; 2022). In contrast, many people with learning disabilities themselves tend to highlight other motivations for using technology such as engaging in leisure pursuits, making friends and finding partners (Martin et al. 2021).

Although technology has the potential to facilitate positive experiences and outcomes for people with learning disabilities, prior to the pandemic, there was evidence that many people with learning disabilities were not experiencing these benefits and were therefore digitally excluded (Normand et al. 2016; Seale & Chadwick, 2017). The most commonly talked about cause of digital exclusion for people with learning disabilities was a lack of access (Ågren , Kjellberg and Hemmingsson 2020). This lack of access was experienced by people with learning disabilities in a number of ways: not being able to afford to buy the technologies (Sallafranque-St-Louis and Normand 2017); not being assessed by education, health and social care services as requiring technology (Tanis et al. 2012); the technology being too difficult to use because it has not been designed with the needs of people with learning disabilities in mind (Williams and Hennig, 2015) and not being assisted to use technology by those in support roles such as teachers, parents and care workers (Ramsten, Martin, Dag et al. 2019).

During the pandemic, and in particular periods of government imposed ‘lock-downs’, Internet-enabled devices such as personal computers, laptops, tablets, and Smartphones and applications such as email, Zoom, Facebook and WhatsApp became essential tools because they enabled us to communicate with others, access information or services and engage in leisure, educational and therapeutic activities. However, given that many young people with learning disabilities were digitally excluded prior to the pandemic, an obvious assumption to make is that they would not be supported to access and use technologies during the pandemic.

In 2020 I conducted a study which aimed to investigate whether and how people with learning disabilities in the UK were being supported to use technologies during the pandemic. I interviewed a range of people who had informal or formal support roles including parents, siblings, education, health and social care professionals, day service and supported living providers and advocacy organisations. In this paper I will focus specifically on the results from interviews conducted with education professionals. I will present case studies of three teachers who took part in the interviews. One teacher works in a further education college teaching students who have severe or profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD); one teacher works in a special school as a PMLD teacher in the post-16 unit and one teacher works in further education college teaching cooking, drama and arts to adults with learning disabilities. I will use the framework of ‘possibility-focused support’ (Seale, 2022) to analyse these case studies and explore the practices that the teachers were adopting in order to use technologies to continue providing educational opportunities for young people with learning disabilities. I will discuss the implications of these findings for post pandemic teaching practice in relation to reducing the digital exclusion of young people with learning disabilities and preparing them to engage in the digital world.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the value of digitally mediated teaching and learning practices in stigmatised schools as schools of particular complexity.

In a neoliberal context, schools have become part of market policies (Wilson & Bridge, 2019), and thus the conquest of new strategies to improve student performance determines their survival (Ball, 2012). In this framework, schools with "special difficulty" lose visibility to certain population groups, partly as a result of negative media representations (Vigo & Dieste, 2017) and by the force of anything that becomes "normal." In these schools a population in a situation of social, cultural, economic or geographical disadvantage is concentrated, to which the consequences of the digital divide are added. The position of "special difficulty" school thus represents exclusion within inclusion in the Spanish educational system. Policies that reinforce the existence of these schools do not prevent the reproduction of inequalities (Beach et al., 2013).

In these schools, complex realities converge, which drive the teaching staff to develop creative teaching practices in order to respond to their socio-educational needs (Vigo & Soriano, 2014). They are practices based on relevance and connection with the possibilities of their context and with the experiences of people in their community (Beach & Dovemark, 2007; Vigo, 2021). Pactices that succeed in opening up spaces for educational innovation from an inclusive perspective within the school institution (Craft, 2014; Vigo & Soriano, 2014).

At the same time, international and national documents (e.g. UNESCO, 2019) highlight the role that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) occupy and should occupy in the personal, social, and educational field. Research questions the potential of ICT itself (Schnaider & Gu, 2022) and even raises that they can be an obstacle to social transformation processes when the complexity of the educational reality (Sancho-Gil et al., 2020) and the needs of the school community (Grimaldi & Ball, 2019; Sancho, 2008) are ignored in their use. Thus, the transformative potential of digital media would depend on the teacher's ability to connect the practices they develop in the classroom with the needs, life, and experiences of their students while generating new ways of being and working with digital media (del Moral et al., 2013; Susinos et al., 2019). This should involve taking into account the voice of the students when deciding what and how to learn (Messiou et al., 2020), especially in disadvantaged environments where students have a greater dependence on the school to access these media (Morales, 2017).

Given the above, studies have analysed what happens in the "special difficulty" schools with digital media, focusing on the consequences of the digital divide (e.g. Correa and De Pablos, 2009). In this context, there is interest and need to know how digital media is used in special difficulty schools to allow students' lives and voices into the school. This research aims to explore the use of digital media by teaching staff in disadvantaged schools. The s research questions are:

- When teachers in special education schools use digital media in their classroom practices, do they consider the voice and life of their students?

- What practices does the teacher develop using digital media that take into account the voice and life of their students?

The objective of the research is twofold. First, it aims to find out if teachers in special dificulty schools incorporate the voice and life of their students when using digital media in their classroom practices. On the other hand, the study aims to explore how teachers in special education schools incorporate the voice and life of their students when using digital media in the classroom.

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, digitization became highly relevant for schools and caused major challenges not only for all European countries, but also countries around the world (Katic et al., 2021; Faridah et al., 2021; Hamad, 2022). The sudden school closures required large adaptations of teaching practices, especially the application of digital technologies and implementation of methods of distance learning. Many studies examined the impact of the pandemic as well as its challenges on all school participants (e.g., Fickermann & Edelstein, 2020; Huber et al., 2020). In comparison, only a few addressed the identification of learning potentials or implications for digital or inclusive school development. Digitization can be seen as a way to maximize participation in school life and thus contribute to school inclusion, which aims to reduce discrimination and maximize educational opportunities and social participation for all students (Arndt & Werning, 2017; Ainscow et al., 2006; Hartung et al., 2021).

The concepts of inclusion and digitization are essentially important for everyday school life and, in combination, they can offer opportunities for school development processes (Hartung et al., 2021). This potential could help reaching and including all students in classrooms. For a successful implementation of inclusive school development processes, all participants of school are highly relevant. Furthermore, for the successful implementation of a digital-inclusive school development, the involvement of all school stakeholders and high-quality interdisciplinary and multiprofessional collaboration in the school are required (Arndt & Werning, 2016; Lütje-Klose & Urban, 2014; Prengel, 2020). A sound interprofessional collaboration is an important precondition of inclusion as well as for digitization.

The factors for successful implementation of inclusion and digitization in schools intersect at the teacher level. These include: existing expertise, a positive attitude and conviction toward the concepts and practical implementation, and a certain willingness to be innovative (Hartung et al., 2021). Particularly teachers' experiences with digital media in everyday school and classroom practice is a necessary prerequisite for digital-inclusive school development. It is recommended to define research-based indicators for (digital-) inclusive school development which consider the practical experiences of all actors in the school system (Arndt & Werning, 2017). Thus, it is relevant to analyze the experiences made in using digital resources in teaching and learning with a special focus on the potential to promote inclusion.

This paper aims to show what experiences Austrian teachers have gained with digital media in pandemic distance-learning and how these can contribute to digital-inclusive school development. The focus was to examine the handling and development process of distance learning, the use of digitally inclusive practices and the transfer of “new” methods of teaching in pandemic-times into the regular face-to-face school setting.

If we look deeply enough, we should be able to see the developing story of inclusion unfolding across our academies in educational research, research processes, and identify how we as researchers connect with developing practice. But is the story unfolding as we think it is?

The literature shares a story of past and present thinking, experiences, and outcomes, while also sharing views, emotion, and concerns. Expressions, terminologies, style, and tone build a story and inform learners and future practitioners – but is the story of “inclusion in education” connected with the contemporary world of learning and participation in our academies?

How much attention are we paying to the growing depth and breadth of the conversation that is “inclusion” and how it relates to the topic of “inclusive education” as we know it? The story of disability in education is evolving and while this is resulting in a change across the literature in terms of language, concepts, approaches and moreover tone, it is acknowledged that defining “inclusion” in education is complex (Griffin & Shevlin 2011; Shevlin & Flynn 2011) .

This paper presents the story of inclusion in an educational research journey. In the first instance, a zero result in a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) that the first author carried out as part of her doctoral research flagged the difference in terminology, language, tone, and approach across the different texts. The development of an “Inclusion as Process” (Quirke, Mc Guckin, & McCarthy, 2022) reflexive method allowed an exploration regarding what we perceive to be a disjointed and disconnected literacy within this area.

The apparent shift in language as Special Education shifted to Inclusive Education approaches and a further shift again as Universal Design for Learning (UDL) theories (Rose & Meyer, 2006) and thinking emerged was observed. Moreover, much of the literature on “inclusion” in education remains focused on disability and while there has been a move away from the “disabling” approach of the medical model (McCarthy & Shevlin, 2017 ) it raised the question as to whether a legacy of this thinking still lingers in the field of education and poses the interesting question – “is this a risk for the “inclusion” we seek today?”

