Conference Agenda

Working Meeting NW 01

The induction phase is an important part of teachers' professional development. Thus, in the EERA network Professional Learning and Development, numerous presentations and symposia have been held during the past couple of decades with the common theme of induction of new teachers.

One well-established way of supporting teachers is mentoring. It has recently been increasingly interpreted as peer learning and dialogue rather than as a one-way transfer of tacit knowledge or socialisation in the workplace.

This workshop is open to all European educational researchers who are interested in developing modern approaches to mentoring research. The workshop is organised by the network project “Ecosystems of Teacher Induction and Mentoring in Europe (TIME)”. This initiative has been launched in 2021 as a part of the EERA network 1 (Professional Learning and Development) in association with the project “Nordic Teacher Induction - Promoting Professional Development” (NTI-PPD).

The objectives of the workshop are to:

- provide an opportunity for an informal meeting of educational researchers in Europe who are interested in induction and mentoring

- enable networking and collaboration between researchers interested in the topic

- present the activities of the network so far

- plan further research on induction and mentoring, for example in the form of joint publications, symposia and meetings

- outline the possibilities for applying for research funding for joint projects on induction and mentoring in Europe

The outbreak of COVID-19 has had unprecedented, serious effects on global healthcare systems with chain reactions on every aspect of human life, including socioeconomic and education (Armitage and Nellums, 2020). Upon the WHO declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic (World Health Organization (WHO), 2020), countries around the world locked down to minimize the disease’s spread potential and applied unparalleled draconian measures, including school closures affecting more than 1.5 billion learners and 630 million school teachers all over the world (UNESCO, 2022). Different countries introduced various policies, ranging from complete closure in Germany, and Greece to targeted closure in the United Kingdom (Nicola et al., 2020). Overall, more than 100 countries imposed a nationwide closure of educational facilities at all levels of the educational system. Within the pandemic aftereffects’ context, socially disadvantaged populations, such as disabled people, have experienced an exacerbation of existing social inequalities (Ahmad et al., 2020; Dorn et al., 2020). 2020). In particular, disabled students have been disproportionally affected by the lockdown-related measures; for example, they have been forced rather than by own choice to interrupt or to have no access to quality education and to experience the disruption of community support networks (Karagianni, 2020).

In Greece, disabled students were extremely affected at an educational, pedagogical and social level. In particular, 7.8% of the Greek disabled students attend state educational settings; that is, 105,970 students suffered from the pandemic implications (Rellas, 2020). The majority of disabled students are educated in mainstreaming and fewer students are educated in segregated educational environments (Kassianos, 2018). However, in both cases, there was no preparation or measures taken to support them and their families at homeschooling (E.S.A.meA. – Observatory of Disability Issues, 2021). Furthermore, no measures were taken on educational and therapeutic personnel attendance, individualized support, and adaptive educational resources (Rellas, 2020).