While the language and terminology continue to evolve with new words and expressions continuing to develop, this presented another consideration – are the inclusive approaches as framed by the UDL approach being adopted on our own campuses, aligned with our approaches in inclusion in education?

UDL is shifting the focus to “designing” and is an approach that results in a significant change from previous approaches to disability. But as we engage with UDL, do we also need a more balanced and nuanced approach to “inclusion” if we are to teach, research and practice it. As we engage with more contemporary theories and relate them to our own academic practice how do we authentically place a diversity of learners, including learners with a disability, at the center of our own academic work?

Is it time to perhaps reconsider our own contributions to the body of literature and facilitate a shared understanding of terms, language and embrace an awareness of the reader, while appreciating the effect on “professional practice”. While this asks for change – if we fully appreciate and develop inclusion across education, we need to recognised the inbuilt legacy from previous practice and theoretical foundations that may in fact be hindering future development, even in our midst. Is it time to acknowledge the wider discourse that is happening across higher education in relation to the concept of “inclusion” itself?

Expertise by experience has been a recognized and legitimate form of knowledge production in disability studies for several decades. However, the question of linking the dominant modes of knowledge production in the university to expertise by experience of people with disabilities has been limited to the fields of social work (Skilton, 2011; Wilken et al, 2020) and disability studies (Kearns & Carton, 2020). In a seminal essay, Vasilis Galis (2011) linked the potential of lived experience of disability to contribute and shape the ontological politics of disability to the normalization of ‘research in the wild’ (Calon & Rabeharisoa, 2003). Despite its rather stigmatizing denomination, ‘research in the wild’ is a form of researching outside of universities and research centers done in hybrid collectives that bring together researchers and people who are directly concerned with the condition or situation under study. How relevant is such an approach to transforming the university towards a more inclusive academic space?

In our exploration, we wish to reflect on the modalities and potentialities of producing knowledge in a hybrid form within the university in a context of dialogic learning. In this, we will reflect on a participatory action research process that brings together students with disabilities and researchers working from a social work, a special education and a policy disciplinary background on disability in higher education.

The initial focus of the project has been on understanding how the Covid-19 pandemic was experienced by students with disabilities from the perspective of their academic participation. The rationale behind choosing the topic was motivated by the fact that remote online or blended higher education has increased the access of people with disabilities to higher education (Renes, 2015). With the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic through the mainstreaming of emergency remote teaching and learning (Hodges et al 2020) in universities, we wondered whether the academic access and participation of students with disabilities may be enhanced by this context. At the same time, we asked whether since the switch from face to face education to emergency remote teaching and learning had been done overnight, accessibility needs of students with disabilities were not neglected in the fast process of transition (Meleo- Erwin et al 2021). Thus we wanted to construct a dialogic space in which together with students with disabilities to explore what barriers and opportunities remote learning had brought to their lives?

This dialogic space was influenced by a Freirean approach (1996), seeking to understand collectively and articulate a project for what a more inclusive post-pandemic university can look like (for a similar approach, pre pandemic see also Morina et al 2016). In this investigation what was significant to us was to create a space within the university in which students with disabilities expertise via experience would meet the academic expertise of faculty working on disability inclusion from educational and social work perspectives in order to produce knowledge oriented towards transforming the university. In the following, we would like to present one of the concerns that emerged as part of our project, namely the ways in which in this participatory action research project dialogic learning occurred as a basis for knowledge production. We do this by seeking to answer the research question: How did practices of dialogic learning facilitate knowledge circulation between participants in a participatory action research project aimed at transforming the university towards a more inclusive university?

The importance of social factors on access and equity in higher education based on the views of students, lecturers, and managers at the university is evident (authors, 2022b). In the present study, we want to understand the role of social (f)actors in more detail and discuss the role and mechanisms of social factors based on successful alumni views (former Bidikmisi recipients) and their experiences during their studies. Authors (2022a) identified that social factors appear to be crucial factors in (both) access and equity in higher education, however, how these factors contribute to students’ success and interact remains still largely unknown. Therefore, the present study intends to look at the role and effect of social factors (provided by family, peers, teachers, and lecturers), starting from the time before entering university (access) and during the process of studying at university (equity).

Social support plays a crucial role in access and equity in higher education and refers to the role of family (parents and other family members), peers (in both high school and university), teachers, and lecturers (authors, 2022a). Support provided by these actors is different from one student to another student. Therefore, the present study aims to provide a detailed explanation of which, how, and to what extent support provided by these actors has influenced access and equity in higher education of individual alumni according to their own perceptions.

The main research question of this study is as follows; (i) What roles do social factors play in access and equity for LSES (Bidikmisi alumni) in the Indonesian university context?, (ii) What do we learn more about the role of social factors when asking successful Bidikmisi alumni for their experiences?

The notion of social support in the context of higher education is significant as all students regardless of race, gender, or social class must cope with the transition from high school to and through college (Evans et al., 1998); subsequently, transitioning from one environment to another can be considered a stressful life event and social support can serve to aid in a student's ability to cope with said stressors (Carter-Francique, Hart, & Cheeks, 2015). Social networks are, however, often conceptualized rather loosely, with little attention to the varieties of networks and the different forms of support they may provide (Ryan, Sales, Tilki, & Siara, 2008).

Understanding how a person's social networks can provide social support and benefit with regard to access and equity in higher education for low SES students might increase their chances for successfully starting and completing university education. Rodriguez & Cohen (1998) conveyed three functions of social support, namely instrumental, informational, and emotional. Instrumental support involves the provision of material aid, for example, financial assistance. Informational support refers to the provision of relevant information intended to help the individual cope with current difficulties and typically takes the form of advice or guidance. Emotional support involves the expression of empathy, caring, reassurance, and trust, and provides opportunities for emotional expression.

These social support functions - emotional, informational, and instrumental - from Rodriguez & Cohen are used in recent research on the role of social support (see Vekkaila, et al, 2018; Lloyd-Jones, 2021; Hernandez, et al, 2021; Saefudin, et al 2021). Therefore, this study uses Rodriguez & Cohens approach to social support to analyze the role of social factors to support access and equity in higher education for LSES students. These categories might be helpful in understanding the role of social factors for LSES students in Indonesia who receive Bidikmisi at a deeper level. While most findings on this topic discuss government policies and financial support (authors, 2022a) and GPA (authors, 2022c).

This paper aims to describe how pupils, caregivers and education professionals make sense of ‘a pupil with autism’, the implications that follow for the pedagogical agenda and, in a broader sense, the idea of the person with autism as diverse or different. This paper presents the results of a study involving 23 pupils with an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis, 18 education professionals (teachers, head teachers, members of the Pupil Health Team), and 22 caregivers.

The research was located in two special educational settings in Sweden and applies a methodology of text analysis developed at the University of Padua, Italy, never previously applied in studies concerning pupils with psychiatric diagnoses.

The results show how the education professionals are working toward diversity, i.e. understanding the pupils as individuals and striving to incorporate the diagnosis as a part of the individual rather than the central aspect. However, the pupils themselves and the caregivers rather move toward understanding the diagnosis as central and the pupils as different from others. These results are relevant considering the idea of inclusion and diversity in school and the implications of understanding the person with autism as diverse or essentially different from other people, in school as well as later in life.

The research connects to several international/European discussions among which:

a) the possibility of working toward inclusion while also practicing differentiation in placement for certain groups of pupils;

b) how to achieve an educational trajectory that allows the pupils to realise their full potential;

c) how to move toward the aim of the pupils becoming active members of the broader society and

d) the implications of understanding the pupils (the person) with autism as diverse and different.

Children on the autism spectrum often struggle to complete their education in unspecialized schools, even when their intellectual abilities would suggest differently (Manti et al., 2011). We seek to identify which factors may contribute to the academic outcomes of autistic children. Social skills have been identified to significantly influence academic outcomes in neurotypical children (Meier et al., 2006) as well as in autistic children (Miller et al., 2017). However, this may be even more pertinent in autistic children as they tend to struggle with socio-emotional skills (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) and to face social exclusion more often than their neurotypical peers (Humphrey & Lewis, 2008). Since children learn social skills for a major part in interaction with their parents (Ladd, 2005) and parents of autistic children were found to interact significantly less with their children than parents of neurotypical children (Costa et al., 2019), children on the autism spectrum may be exposed to an even more increased risk for academic underachievement. Meanwhile, the reduced interaction could relate to findings, stating that parents and especially mothers of autistic children have a higher incidence of negative psychological outcomes (depression, anxiety, emotional distress) than parents of neurotypical children (Mugno et al., 2007).