Albeit the policy responses that were undertaken to address the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, the organizational preparedness and response planning of educational organizations has been found poor and non-disability inclusive (efsyn.gr, 2020). However, in terms of policy and strategic planning, the pandemic preparedness and response has been acknowledged to be a starting point for reforms in established systems such as schools (Guterres, 2021). The WHO described pandemic preparedness as “a continuous process of planning, exercising, revising and translating into action national and sub-national pandemic preparedness and response plans” (World Health Organization (WHO), 2011). The policy and decision makers are aligned with this approach and argue over the need for a system thinking change approach guided by organizational pandemic preparedness plans (Aronson, 1996; Arnold and Wade, 2015). This implies the need to address the pandemic preparedness gap in educational organizations to respond to the needs of more vulnerable groups of students such as disabled students (Papazoglou, 2020). Thus, it seems of crucial importance to focus on organizational preparedness for education, including identifying the main areas (domains) of preparedness that guide the process of organizational preparedness and the sub-themes (indicators) per domain that help educational organizations to evaluate their level of preparedness and to identify potential gaps and set priorities for planning. In order to explore and understand the abovementioned challenges, the current study aims to examine the role of school settings in managing the educational crisis that emerged from the global pandemic. Specifically, the study explores the perceptions of primary and secondary school principals over the level of preparedness of the schools for supporting disabled students during the global pandemic. The study aims to identify ways and processes followed at different domains when addressing disabled students’ educational and psycho-social needs during the global pandemic.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020 had a profound impact on education in Iceland and worldwide and presented many challenges to schoolwork. In upper secondary schools in Iceland all teaching was converted to emergency remote teaching (ERT, Bozkurt & Sharma, 2020) in middle of March and teachers and students worked from home. In the fall schoolwork was organized as classroom-based or a mixture of classroom and remote teaching but school buildings were closed to students again after few weeks. Already a number of studies have shed a light on schoolwork during the pandemic (see e.g., Huber, 2021; Jóhannsdóttir & Jakobsdóttir, 2020; Khanal & al., 2021; Van der Spoel & al., 2020) but the aim of this paper is to look at how the uncertainty and constant changes impacted students.

Not being able to see friends, participate in extra-curricular activities, or attend social events during the pandemic was a source of distress for some students (Magson et al., 2021) and they felt lonely and distressed. Several other studies showed that students missed having face-to-face communication with their schoolmates (Esposito et al., 2021; Niemi og Kousa, 2020; Pelikan o.fl., 2021; Sofianidis o.fl., 2021). While other studies indicated that student communication during lessons did not decrease, and that new technology may have changed the way young people communicate (Ferraro et al., 2020).

Upper-secondary schools in Iceland offer a variety of study programs defined at different qualification levels. The academic track aims at preparing students for university education, vocational training prepares students for regulated professions, and general upper secondary education is for those who did not meet the requirements for first two tracks (Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2011). The students in the upper-secondary schools are a diverse group with different needs who were effect by the pandemic in different ways and to a different degree. Some studies revealed that students experienced severe anxiety related to the pandemic (Ningsih et al., 2020; Thahir et al., 2021), while others found a decrease in anxiety among students during the pandemic (Ferraro et al., 2020). In the US the pandemic widened achievement gaps, increased drop-outs, and impacted well-being of students (Dorn et al., 2021); the same might be true elsewhere. Then there is the question of how students cope with resuming their studies in school buildings how it is to return to what was normal before.

The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Icelandic upper-secondary students. We examined which groups felt the most negative effects of the pandemic and if some students found it more difficult than others to resume traditional studies within the walls of the school after the pandemic. In order to evaluate this, we will look at which factors in the students' background predicted a) more anxiety in distance learning compared to traditional on-site learning b) more loneliness in distance learning compared to traditional on-site learning c) and what factors predicted that students felt difficult return to school.

This paper builds on a paper presented at ECER 2021 which drew on the first phase of a small-scale longitudinal study examining how current and former students on the Into Headship (IH) programme in Scotland supported their school communities during the first lockdown in the UK, with a particular emphasis on children and young people (CYP) considered to be vulnerable through disability, poverty, being looked after or otherwise disadvantaged. Its starting point derives from Ainscow, Booth and Dyson’s (2006) typology of inclusion – ‘inclusion as a principled approach to education and society,’ concerned with the inclusion of all children.

It has been well documented that global inequalities, as identified by Wilkinson and Pickett (2018), have been magnified through the pandemic. An extensive range of commentators highlights the catastrophic global impact of the restrictions and disruption to schooling posed by the pandemic on the mental health and wellbeing of children and on their learning (Lee, 2020; Mowat, in press, 2023a, 2023b; Shum, Skripkauskaite, Pearcey, Waite, & Creswell, 2021; UNESCO et al., 2020; UNICEF, 2021; UNICEF Data, 2020; World Health Organisation, 2020). A substantial number of children in Europe were living in homes that lacked the resources to support home learning and were living in poorly heated homes (Mowat, in press, 2023a; Van Lancker & Parolin, 2020).

Whilst much attention has been devoted to losses in learning brought about by the pandemic and to learning recovery, increasingly attention is turning towards the socio-emotional wellbeing of CYP (Lee, 2020; Mowat, in press; OECD, 2020; Wang, Zhang, Zhao, Zhang, & Jiang, 2020). UNICEF (2021) highlights the fragility of support systems for children and how the hardships experienced fall disproportionally on the most disadvantaged (p. 16). Even when restrictions were eased in the UK, children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and those from low-income families continued to show elevated health symptoms (Shum et al., 2021; Mowat 2023a). In England, the lack of face-to-face contact with children at risk of abuse and neglect led to a reduction in referrals to social services (a finding mirrored globally (UNICEF, 2020b)) and the anxiety brought about by disrupted relationships with staff and peers led to increasing incidences of self-harm in some children within the care system (OFSTED, 2021; Mowat 2023a). This highlights the key role that schools play as places of learning but also places of safety and belonging.

The quality of school leadership is an essential element in creating schools which are equitable, inclusive, and compassionate in their approach. This requires a focus on the whole school community and on responsive and adaptive leadership which has at its heart inclusive practice and social justice (Mowat, 2023a). School leaders have had to navigate an unprecedented landscape of complex and rapid change and therefore the quality of headship preparation programmes becomes crucial in ensuring that prospective headteachers can rise to the challenge.

This small-scale empirical study is supported by a BELMAS grant and focusses on Into Headship, a masters-level programme delivered within a single academic year in partnership with Education Scotland. Through examination of the ways in which IH students supported their school communities during and in the aftermath of lockdown (with a specific, but not sole, focus on more vulnerable CYP), the study seeks to ascertain the degree to and ways in which engagement with the IH programme had prepared them to meet the challenges in order to inform the development of headship programmes globally.

Inclusive education can be described as an international paradigm that focuses on participation as well as processes of inclusion and exclusion in educational contexts – and the barriers and discrimination embedded therein. On the one hand, this paradigm has been incorporated into the policies of international (educational) organizations, such as the European Union, the OECD, UNESCO or the World Bank, while on the other hand, it has gained significant visibility through international agreements, such as the Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education of 1994, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities of 2006 and the UN Sustainable Development Goals of 2018. The political normative (pro)positions and goals in inclusive education associated with this are currently adopted in national and regional education policies and, subsequently, specific steering processes in education systems are being initiated. Thereby, inclusion needs to be adapted, at both the national and regional level, into different educational systems with differing historical developments, distinct cultures, normative and legal foundations, and then be transferred into practice and specific conditions. Against this backdrop inclusive education is discussed to be a fuzzy or slippery concept, meaning that it is difficult to define or operationalize it in a clear and precise way.

As this fuzziness might be very well a problem for developing inclusive education systems, it also presents a specific challenge for international comparative research regarding inclusive education. Therefore the DFG-funded scientific network "Inclusive Education: International and Comparative Perspectives" (2020-2024), researchers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland explore how these processes, reaching from global to local levels, can be studied in an internationally comparative manner. In the framework of the joint work within the network, different theoretical and/or methodological approaches are compared and discussed with scientists from the international arena. The aim is to analyze the potentials and limitations of these approaches for international comparative (educational) research.

One of many possible examples concerning fuzziness is represented in the terminology “Inklusive Didaktik” - we will use this example as a case during our research workshop. The terminology, literally translated as ‘inclusive didactic’ represents an interesting case for international comparative research. In the German speaking discourse, the terminology is at the core of the discourse surrounding the implementation of inclusive education and the question “how to teach well, in an inclusive manner”. Framing the debates about teaching practices in the context of inclusive education - “didactics” as a concept refers to the “art of teaching”. Even though German speaking countries are only representing a small part of the world, conceptualizations of “inclusive didactics” are diverse and contradictory (Moser Opitz 2014, Zahnd 2021). This is a challenging situation to situate and contrast the specific discourse of “inclusive didactics” against other discourses of e.g. the English-speaking dominating debates and gets even worse because there is no conceptual counterpart to “didactics”. Thus, it remains unclear how to compare and connect two discourses if a core concept of one discourse does not even exist in the other or presents itself in many shapes and forms or interpretations, such as inclusive instruction, inclusive teaching, inclusive pedagogy etc.