Furthermore, living in a multilingual environment, such as is increasingly the case worldwide but particularly in countries such as Luxembourg, while having impaired (pragmatic) language skills (Miller et al., 2017), autistic children may face additional challenges in social communication and academic achievement. Language barriers may impede their participation in class and understanding of academic content and thus hinder proper socialization and integration among their peers. The choice of language(s) could further influence children’s cognition since language was found to be tightly interrelated with cognitive concepts and the categorization of abstract information (Perlovsky, 2009a). For example, categorical perception of color in prelinguistic babies was found to be based in the right cerebral hemisphere. However, when starting language acquisition and learning of lexical color terminologies, categorical perception of color transitions, such that adults’ categorical perception of color is based in the left hemisphere, where language mechanisms are located (Franklin et al., 2008).

In addition, the degree of parents’ familiarity with the language used to interact with their autistic child was found to play a role in parents’ ability to feel comfortable, authentic, and free to express themselves (Franco et al., in preparation). Thus, the language used in autism families may affect the parent-child relationship, the overall family dynamic, and the mental health of family members (Jegatheesan, 2011). Language was also found to influence emotion expression abilities, such that languages have different levels of emotionality (Guttfreund 1990; Perlovsky, 2009b) and that our most intense emotions are often, and sometimes instinctively, expressed in our mother tongue (Zentella, 1997). In line with this previous research, the present study investigates the interrelation between autistic children’s language, socio-emotional skills, parent-child relationship, and academic outcomes.

This research study investigates the views and attitudes of Cypriot teachers towards the inclusive education policy of pupils with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The purpose of this research is to conduct a formative assessment regarding teachers’ views on the education of children with ASD, the training of these teachers on the topic of inclusive education and their satisfaction with the implementation of inclusive education. The sample of the study consists of primary school teachers, who teach in three schools with Special Education Units (SEU) and three schools without SEUs, in the Limassol district. The research had two phases. They initially completed a questionnaire and then interviews were undertaken, based on the data derived from the questionnaires.

The educational system in Cyprus is highly centralized with policies and funding, administration and pedagogy centrally developed by the government (Symeonidou, 2002). The existing legislation is a major step towards the integration of children with disabilities in mainstream schools and the alignment of the Cypriot education system with international practice (Angelides, Vrasida and Charalambous, 2004). However, there are still some important ideological controversies that concern the rhetoric of integration and the implementation of segregating practices (Liasidou, 2007a). Numerous researchers stress the importance of the exploration of teachers’ professional background and their attitudes and beliefs regarding inclusive education, for the successful adoption of an inclusive approach to education, as they are the eventual implementers of integration or inclusive practices (Symenidou and Phtiaka, 2009).

The literature review led me identify that the issue of the inclusive education of pupils with special needs in Cyprus, particularly children with ASD, in mainstream education has been addressed only from a legal-administration and organizational aspect. The educational and emotional aspects of the issue have not been addressed for far by the scholarly literature, lacking research and empirical data. Furthermore, it has not addressed, in any consistent way, the link between the problems that impact children with ASD and the creation of an inclusive educational environment especially for them. Most of the research in Cyprus school set up to this day comprised of data collected for special needs in general, inclusion for children with disabilities or perceptions on inclusive education of children with disabilities, and none for ASD specifically. This has led to the need for further investigation of teachers’ perceptions regarding inclusive education of children with ASD, and the present research study.

Therefore, main objective of the current study is to investigate teachers’ perceptions on Inclusive Education, explicitly for children with ASD, in Cyprus, the training of these on the topic of inclusive education and their satisfaction with the implementation of inclusive education.

Hence, for the purposes of this conference I will be presenting the outcomes from the second stage of my research study, consisting of the description and analysis of the data collected from a semi – structured interviews to the educational staff of six schools, of all positions and specializations.

The lack of time when working with preschoolers is a massive problem that not only places a burden on educational professionals, but also has a significant negative impact on the quality of the educational process in preschool work (Sheridan, 2007; Ugaste & Niikko, 2015) and on parental work, which is important for children's development (Ma et al., 2016). And that’s an international issue.

International evidence shows that individual support for children's educational processes in inclusive settings plays a key role in determining their long-term school success and the course of their educational biography (Petriwskyj et al., 2014; Siraj-Blatchford et al., 2008). At the same time, studies show that educational professionals do not always succeed to the necessary extent in responding to each individual child, in grasping his or her individual learning situation in the various domains, in picking up on his or her educational aspirations and in even being able to perceive as such educational opportunities that are important for the individual child (Hasselhorn & Kuger, 2014; Smidt, 2012). This is in clear contradiction to the inclusive understanding of education as well as to the rights of the child to the development of their personal potential and the promotion of their individual education as enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In the course of the educational disadvantages of children, which have once again drastically increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic (Kuger et al., 2022; Quenzer-Alfred et al., 2022), and the massive challenges in educational work with children with refugee experiences, this is an unacceptable current state.

So far, various causes for the insufficient individual support of children in preschool have been identified: These include, on the one hand, low domain-specific knowledge, inadequate support attitudes and a lack of diagnostic skills (Kluczniok et al., 2011; Vaz et al., 2015). Only recently has the lack of time and staff been discussed in this context, which, according to the latest findings, leads to a de-professionalisation of the field as well as to a negative influence on the pedagogical process quality. Recent studies show that a lack of time leads to a massive restriction of the ability to act, a chronic overload and thus to a successive limitation of the options for action (Rosenkranz, Schütz & Klusemann, 2023). In this respect, there is a desideratum with regard to the theoretical modelling and empirical testing of a competence model for the activation of domain-specific professional and methodological competences of inclusive educational support in settings where time is scarce.

Two research questions will be answered:

1) What influence does the lack of time have on the competent use of observation and documentation procedures in inclusive educational work in preschool to record the learning situation and the concrete support of the individual child derived from this by educational professionals (Study A)?

2) What requirements for competence development and professionalisation in dealing with time constraints can be derived from best practice as well as worst case examples of inclusive educational work in the use of observation and documentation procedures and the support of children (Study B)?

From the findings of the empirical examination of both research questions, the components of the competence model for the activation of domain-specific subject and methodological competences of inclusive education work are derived and their interdependencies are described.

In England, the DfE White Paper (2022a, p. 16), proposes that by 2030 ‘every child will be taught by an excellent teacher trained in the best-evidenced teaching method to help (each) child reach their full potential’. This document also identifies a commitment to training on behaviour management, adaptive teaching, and curriculum design, with the intention of helping every teacher and leader to support all pupils to succeed, including those identified with SEN/D. This is situated in a context where reviewing and evaluating the progress of pupils with SEN/D has been found to be the least developed aspect of schools’ SEN/D support (DfE, 2021), where staff do not always know pupils well enough to take an informed pupil-centred approach when identifying needs and planning provision (Dobson & Douglas, 2020), where schools may be teaching a curriculum to pupils that is not properly sequenced or well matched to their needs, and where questions exist about what ‘success’ looks in terms of supporting children with SEN/D in mainstream school (Ofsted, 2021).

Within this context, consultation around the SEND Review: Right Support, Right Place, Right Time (DfE, 2022b), identifies the need for schools to change their cultures and practices to be more inclusive and better at identifying and supporting needs, and to improve workforce training (NASEN, 2022). However, a significant barrier to implementing the reforms is professional development of the workforce. Whilst training for SENCos in non-statutory school-age settings is being extended, the SEND review (DfE, 2022b) proposes to change mandatory SENCo training from a master’s level post graduate certificate (PGCert) to a National Professional Qualification (NPQ), where project work can be signed off by a school principal. This is relevant to the European context, since broader trends, including SENCo training and retention (Hammerness et al, 2005; Dobson & Douglas, 2020), and leadership in inclusion (Lindqvist & Nilholm, 2014; Fitzgerald & Radford, 2022) apply beyond the UK.

This presentation will report on a small-scale project that captured the experiences, explanations and impacts of students completing the mandatory National Award for Special Education Needs Co-ordination (NASENCo) course at a West Midlands university. The purpose of the research was to identify the impact the NASENCo had on student’s knowledge, skills, confidence and practice, as well as student perceptions of the current course and proposed changes, so as to inform future development and evolvement of courses, be they a more work-based NPQ or Level 7 (L7). The research questions created to drive the study were:

RQ1: What main impacts do NASENCo students identify L7 study has had on their professional practice as SENCos?

RQ2: What are NASENCo students’ experiences of studying at L7 as part of their SENCo training?

RQ3: What are the perceptions of NASENCo students of the possible links between L7 study and outcomes for SEN/D pupils?

The research adopts a post-structuralist approach. Post-structuralism argues that ‘true’ meanings, as derived from the universal systems behind them, including dominant discourses do not exist since language and culture themselves are constructed by humans, meaning they are subject to influence and modification, often based on experience or the impact and interaction of multiple factors present in the settings SENCos work within. This contrasts with structuralism which proposes that rules and approaches are applicable regardless of context and that they are thus ahistorical and non-ideological. Utilising Foucault, educating SENCos is viewed by the researchers as a political and ethical task, conceptualised as ‘a care of the world, the “true life” calling for the advent of an “other world”’ (Gros in Foucault, 2012, p. 355).