Within the research workshop we like to present our ongoing discussion in connection with the case “Inklusive Didaktik” and open it up for a broader discussion within network four.

Ensuring inclusive and quality education and reducing inequalities are key Sustainable Development Goals for our global society. Teachers, nevertheless, may face challenges in enacting an inclusive pedagogy that responds to the increasing diversity in our classrooms (Florian and Pantić, 2017). It is observed that more and more countries have started to purposively support teachers’ professional development for inclusion (Kubacka and D’Addio, 2020).

Inclusive education is recognized as being the cornerstone of Scottish education (Scottish Government, 2017) and there is clear recognition of the important role that teachers play in ensuring that barriers to pupils’ learning are addressed. The Framework for Inclusion (Scottish Universities Inclusion Group, 2022), now in its third edition (https://www.gtcs.org.uk/professional-standards/national-framework-for-inclusion/), is intended to support teachers at all stages of their career journey to develop and sustain inclusive practice within their diverse professional contexts. The Framework is internationally unique, by recognizing teachers as autonomous and creative professionals who have the capacity to critically reflect on their pedagogical decisions and identify approaches to promote learners’ inclusion. It differs from other policy and practice documentation which provides teachers with materials to deliver, and, sometimes, direction in how to teach it but without a discussion of why this direction is best practice. It is closely linked with the latest Scotland’s Professional Standards for Teachers (GTCS, 2021) and Education Scotland’s ethos of empowering teachers as autonomous, creative professionals (Scottish Government, 2019).

The Framework was first developed as an output from the Inclusive Practice Project (IPP, Rouse and Florian, 2012). The three underlying principles for the Framework, namely the Inclusive Pedagogical Approaches in Action (IPAA), were developed during the IPP, and they can be summarized as:

• Difference is ordinary and an essential aspect of human development

• Teachers must believe that they are capable of teaching all children

• We must work collaboratively with others, finding creative new ways to do so (Florian and Spratt, 2013).

The Framework is comprised of reflective questions such as ‘What role do I play in ensuring my school maintains a rights-respecting culture?’ and ‘How do I ensure a holistic approach to learning and teaching for everyone?’ (SUIG, 2022). The questions are organised into the categories of Student Teachers, All Teachers, and Experienced Teachers, addressing the need of scaffolding by taking into account of the varied roles, experiences and contexts that shape teachers’ work. This new edition was also revised cognizance being taken of recent developments within Scottish education including the increased focus on sustainability and the need for diversification of the curricula.

Developing the Framework was an ambitious endeavor shared by all 11 teacher education institutions in Scotland to co-create the much-needed resources in supporting teachers’ development for inclusion. Teacher educator representatives from the Scottish Universities Inclusion Group (http://www.scde.ac.uk/networks/inclusion-group/) participated in various stages of collaborative and critically reflective discussions.

This workshop draws on two related projects that can help to a) understand how teachers and schools can facilitate the inclusion of migrant students, and b) facilitate the process of change that can help them do so. To understand how schools can meet migrant students' needs, we draw on the insights generated by Teaching That Matter for Migrant Students (TEAMS) study. This research project has examined teacher agency and collaboration for supporting migrant students within different schools and systems in Sweden, Finland, and Scotland. To achieve the second aim, we demonstrate how the Agents of Change Toolkit (ACToolkit) can be used to facilitate opportunities for knowledge exchange and collaboration between teachers, researchers, school leaders, educational authorities, and other professionals.