The principle of inclusive education is central in Norwegian policy documents and equity, equality, diversity and inclusion are terms and standards of Norwegian educational policy (Norwegian Education Act 1998; The Norwegian National Curriculum 2017). Norway has a public school system which follows the social democratic model of a “School for All”. Due to increasing diversity in schools there is an ongoing need to discuss inclusion and equal opportunities in education. Adapted education is a strong educational principle, rooted in the Norwegian Education Act (Norwegian Education Act 1998) and still a great challenge for teachers to fulfill (Backmann & Haug, 2006). Giving all pupils the right to take part in ordinary learning activities according to their learning capabilities, where diversity is to be understood as enrichment, seems to challenge teachers the most. Pupils who do not benefit from the ordinary education are referred to The Norwegian Educational Psychological service (EPS) and their needs of special needs education (SNE) are assessed. EPS`mandate is embedded in the Norwegian Education Act (1998) and their tasks require both individual and systemic approach towards pupils' learning outcomes. In 2019 the Norwegian Ministry of Education announced the intention to introduce a number of measures to enhance pupils with special needs chances to be taught by professionals with the relevant competence (Ministry of Education 2019). This follows cooperation between universities and municipalities to examine which competence is needed for municipalities to be able to accommodate education for all through inclusive practices.

The present study is part of a development project between Østfold University college and one Norwegian municipality. In this study we investigate how internal systems in schools can be developed by improving organizational structures in the municipalities. Further we look into how the Norwegian Educational Psychological service (EPS), an independent expert authority, and schools as an organization can be seen as fellow participants in professional learning communities. To better understand how municipalities in Norway can approach more inclusive education and inclusive practices, we seek to understand how professional learning communities can contribute to school leaders, teachers and professionals within the EPS, to work together, share and question their practice in critical ways (De Neve et. al 2015). This has led us to the following research question:

How can professional learning communities be a contributor to strengthening internal systems in schools aiming to develop inclusive practices?

The theoretical framework is based on social cognitive theory proposed by Bandura (1997). This theory emphasizes the psychological perspective on human functioning that highlights the critical role played by the social environment on motivation, learning, and self-regulation (Shunk & DeBenedetto, 2020). A premise of Bandura’s theory (1997) is that individuals strive for a sense of agency, or the belief that they can exert a considerable degree of influence over important events in their lives. In this context, the concept of efficacy beliefs is central. Defined as a future oriented judgment about capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments in specific situations or contexts (Bandura, 1997). In recent years research has added an organizational dimension to inquiry about efficacy beliefs, referred to as perceived collective efficacy (Goddard, Hoy & Woolfolk Hoy, 2004; Goddard & Goddard, 2001; Voelkel & Chrispeels, 2017). Within an organization, perceived collective efficacy represents the beliefs of group members regarding "the performance capability of a social system as a whole" (Bandura, 1997, p. 469). Research (Voelkel & Chrispeels, 2017) has also shown that high collective efficacy beliefs can advance better professional learning communities (PLC).

Until comparatively recently in Ireland as in many European countries the education of students with disabilities including those identified as blind/vision impaired occurred predominantly within the special education setting. This form of provision led to unfounded assumptions about the learning capabilities of this section of the population implying that their impairment inevitably meant they had more apparent learning needs than their peers (Griffin & Shevlin, 2007). These segregationist and institutional education policies were the norm in Ireland and special education was perceived as being the sole responsibility of dedicated professionals who catered for the needs of children and young people with disabilities (Griffin & Shevlin, 2007). Ireland has witnessed significant changes in how we think about and acknowledge disability as a public issue. Since the 1990s European and international policy including the Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education (United Nations Educational Scientific Cultural Organisation, 1994) has increasingly influenced the Irish education system. Consequently, the numbers of young people with disabilities including those identified as blind/vision impaired in mainstream education setting at all levels of education are growing and “have become the responsibility of everyone in the education system” (Griffin & Shevlin, 2007, p. 3). Consequently, blind/vision impaired young people are now predominantly educated within mainstream settings in their own locality. This has meant that there is now greater evidence of diversity within mainstream education. While blind/vision impaired students have the same curriculum needs as all students, due to vision impairment they can experience difficulties when traditional methods of teaching and learning are used (Spungin, & Ferrell 2007). The research upon which this presentation is based identifies that inclusivity is not always a guiding ethos within educational institutions but is something affixed to a “disablist curriculum” (Hopkins, 2011) as a response to an excluded student. The lack of diversity within our education has reinforced this. This paper will demonstrate the importance of emphasising that equality of access should not stop once the blind/vision impaired student has gained entry to the mainstream setting; these students also require equality of condition and equality of outcome to achieve equal opportunities and experiences.

A growing body of literature critically examines disabled people’s experiences of work, emphasizing the importance of the social relational aspects of embodiment, disability, and ableism within organizational contexts (Damianidou & Georgiadou, 2021; Jammers & Zanoni, 2020). Despite evidence of disabling organizational approaches to time (Seymour, 2002), disability’s relationship with employment and time remains under-researched in the disability studies literature, with relatively scarce accounts of the disabled employees’ experiences of time embodiment.

Time is inherent to the experience of work, the way it is organized and how meaningful is perceived to be, while ableism and disability seem to be a defining factor for the way time is experienced in this context (Seymour, 2002). In fact, evidence reveals that disabled employees frequently spend their time differently due to a prevalent ableist division in family and work life, with Bryson (2007) highlighting the significance of discussing the structuring of time and time consciousness when considering equality. Literature points out that the time squeeze imposed by organizational cultures centered around embedded masculine values and assumptions may result to lower autonomy among individuals, significantly impact their health and wellbeing (Jammaers & Williams, 2020), and hinder any attempts to promote and safeguard inclusion as a sense of belonging to the organization (Georgiadou & Antonacopoulou, 2021).

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent ‘turbulent’ socio-economic environment have left a deep scar on the work experiences of employees around the globe. It has brought to the surface the need for new organizational and management approaches that are characterized by empathy, determination, flexibility, and a more humane face that understands and acknowledges the needs of employees (Georgiadou, Magrizos & Roumpi, 2021). The ways in which time is perceived, acknowledged, valued, used, and assessed are central to the effectiveness of inclusive organizational approaches and equality in private and public life. The notion of time introduces a problem that has plagued scholars over time. What is the nature of time? How does time relate to change or movement? What is the relation of time with each instantaneous 'now'? Is time objective and is it about the objective characteristics of the world or the change that is taking place in it? Or is time dependent on the subjective perception, so that if there was no meaningful subjectivity there would be no time? Most importantly, does time pass at the same pace for everybody?

Even though non-disabled people may have the option to manipulate time and act like sprinters that compete to arrive first, in a race based on who is the fastest, some disabled people may struggle with time because of being different from the norm and thereby not fitting in. Thus, in order to feel and be independent, some disabled people actually depend on how well bodies, current technologies and prevalent institutions relate, not because they have decided how their environment should be arranged, but because other people have taken decisions for them and without them (Schillmeier, 2008). Hence, in order to be able to move spatially and be on time, some disabled people have to consider not only how they will move and how long it will take them, but also whether the social infrastructure allows them to arrive at their final destination at the same time as the ‘sprinters’.

Disability studies scholar Lennard J. Davis argues in his book ‘The End of Normal: Identity in a Biocultural Era’ that diversity has become the new normality. This means ‘on the surface we are better off abandoning some universal standard for bodies and cultures and acknowledging that there isn’t one regnant or ideal body or culture’ (Davis 2013, p. 2). However, Davis underlines that diversity has ideological side as well. The ideological side of diversity is - in turn - well suited to the realm of neoliberalism. As a political ideology, neoliberalism bases on premise of the ‘laissez-faire’ i.e. the greatest good to all is achieved via deregulated global economy. In neoliberal reasoning, deregulated markets replace the governments and reconfigures the citizen into a consumer. Within citizen–consumer-transformation, identity correlates with markets, and culture becomes lifestyle. This means that ‘one’s lifestyle is activated by consumer choice—and this kind of choice becomes the essence of one’s identity’ (Davis 2013, p. 3).

The core of Davis’ argument is that diversity as the new normalizing concept is open to all human beings as long as free choice and consumerism are concerned in a sense of a citizen-consumer. In other words, diversity changes the way of social organisation, and it includes elements of control and categorization. That is, the logic of constitutive othering and marginalization from Eurocentric white-male middle class normality to consumer-citizen alters in the ‘diversity discourse’. People or groups who are unable to choose their identity are still marginalized in the ‘diversity discourse’. Disability remains marginalized in the diversity discourse because subjectivity given to disability is not a matter of choice. Being disabled (or student labelled SEND) is not a lifestyle or an identity matter; instead, disability is an administrative category imposed by society. Drawing from Giorgio Agamben’s idea, Davis argues that disability is located in the ’state of exception’. In that state, neoliberal reasoning of diversity does not apply, but normality does. According to Davis, diversity works as an organising principle as far as hypermarginalized groups such as disabled people are excluded.

Davis’ argument resonates with our experiences related to discussion around educational inclusion. While educational inclusion is recognised as a political commitment and even somewhat celebrated as such, at the level of practice inclusion often generates more critical debates around ‘inclusive-bility’ and ‘educability’ of certain students, thus making underlying differences and norms again visible. The ‘school of all’ is actually for those students that can be included in the diverse but normative ‘all’ (Goodley 2014).

Our paper focuses on analyzing the relationship of disability and diversity in the context of schooling using Davis’ argument concerning normativity of diversity. We ask what kind of boundaries of diversity can be found in the educational inclusion discourse. Our paper explores whether Davis’ theorization of diversity can be applied to deconstruct persistent jams/blockages related to transition to/development of inclusive education. It seems to be a shared experience in countries situated in Global North that the implementation of education inclusion is not a straight-forward process. In our paper we engage in thinking about theoretical tools needed for deconstructing the implicit barriers hampering implementation of inclusion.

In the global development towards inclusive education, more and more diversity within classrooms is expected. Teachers and school leaders choose to group pupils according to different variables, homogeneous on abilities of heterogeneous, so-called mixed-ability groups. In research ‘mixed-ability grouping’ means grouping by academic ability (For example Askew, 1995; Barker, 2003; Zakelj, 2013). In this study, we focus on grouping by educational needs among other variables such as age and academic level. We define a mixed-ability group as Grouping pupils mainly by assessing their educational needs. In the mixed-ability groups, the educational needs of the pupils vary, especially on the level of learning and development, social-emotional functioning, and communication (de Boer & Tenback, 2021). One can imagine that teaching such a mixed-ability group is a challenge for the teaching staff. In order to maintain a positive class climate and to ensure pupils feel included, teaching staff needs positive attitudes and a positively developed self-efficacy.

This study is conducted in the Netherlands, where we see these kinds of mixed-ability groups within schools for so-called specialized education. Different kinds of special education work together to integrate pupils and teaching staff in order to become an integrated school. We recognize this development as a step towards more inclusive education for all. Studying this development helps us to gain more insight into attitudes and self-efficacy of teaching staff within integrated schools and gives us a better understanding of the diversity within these classrooms, the benefits, and pitfalls according to the teaching staff, and the experienced class climate and perception of inclusion by the pupils. We try to answer the following research questions:

• What is the attitude and self-efficacy of the teaching staff of the mixed ability groups?
• What are the benefits and pitfalls of the mixed ability groups according to the teaching staff?
• How do the teaching staff estimate the educational needs of the mixed-ability group?
• Is there a relationship between the teaching staff's estimated educational needs of the mixed-ability group and the attitude and self-efficacy of the teaching staff?
• Which intensity of educational needs does the pupil of the mixed ability groups have, how do they experience the class climate, and what is their perception of inclusion?
• Is there a relation between the educational needs of the pupils of the mixed-ability group and their experienced class climate and perception of inclusion?

Background: Inclusive education plays a critical role in meeting the learning needs of all students, and preventing social exclusion. However, in many developing regions, its implementation is still insufficient in both width and depth. One of the critical barriers to the implementation is the parental and public worry that including students with special educational needs (SEN) would infringe upon the development of students without SEN. Although studies in developed regions observed neutral or even beneficial inclusion effects on students without SEN, these findings were less persuasive to raise social support in the developing regions, where poor materials and insufficient trained teachers are provided for inclusion. A further worry is that the neutral results can be attributed to the positive effects for some students and negative effects for others. However, few studies explore the distinctive inclusion effects due to individual features.

Objective: This study aimed to examine the association of inclusive education with academic performance (math, reading, arts) and social-emotional skills (15 skills from OECD 2021) of students without SEN. It further aimed to use person-oriented approaches to explore the distinctive inclusion effects due to types of SEN students in class, as well as gender, socioeconomic status and development level of students without SEN.

Method: 1155 10-year-old Chinese students without SEN from the OECD “Survey on Social-Emotional Skills” were selected using the Propensity Score Matching method (579 from non-inclusive class, 576 from inclusive class). 2-level Hierarchical Linear Modeling (student nested in school) was employed to accommodate the structure of the SSES database. The model was estimated by Bayes estimator, default priors, and probit link. Quantile regression was used to analyze the inclusion effects in students’ different development levels.

Result: The analysis controlled students’ gender and socioeconomic status at the individual level, and average class size, rate of disadvantaged students and students with special needs at the school level. Results illustrated that (1) inclusive education had insignificant relations with academic performance, and had relatively slight but significant positive associations with students’ optimism, tolerance and sociability (β=0.07-0.08); (2) socioeconomic status positively moderated the associations of inclusive education with trust, tolerance and assertiveness, in which inclusion might have greater social-emotional benefits to those from higher socioeconomic status families; (3) inclusive education had a tighter linkage with optimism for students having a lower level of optimism (last 25-50%).

Conclusion: In line with studies in developed regions, this study indicated that in developing regions, inclusive education might not hinder academic achievement, and slightly benefit some social-emotional skills of students without SEN, regardless of inadequate experience, trained teachers and support. This result is stimulating for implementing inclusive education, despite the small effect size. Interacting with SEN students helps students without SEN better comprehend and accept the differences while reduce their prejudices. As a consequence, their tolerance and sociability are enhanced. Furthermore, they tend to feel better about themselves and develop stronger optimism through the comparison with SEN students in class.

However, some benefits of inclusive education are more targeted at the students from higher socioeconomic status. Their parents are more knowledgeable about inclusive education and show greater acceptance and support, deeply influencing their attitudes and behaviors toward SEN students. Additionally, the inclusion effect on social-emotional skills may differ due to the development level of specific skills, which needs further investigation.

Findings help holistically comprehend the role of inclusive education in 15 specific social-emotional skills, and its individual differences, and imply the potentially crucial individual factors for further studies. Findings also contribute to relieving parental and public worries, while raising more support for implementing inclusive education.

The “Step by Step” educational program is an open didactic system that offers quality and comprehensive education for preschool and younger school-age children based on constructivist pedagogy and a respectful approach to the child. The programme is part of an international educational network and its ideas are applied in more than 30 countries around the world. One of the basic principles is common education for all. “Step by Step“ promotes diversity in schools and sees it as an integral and valuable part of society. It respects the needs of all children, regardless of their social or ethnic background and current ability level. It tries to build mutual trust, respect and cooperation.

The philosophy of “Step by Step” is based on the premise that each child is a unique individual with a rich inner developmental potential that must be supported by learning approaches that best suit the child, that develop the child as a whole person, and that motivate the child to continue learning naturally. The emphasis is on integrated learning (learning in thematic units) and cooperative learning (working in activity centres, project-based learning). The emotional aspect of the learning process is also taken into account, where it is assumed that the child learns new things better if the learning is also linked to an emotional experience. Thus, one of the priorities in the learning process is to create a supportive and stimulating environment where the child can move in a fearless and natural way, learn through his/her own practical activities, try new things, discover and test their validity and functionality without fear of making mistakes.

In the Czech Republic, the Step by Step programme is implemented under the name “Start Together”. Currently, 70 primary schools are teaching under it. The aim of our two-year research project was to evaluate the impact of “Start Together” on pupils.

The research question was set as follows:

What abilities, skills, knowledge or mental processes (necessary, applicable in life) in children are strengthened and developed by the constructivist approach to teaching in the Start Together programme?

On the basis of research of foreign and Czech texts, interviews with "Start Together" programme methodologists and our own observations of teaching in Czech schools focused on inclusion (Šíp et al., 2022), we came to several important areas of research. We have proposed a research design consisting of three distinct parts, which, however, intersect in the final interpretation and help to answer the research question in a more plastic way. These are an analysis of the National Survey of Pupil Achievement, quantitative research conducted in Start Together classrooms, and qualitative research conducted in these classrooms. These three parts are described in more detail in the Methodology section.

Inclusive education was introduced as a means to overcome the exclusionary practices and experiences of mainstream and special education systems. Its’ apparent success is that it has globally taken hold even in systems where there is a well-established history of segregatory structures. However, it is understood in many different ways in relation to policy, practice and research (Amor et al, 2019) and in most countries the initial enthusiastic narrative has been met by a continued and frequently resurgent role for special education in various guises (Slee, 2018; Rix, 2015; Hausstatter & Jahnukainen, 2015). For example, in Ireland there is much made of the drive for an inclusive ethos and culture, however any changes are cosmetic and surface-level (McKeon, 2020), with over 140 special schools, and nearly 25% of the school population identified with special educational needs (Kenny et al, 2020); in Finland, 9% of children in 2020 were identified for special support with over 40% receiving all education in a special education setting (Statistics Finland, 2021); in the Czech republic 33% of those identifed with Special educational needs were in special settings (EASNIE, 2020), whilst in England special school numbers have grown by over 20% since 2011 (Selfe & Richmond, 2020) and in Italy over 26% of disabled children spend more than 50% of their time out of mainstream class (Anastasiou et al, 2015).