Drawing on one case study from the TEAMS research project, looking at how students can be supported to integrate into the school community, and how staff can be supported to support migrant students, the workshop will give participants opportunity to engage with the recently completed ACToolkit knowledge exchange project. They will be able to explore some of the serious games which accompany this process, and to consider how they may use the ACToolkit in their own setting to practically support the process of identifying and making changes in their inclusive and equitable approaches and practice related to supporting the integration of migrant and refugee students.

Recent estimates from the United Nations (UN) point out that over 15 percent of the world’s 260 million migrants are children and young people. In 2020, more than 17,500 child refugees and migrants arrived in Europe (UNICEF, 2020). Since then, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has initiated the biggest inflow of migrants since the Second World War. At the time of writing, an estimated five million people have fled Ukraine and there is no end to this crisis in sight. Most Ukrainian refugees are women and children of school age. This new wave of refugees exacerbates an already accelerated rise in the number of migrants globally as people continue to move for economic reasons or to escape natural disasters and conflict. Consequently, the social and cultural makeup of school-age populations is changing rapidly, creating challenges for schools and teachers in national education systems that were designed to meet the needs of local populations. The current crisis highlights the urgent need to consider how schools can accommodate the increasing diversity of student populations as a common feature of modern educational systems rather than a situational crisis or problem of migration.

Research shows that teachers can and do act as agents of change (Pantić, 2015; 2017; Pantić & Florian, 2015, van der Heijen et al., 2015). However, school leadership and teachers often feel unprepared for dealing with the challenges of including refugees and other migrant students. This is due to assumptions embedded in the institutional contexts of their work, the lack of adequate support, or their own unexamined beliefs about teaching and learning in the contexts of increasing diversity of student populations (Florian & Pantić, 2017). Within this context, ACToolkit was co-designed together with practitioners in Scotland as an artefact that can facilitate the development and implementation of theories of change that can promote inclusion of all students (see e.g. Laing & Todd, 2015), engaging relevant actors in accessible research-based activities that are also practicable and collaborative. ACT is a practical toolkit for schools and teachers designed to help them identify and enact the changes required to improve education around the SDGs, particularly SDG4 ‘Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’ (UNESCO, 2021).

Living in a Europe that aims to be a plural, active and networked society, the promotion of dialogues between different cultures and the search for knowledge are fundamental to ensure a diverse, inclusive, equitable and quality education.

The present Workshop proposal is justified both by the recognition of the need to develop dynamics and processes of collaborative work between cultures, and to raise awareness of the potentialities of using emerging Accessible Digital Musical Instruments (ADMIs) and Assistive Technologies in favour of an inclusive music education.

This proposal aims to sensitize participants to the recognition of the potential of Digital Technology, in the development of inclusive dynamics and collaborative work processes, in the field of teaching / learning of music. It aims to present different works and technologies already developed, or under development, to promote inclusive music teaching, both in the context of Regular Education and in the context of Arts Education Programmes of Music. Furthermore, it aims to identify possible problems that can be faced in the processes of inclusion in music, promoting collaborative and participatory work towards their resolution. The themes addressed will be as follows:

- Music Teaching and Music Therapy, similarities, and differences,

- Universal Design as pedagogical differentiation for learning,

- Strategies for enhancing the active participation of all children,

- Promotion of opportunities for success,

- Case studies,

- Curricular adaptations in Arts Education Programmes of Music for the benefit of Inclusion,

- Use of Assistive Technology/Technologies and Software for the Teaching of Music,

- Potentiation of the development of Good Practices among all trainees.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Work financed by FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology, within the scope of the PhD scholarship with reference 2020.07331.BD, and by National Funds through FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology, IP, within the scope of the UIDB/00194/2020 project, referring to CIDTFF - Research Center in Didactics and Technology in the Training of Trainers.