Even if efforts are made to accept the historical value of special education and to shift the focus onto a singular inclusive pedagogy (Florian, 2013), it does not seem to be happen as we may wish. In practice, even when asked to enact an pedagogy underpinned by inclusive aims and principles, (e.g.: focussed upon whole class activity and student strengths), practitioners still feel the need to adopt practices for learners identified with special eduational needs that are associated with the special education paradigm (e.g. individualised seating arrangements and behaviour strategies) (Losberg & Zwozdiak-Myers, 2021).

In this context that this symposium will explore whether we need to reimagine the nature of special education rather than seek to consign it to history. We wish to consider the possibility that inclusion has re-legitimised special education and become a barrier to special education’s necessary transformation. We are interested in:

• considering ways in which the re-legitimisation of special education may be happening
• introducing practical possibilities that can move us beyond this impasse
• exploring what alternative special education may emerge.

This is a double symposium designed to allow space for four papers, a round-table discussion and the development of a special issue proposal for the European Journal of Inclusive Eduction.

In the first 90 minutes of the symposium there will be 4 presentations by Rune Hausstatter, Ilektra Spandagou, Thorsten Merl and Anabel Granados. These will consider challenges presented by individualisation, relationships with support services, administrative processes, ownership of knowledge and the legitamising nature of caterories. The second part of the symposium will begin with the discussants, the editors of the British Journal of Special Education, Graham Hallett and Fiona Hallett, reflecting on the 4 presentations and the wider issue of the symposium. This will be followed by a round table discussion (involving the presenters, discussants and open to the floor) chaired by Jonathan Rix. Our opening points of discussion will be

• Why does special education fill a gap which inclusion does not?
  • Are there aspects of special education which we should be seeking to retain and redevelop?
  • What would happen to special education if we prioritise participation and social justice (rather than inclusion)?
  • In addition to the presentations in the first part, what topics should be included in the proposed special edition?

The expansion of special education in educational systems that have introduced inclusive education policies and practices appears paradoxical, but it is not. Inclusive education initiatives have followed the trajectory of previous attempts (e.g., mainstreaming, integration) of reforming the education of students that teachers in general classrooms perceived difficult to teach. Skrtic (1991) described the ways that schools respond to public demands for change by creating the illusion of change. In this process, specialised arrangements and provisions expand, increasing the number of students who are identified as requiring such specialised arrangements in separated programs. Hence, policy and practice initiatives fail because they are not radical enough to disrupt the purpose and organisation of schools for all students. Moreover, the identification of an ever-increasing proportion of children and young people in schools cannot be separated from uncertain economic, social, and political conditions and the fundamental limitations of schooling to provide the promise of education. Again, this is not new (Tomlinson, 1985). What changes is the cultural dynamics that inform the identities produced for individual students. Starting from these premises, this paper explores special education in the inclusive education era. The Australian and Greek education systems are used as illustrative cases. The comparative analysis of policy documents, statistics and reports covers the period 1990-2022. The history, organisational arrangements, and loci of special education in the two systems are markedly different. Both systems have introduced policies that promote inclusive education but have maintained a special education orientation, language, and provisions. In both systems, special education has experienced continuous expansion and the education of students perceived as requiring special education is considered inadequate and in crisis. The analysis illustrates the changes over time in the core elements of special education as an administrative function of identifying, diagnosing, and allocating funding and resources. The paper postulates that there are limits to this expansion of special education as a mechanism for regulating educational systems and in this sense, special education exemplifies the limits of hope and despair (Ball, 2020) about the potential of education.

Ball, S.J. (2020). The errors of redemptive sociology or giving up on hope and despair, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 41(6), 870-880. Skrtic, T. (1991). The special education paradox: Equity as the way to excellence, Harvard Educational Review, 61(2), 148-207. Tomlinson, (1985). The expansion of special education, Oxford Review of Education, 11(2), 157-165.

A central aim, when inclusion was introduced almost thirty years ago, was that the need for additional special education systems should be redundant or at least reduced (Kiupis & Hausstätter, 2014). However, as seen in the general description of this symposium special education systems is still very central in many countries. The outset of this paper is to point to the dependency between special and general education. As partly outlined by Richardson and Powell (2011), the historical and cultural development of both general and special education has led to this dependency and further created a complexity that inclusive education is not able to solve. A central part of this complex relationship, is that the educational system in essence is not inclusive and special education has played and still play, a central role to support a system that contain the elements of marginalization (Hausstätter & Nordahl, 2013; Hausstätter, 2013). There are elements of special education that is needed both in practice, but also as a legitimation of general education . In order to understand this relationship better this paper will outline this dependency and investigate which what makes special education a necessity? Such areas could be the need for extra resources, the need for specific knowledge about disability, the need for alternative teaching and learning environments and the need to establish alternative learning goals instead of following a national curriculum. However, these areas are all variables of the core argument legitimizing special education: the need for individualization. The idea of individual oriented education is part of the general focus of education, however it seems that this is more central for the legitimation of special education (Gjessing, 1974; Vygotsky, 1993; Hausstätter, 2023). This focus of individualization will be explored in this paper, and further connected to the dependency described. A second question for analysis is if inclusive education have a solution to this need of individualization?

Gjessing, H-J. (1974). Om sanering av spesialundervisning, og om alternative tilbud. Skolepsykologi 9(4). Hausstätter, R. (2013) «20-prosentregelen» - omfanget av spesialundervisning i norske skoler. Spesialpedagogikk nr 6 Hausstätter, R. (2023). Spesialpedagogikkens samfunnsmandat. Fagbokforlaget Hausstätter, R. and Nordahl, T. (2013) Spesialundervisningens stabiliserende effekt i grunnskolen. In B. Karseth, J. Møller, P. Aasen (ed) Reformtakter. Universitetsforlaget (p. 191-210) Kiuppis F. & Hausstätter, R. (2014). Inclusive Education Twenty Years After Salamanca. Peter Lang Richardson J. G. and Powell J.J.W. (2011), Comparing Special Education: Origins to contemporary Paradoxes. Stanford University Press

In Spain, nearly the total of the school population since the age of 3 is attending school, and around 9 % have a diagnosis of SEN Necesidad Específica de Apoyo Educativo (NEAE) (special needs education, high abilities and specific learning disabilities (LSD)). From this group, Andalusia region has the highest number of children incorporated into integrative settings in the whole country, meaning children with SEN being taught in settings where they are segregated into special classes. In the academic year 2021/22, 40% of children with NEAE were attending special schools and the 60% were integration classes in ordinary schools (Junta de Andalucia, 2022). Whether the decision-making of selecting the setting is done by families or external professionals, teachers are the ones that implement the daily basis practices with the children. These teachers have to work using the principles of non-discrimination accessibility and universal design following the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) (United Nations, 2006). This qualitative study aims through a sociocultural approach to examine the teacher’s agency. Using happenstance learning theory (Krumboltz, 2009) and in-depth semi-structured interviews (Deterding & Waters, 2021), it examines practices which are trying to be inclusive but failing, and the practices that are seen as being alternative to inclusive practices. We will be exploring the importance of teachers attached to the leadership functions and in which way they seem themselves as leaders (York‐Barr et al, 2005) and their implications on the school culture (Gurr et al, 2022). In this study will be participating two special schools and two ordinary schools. The research participants of this study are key actors from the education system which are 4 regular education teachers, 4 special needs educators, and 4 NGOs teaching assistants working in special schools, in ordinary settings with integration classes and combined schooling programmes. There is limited research on the coordination and shared decision-making among professionals working with children with SEN in the Spanish context (Corral-Granados, 2022), and none of them study why inclusion is not working for them and their views on alternative approaches to inclusion, including those which arise from special education”

Corral-Granados, A. (2022). Challenges in continuing professional development on inclusion in early years in Spain. Journal of Educational Change, 1-23. Deterding, N. M., & Waters, M. C. (2021). Flexible coding of in-depth interviews: A twenty-first-century approach. Sociological methods & research, 50(2), 708-739. Gurr, D., Drysdale, L., & Goode, H. (2022). An open systems model of successful school leadership. Journal of Educational Administration. Krumboltz, J. D. (2009). The happenstance learning theory. Journal of career assessment, 17(2), 135-154. Junta de Andalucia (2022)Educacion informe OIAA- 2022. Estado de a infacia y de la adolescencia de Andalucia. Cuaderno n 3. United Nations Equality and Human Rights Commission. (2020). UN Convention on the RIghts of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Equality and Human Rights Commission. https://www. equalityhumanrights. com/en/our-human-rights-work/monitoring-and-promotin g-un-treaties/un-convention-rights-persons-disabilities. York‐Barr*, J., Sommerness, J., Duke, K., & Ghere, G. (2005). Special educators in inclusive education programmes: Reframing their work as teacher leadership. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 9(2), 193-215.