In this paper, I think through three Intensive Interactions from my doctoral research-creation study to neuroqueer what passes as ‘literacies’ in the special education classroom. Using Nathan Snaza’s (2019) concept of ‘animate literacies’ as“marks that circulate in various media with affective agency,” and the scholar-activist concept neurological queerness, I consider how an attention to opacity, the more-than-human, and relationality might contest the notion of ‘competence’ in special educational literacy. This has particular implications in the after-lives of the coronavirus pandemic, where ‘catching-up’ or regaining lost time has become a powerful narrative in policy and practice.

In this paper, I contest the hierarchical neuro-normativity of literacy ‘competence.’ I do so using the scholar-activist concept of ‘neuroqueerness,’ as what queer theorist Muñoz (1999) might term a ‘dis-identification’ of neurodivergence that “work[s] on and against dominant ideology” (Muñoz, 1999, loc. 458). In this way, I understand the term ‘neuroqueer’ as a verb that does something to neurotypical hierarchies of cognition rather than an adjective that describes a type of practice. The concept of neuroqueerness has been used to bring new insights to the study of curriculum and classroom practice (Roscigno, 2020). While literacy scholars have problematised state-sanctioned notions of literacy for their raciality (Cushing, 2021; Wynter-Hoyte & Boutte, 2018), their separation of mind from both body and place (Flewitt, 2005; Hackett, 2021), and their separation of literacy skills from the ‘literacy event’ (Burnett & Merchant, 2020), the idea of neuroqueerness has received only a little attention in the field of literacy, and what little there is reinforces neuro-normative conceptualisations of literacy.

For instance, Kleecamp (2020) draws from Biklen’s notion of ‘presuming competence’ to explore how young people’s stimming, disrupting, and refusing when engaging with texts demonstrates a kind of what she terms ‘neuroqueer literacy.’ However, presuming competence is really quite different from how I think about ‘neuroqueerness.’ Presuming competence is a way of ‘including,’ or recognising neurodivergent practices through the lens of an existing set of neuronormative capacities—here what it means to be literate. Biklen tries to map neurodivergent practices onto these capacities, re-emphasizing neurotypical literacy skills. By way of a contrast, Kim (2015), in contesting corporeal hierarchies. encourages us to reject the whole idea of humanist capacities, including ‘competence,’ and thus making them irrelevant in “recognising the ontology of an object.” In other words, presuming competence retains the humanist measures of capacity against which divergent body(mind)s fail to measure up. Likewise, presuming competence in the special education literacy classroom retains the deficit-centric perspective of a set of ‘literacy’ capacities, the failure to achieve which defines neurodivergence. By way of a contrast, truly neuroqueering ‘literacies’ should contest the whole notion of competence.

These questions are of particular concern in the after-lives of the coronavirus pandemic, where the urgency of catching children up with pre-pandemic competencies has become a powerful narrative in international policy and practice. This has typically emphasised state-sanctioned disciplinary expectations of children’s progress in ‘literacy’ and ‘numeracy.’ Yet, this discussion fails to account for the ways in which these disciplines are grounded in homonormative and white supremacist notions of competence that (in the UK) nearly 50% of children were failing to meet anyway. A neuroqueering of ‘competence’ might pave the way to question what

My thinking in this paper leads me to address the following two research questions:

1. How might an attention to embodiment and the more-than-human neuroqueer humanist notions of ‘literacies’?
2. How might neuroqueering ‘literacies’ complicate the notion of competencies in the special education classroom?

Students with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD) have overall fewer educational opportunities and are more at risk of developing impairments in health and functioning than their peers (Durlak et al., 2011). For students with EBD it is difficult to meet school requirements and teachers’ expectations for social and learning behaviour in class (Bethell et al., 2012). They report a lower social integration in class, less acceptance by their teachers and less well-being than their peers (Blumenthal & Blumenthal, 2021). Furthermore, children and adolescents with special educational needs in this area are perceived as more aggressive and are more likely to be rejected by their peers (Gest et al., 2014; Hendrickx et al., 2016). In addition, teachers find these students’ disruptive behaviour in class challenging (Øen & Johan Krumsvik, 2021). Difficulties in meeting requirements and expectations in class are associated with EBD students’ shortcomings in social emotional skills (Durlak et al., 2011).