To understand the re-legitimisation of special education by inclusion, it is necessary to further investigate what functions special education has for everyday practices in self-proclaimed inclusive schools. Even though it might seem contradictory to ask for functions of special education in inclusive schools, empirically we can see that teachers in Germany simultaneously understand their school as being inclusive and yet draw from key concepts of special education to describe some of their pupils as different or to argue for the need of pedagogical differentiations (Merl 2021). The presentation analyses the functions that special education and especially different categories of special educational needs have theoretically and empirically, based on an ethnography in inclusive schools (Merl 2019): Thus, based on existing studies, the presentation first examines the basal functions of pathologization for the school system and for the existence of special education itself (Tenorth 2006; Bühler 2017). One central function in this regard appears to be the authorisation of pedagogical differentiations. To put it briefly: (Naturalised) Differences legitimise differentiation. I will therefore present the concept of authorisation and its relation to educational norms (Jergus & Thomspon 2017). The concept of authorisation provides a sensitising concept for the following reconstructive analysis of an observed pathologization, which took place in class in the form of the public outing of a pupil as being autistic. The analysis leads to a final discussion of equality and equal treatment as an educational norm in schools, which is an underlying condition for the authorising function of pathologisations in inclusive schools. A more precise understanding of the authorising functions which pathologies and their underlying norms of equal treatment have in inclusive school contexts, will allow for a concluding discussion of the following questions: 1.) How may these functions be substituted without having to refer to discriminatory categories? 2.) How may the underlying norm be challenged and changed? Both Questions could be a means of exploring the possibilities of alternative special education and its emergence.

Bühler, P. (2017). „Diagnostik“ und „praktische Behandlung“. Die Entstehung der therapeutischen Funktion der Schule. In R. Reichenbach & P. Bühler (Eds.), Fragmente zu einer pädagogischen Theorie der Schule (1st ed., pp. 176–195). Beltz Juventa. Jergus, K., & Thompson, C. (Eds.). (2017). Autorisierungen des pädagogischen Selbst: Studien zu Adressierungen der Bildungskindheit. Springer VS. Merl, T. (2019). un/genügend fähig: Zur Herstellung von Differenz im Unterricht inklusiver Schulklassen. Klinkhardt. Merl, T. (2021). In/sufficiently able: How teachers differentiate between pupils in inclusive classrooms. Ethnography and Education, 16(2), 198–209. https://doi.org/10.1080/17457823.2021.1871853 Tenorth, H.-E. (2006). Bildsamkeit und Behinderung – Anspruch, Wirksamkeit und Selbstdestruktion einer Idee. In L. Raphael & H.-E. Tenorth (Eds.), Ideen als gesellschaftliche Gestaltungskraft im Europa der Neuzeit (pp. 497–520). Oldenbourg. https://doi.org/10.1524/9783486596342.497

See "Reimagine Special Education (RiSE) (Part 1)"

See "Reimagine Special Education (RiSE) (Part 1)"

See "Reimagine Special Education (RiSE) (Part 1)"

See "Reimagine Special Education (RiSE) (Part 1)"

See "Reimagine Special Education (RiSE) (Part 1)"

See "Reimagine Special Education (RiSE) (Part 1)"

See "Reimagine Special Education (RiSE) (Part 1)"

See "Reimagine Special Education (RiSE) (Part 1)"

See "Reimagine Special Education (RiSE) (Part 1)"

How can education respond constructively to minoritized students’ experiences? As we know from international research, students’ racial-ethnic classed and gendered experiences (feelings, moods and practices that occur due to one’s minority positioning), and educators’ ways of dealing with them, are pertinent factors in educational institutions and critical diversity pedagogies (Zembylas & McGlynn 2012; Zembylas, 2015). We also know that diversity work which creates inclusive environments that are accepting of differences and provide equal opportunities has a profound effect on learning outcomes, motivation and well-being among students, in particular minority students. Since racial-ethnic and intersectional experiences play such a decisive role, there is an urgent need to develop pedagogies that address these experiences in constructive ways (Vertelyte & Staunæs, 2022).

Based on the argument that diversity work is also ‘mood work’ (Ahmed, 2014), the symposium focuses on the collective atmospheres and individual feelings, that channel and circumscribe the processes through which racial-ethnic and gendered experiences become invested. These moods emerge for instance, when students encounter and negotiate racially charged humour as funny or offensive; when white teachers or majority students are confused and hurt by being called racist by other students; when being a minority student ‘feels like being a problem’ (Du Bois, 1903/2019); or when minority students’ experiences of racial and ethnic exclusion are met with skepticism. Considering that diversity work is often mood work and felt differently by differently positioned people (Ahmed, 2014), and generations of people, in this symposium we draw on new feminist materialisms (Barad 2010) and affects studies (Ahmed 2014; Wetherell 2012) and address how exactly racialized, classed and gendered moods are formed as part of educational encounters and how they are dealt with by students and educators (Petersen & Millei, 2016; Reay 2013; Staunæs & Juelskjær 2016; Walkerdine 2021; Zembylas 2015).

In this symposium, we aim to explore how emotions and collective moods shape and constitute diversity work across different educational and national contexts: higher education in Australia, kindergarten teacher education and high schools in Norway, and high schools in Denmark. The papers deal with affective issues relevant to questions of inclusion and intersectional forms of diversity in educational settings. In the symposium, we explore how the vocabulary of everyday diversity work may take affective generational shapes and how different generations have varied ways of comprehending and approaching their common day language around diversity (Paper 1: Staunæs and Vertelyte); how the silence on issues of social class in diversity and equity policy shape the feelings of belonging in the academia of early career researchers in Australian universities (Paper 2: Maree Martinussen); how racialized moods in Norwegian kindergarten teacher education may transform and shape critical approaches to pedagogies (Paper 3: Camilla Eline Andersen and Agnes Westgaard Bjelkerud); and how staff at Norwegian schools negotiate understandings of racism and coordinate practices on and against it (Paper 4: Christine Lillethun Norheim and Rebecca W. B. Lund). Putting the four papers in conversation, we aim to discuss what is common and different when we look at diversity work as mood work across different educational contexts of European/Nordic welfare states, as the perspectives from Australian contexts allow us to discuss what is distinctively European or Nordic. This discussion is brought further by the discussant Zsuzsanna Millei, who’s research includes both Nordic and Australian contexts. Moreover, we aim to discuss how different moods are constituted in relation to different diversity categories (such as social class, race, ethnicity, gender) and across different national educational contexts; and finally what are the methodological ways to explore diversity work as exactly mood work.

Since at least the Danish cartoon crisis, which highlighted racialization and anti-Muslimism sentiments in Denmark (Hervik, 2011) as well as the international #MeeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, there has been intensified debates about what words and images are possible to use in relation to issues of diversity. The language (words, phrases, terms, discursive connotations) used around issues of diversity has become a matter of not only wording but wor(l)ding diversity (Haraway, 2016). Such ‘wor(l)ding-debates’ not only reflect the power struggles and tensions of minority-majority, racialization, or sexual harassment. They also materialize generational tensions and differences between (grand) parents and their (grand) children, educators, and students. During ethnographic research at two Danish gymnasiums, we encountered words used by students and teachers around diversity issues that are affectively charged. They bring forth discomfort, embarrassment, feelings of righteousness, and aspirations for change. While students wor(l)ded diversity in a more straight forward, easy-going manner, the educators ‘ran out of words’, stumbled, and expressed discomfort about the vocabulary available in relation to issues of gender, cultural, racial, and sexual diversity. We examine how the language of everyday diversity work takes generational shapes and how different generations have varied ways of approaching their common day language around diversity. The object of our analysis is not only words, phrases, and terms, but the atmospheric tensions around these wor(l)dings. This makes us wonder how diversity is affectively performed through wording and gestures; and through what may be termed, ‘nice’ pedagogical language versus the ‘dark language’ where the cut-of-words, like the N-word and even ‘race’, is haunting the conversations and creating tense ambiances (Ladson-Billing 1998; Gordon 2008). To embark on how generational differences around the diversity vocabulary come into tensions we deploy analytical concepts from feminist new materialism (Barad, 2010; Bennet, 2010; Chen, 2012) and affect studies (Ahmed, 2014) that emphasize the affective entanglement of words and worlding (Haraway 2011). Approaching diversity work as mood work (Ahmed, 2014) we go beyond content and discourse analysis. Instead, we work with a performative cartography (Staunæs & Mengel 2023): First, this involves ethnographic observations and 20 interviews with students and educators. Second, a computer-animated visualization of highlights and absences of diversity words used in the interview material; and finally, two online learning labs involving 10 students and educators, where using these visual interfaces facilitated reflections upon diversity work, language, and intergenerational moods.

Ahmed, S. (2014). Not in The Mood. New Formations, 82, 13-28. Barad, K. (2010). Quantum entanglements and Hauntological Relations. Derrida Today, 3(2), 240- 268. Bennett, J. (2010). Vibrant Matters. A political ecology of things. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Chen, M. Y. (2012). Animacies. Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect. Durham & London: Duke University Press. Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the Trouble. Making Kinship in the Chtulucene. Durham & London: Duke University Press. Haraway, D. J. (2011). Speculative Fabulations for Technoculture's Generations: Taking Care of Unexpected Country, Australian Humanities Review. Hervik, P. (2011). The Annoying Difference: The Emergence of Danish Nationalism, Neoracism, and Populism in the Post-1989 World. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books Gordon, A. (2008). Ghostly Matters. Haunting and the Sociological Imagination. University of Minnesota Press Ladson-Billings, G. (1998). Just what is critical race theory and what's it doing in a nice field like education? International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 11(1), 7-24. Staunæs, D. & P. Mengel (2023 in press). Performative Cartography. Re-animating the archive. In Jackson, A. & L. Mazzei (eds.). Postfoundational approaches to inquiry. Routledge

Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives often constitute large and firmly instituted workplans within universities globally, particularly in the ‘West’ (Ahmed, 2012). However, the discrimination and sense of exclusion working-class students and staff face as a result of classism and elitism are rarely discussed and confronted explicitly (Walkerdine, 2021). Issues of class are often subsumed within a ‘widening participation agenda’ informed by the neoliberal assumptions of social mobility. But as Reay notes, a widening participation agenda that is adequately based on social justice concerns ‘requires much more than the movement of a few individuals up and down an increasingly inequitable social system’ (Reay, 2013, p. 661). In this paper, I use a psychosocial affective-discursive approach (Wetherell, 2012) to explore the relative silence on issues of social class in diversity and equity policy making, and its impacts in the everyday, particularly with regards to feelings of belonging in the academe. How and from where do feelings of being ‘out of place’ emerge, and in conjunction with what affective, classed ideologies? Using narratives of students and early career researchers enrolled in postgraduate studies in Australia, accumulated and embodied knowledges of classed personhood are examined. Data are drawn from repeat, biographical interviews, produced with participants identifying as women from working-class or low-socioeconomic backgrounds. I explore subjective, embodied and experiential aspects of ‘doing class’, outlining some of the barriers that participants face in gaining a sense of belonging at university. As a result of subtle and unintended forms of classism, I show how participants feel compelled to hide their working-classness, and experience a sense of loss at being mis-classed. I advance an agenda for greater inclusion of issues of classism—both overt and subtle—in university equity, diversity and inclusion work, applicable to a wide range of country contexts.

Ahmed, S. (2012). On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life. Duke University Press. Reay, D. (2013). Social mobility, a panacea for austere times: tales of emperors, frogs, and tadpoles. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 34(5–6), 660–677. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2013.816035 Walkerdine, V. (2021). What’s class got to do with it? Discourse, 42(1), 60–74. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2020.1767939 Wetherell, M. (2012). Affect and emotion: A new social science understanding. Sage Publications.

The Norwegian kindergarten teacher education shall prepare students to perform the teacher profession in a society characterized by diversity. Moreover, in kindergartens the staff shall give all children the same opportunities while also working against discrimination, prejudices, stereotypes, and racism. Previous research in the Norwegian context has shown that race is silenced in the field of early childhood education, also in kindergarten teacher education (Andersen, 2015). Dowling (2017) found that Norwegian teacher educators express a lack of knowledge and conceptual language for addressing race and racism, and that they by this are contributing to upholding white privilege in their teaching. However, she suggests that changes in teaching practices will not be sufficient if white teacher educators only become conscious about how they take part in “race relations” in teacher education. This project evolves from a long-term stuttering of two white teacher educators with majority backgrounds in a Norwegian context. Individually, when teaching on issues of race, racism and racializaton in a kindergarten teacher education programme, and during and after race-events in the classroom, in the hall, and in our offices. And collectively, when sharing feelings of failure, discomfort, stuckness, but also a bodily drive to continue to explore ways to put race, racism, and racialization on the agenda in the kindergarten teacher education programme. To go beyond being conscious of how we as white teacher take part in “race relations” and to transform our pedagogy as teacher educators, we explore what else might happen if we turn to ‘mood work’ (Ahmed, 2014). We are particularly interested in how racialized moods sensed by us as educators are formed, in the classroom and in teaching, understood as ‘feelings that are not our own’ (Ahmed, 2014, p, 15). And how to work with these to transform our pedagogy to create more socially just educational spaces.

Ahmed, S. (2014). Not in the Mood. New Formations, 82, 13–28. https://doi.org/10.3898/NEWF.82.01.2014 Andersen, C. E. (2015). Mot en mindre profesjonalitet: Rase, tidlig barndom og Deleuzeoguattariske blivelser [PhD, Stockholms universitet, Samhällsvetenskapliga fakulteten, Barn- och ungdomsvetenskapliga institutionen]. http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A795293&dswid=-7916 Dowling, F. (2017). «’Rase’ og etnisitet? Det kan ikke jeg si noe særlig om – her er det ’Blenda-hvitt’!». Norsk Pedagogisk Tidsskrift, 101(3), 252–265. https://doi.org/10.18261/issn.1504-2987-2017-03-06

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, and particularly those of the spring of 2020, increased attention has been afforded to racism in its diverse forms and at different levels in Norwegian society. Researchers and public intellectuals have paid particular attention to structural, institutional, and everyday forms of racism (Orupabo, 2021; 2022; VG, 2021). This shift in public discourse has impacted educational settings, and puts pressure on school leaders and staff to develop systematic strategies on diversity, inclusion and ensuring a racism-free environment. Research indicates that taking these problems seriously in school contexts is particularly important because schools are the arenas where children and youth experience the most racism (Norwegian Centre Against for Racism 2017; UNICEF 2022). While there is a growing body of research in Norway on racism on a societal level and in specific institutions such as schools, focus has tended to be placed on how racism is discussed in classrooms, or students’ and teachers’ perceptions of racism (Svendsen, 2014; Myrebøe, 2021). Less attention has been directed towards how staff at Norwegian schools negotiate understandings of racism and coordinate practices on and against it. Moreover, less attention has been paid to how the student-centered services, who have responsibilities for ensuring students’ psychosocial well-being, engage in such work. This paper contributes with insights on how such staff engage in the institutional, discursive and emotional labor of: (1) identifying that the psychosocial environment is lacking, particularly for students with migrant backgrounds (2) develop strategies for coordinating a response to these lacks (3) tackle challenges and resistance they encounter towards coordinated and systematic efforts throughout institutional levels for an inclusive school environment. Drawing on data material produced by the first author as part of a prolonged field study in connection with her doctoral research, the analysis starts from following counselor experiences. Moving from this, the authors map the relations this counselor engages into further inclusion and to protect and enhance valuation of diversity: this includes the work of documenting student experiences of racism and of presenting these to school leaders with the purpose of taking coordinated action. In this work counselors invest considerable emotional labor (Hochschild 1983) in navigating diverging social moods (Ahmed 2014) and discourses on racism in ways that are constructive to their goals.

Myrebøe, T. (2021). Nedsettende – og innafor? Læreres erfaringer med elevers bruk av stereotypier og fordomsuttrykk i klasserommet. Nordisk tidsskrift for pedagogikk & kritikk, 7, 210–223. https://doi.org/10.23865/ntpk.v7.2141 Norwegian Centre Against Racism. (2017). Vi vil ikke leke med deg fordi du er brun – En undersøkelse av opplevd rasisme blant ungdom. https://antirasistisk.no/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Vi-vil-ikke-leke-med-deg-fordi-du-er-brun-en-unders%C3%B8kelse-av-opplevd-rasisme-blant-ungdom.pdf Orupabo, J. (2021). Spranget fra hvem som er rasist, til når, hvor og hvordan. Tidsskrift for samfunnsforskning 62(01), 116-120. https://doi.org/10.18261/issn.1504-291X-2021-01-10 Orupabo, J., Vassenden, A. & Handulle, A. (2022). Å redde hvite folks ansikt: ritualer og makt i rasialiserte situasjoner. In Cora Alexa Døving (Ed.) Rasisme – Fenomenet, forskningen, erfaringene. Universitetsforlaget. Svendsen, S. H. B. (2014). Learning racism in the absence of «race», European Journal of Women’s Studies, 21(1), 9–24. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506813507717 United Nations Children’s Fund, (UNICEF). (2022). U-report Norge: Hva mener barn og unge om rasisme? U-report 2022. https://www.unicef.no/sites/default/files/inlineimages/daCZWFxQ9vRhloYsE4Z7E1ogIr9cybeHeLpo1sQXNXo2SnFJIq.pdf VG. (2021). Hverdagsrasisme.