Social emotional learning can be seen as the process of acquiring competences to recognise and manage one’s own and other’s emotions, to establish positive relationships or to manage conflicts, in sum, to gain social emotional skills (Durlak et al., 2015). Indeed, promoting social emotional learning needs to be a prominent aspect in teaching students with EBD (e.g. Demol et al., 2020). There are several schoolwide programs and planned interventions for promoting social emotional learning (Durlak et al., 2011; Reicher & Matischeck-Jauk, 2012). Meta-analyses show that these programs are effective in enhancing students’ self-perception or reducing aggression both at post-test (Durlak et al., 2011) and at follow up (Taylor et al., 2017). These programs mostly implement strategies to enhance students’ skills through systematic instructions for teaching, modelling, practicing and applying social emotional skills in different situations, sometimes complemented by the development of safe and caring environments (Durlak et al., 2011; Taylor et al., 2017). These programs have shown to be more effective if delivered by the teacher and not a person from outside the classroom (Durlak et al., 2011). This points to the important role of the teacher and the teacher-student relation for social emotional learning (Farmer et al., 2011). It also raises the question of teachers’ competences and the approaches that they take for promoting students’ social emotional learning in everyday class. For example, teachers might support social emotional learning by scaffolding peer interactions or functioning as a role model in how to shape relationships (Gest et al., 2014; Hendrickx et al., 2016). Yet regular teachers feel especially challenged by EBD students‘ behaviour and report on a lack of approaches to promote social emotional learning (Øen & Johan Krumsvik, 2021).

This paper explores dilemmas in the enactment of inclusive education, based on the findings from an interview study with Swedish subject teachers and special educators.

Inclusive education is an educational ideal that emphasizes access, participation and achievement in education for all students, as well as a general acceptance for diversity. Although inclusive education has been a global policy goal since the signing of the Salamanca Statement in 1994, it has shown to be difficult to implement in practice. In this regard, researchers have pointed towards some tensions within the concept. For example, such tensions concern whether or not inclusive education presupposes identification of certain students that should be excluded, and to what degree and how teaching should be differentiated in order to meet the needs of all students.

Several researchers have attempted to account for such complexities by studying dilemmas that schools and teachers face in their everyday work. Dilemmas are generally understood as challenges that cannot be completely conquered due to their inherent conflicts of principles, values or goals. Thus, they can only be temporarily resolved, which require prioritizations where all available options carry negative consequences. Moreover, responses to dilemmas are always made in relation to contextual constraints, policy demands and pressure from other local actors. Thus, national or local policies and prioritizations can constrain school actors’ room for action. In this way, dilemmas that have been resolved on higher levels might remain implicit to practitioners.

While much conceptual and empirical research have studied dilemmas in schools, it has been argued that resolutions to dilemmas need to be further understood in relation to constraints imposed by neoliberal standards policies that has increasingly come to characterize education policy and school practices. For example, researchers have argued that the focus on meeting academic performance targets classifies failing students as deviant and in need of special educational support, and that standards policies transform inclusive education into a matter of access to mainstream classrooms and provision of support for reaching standardized performance targets. However, more research is needed on how this conflict take shape in practice, and how it frames dilemmas and their resolutions in schools.

In this paper, this is pursued through an interview study with Swedish subject teachers and special educators. Sweden has traditionally been regarded as an inclusive educational system, but has lost ground in international comparisons of equity in school systems, which can be seen in the light of a rapid movement towards marketization and a focus on educational standards in the last decades. Thus, Sweden is an interesting case for studying the confrontation between inclusive and neoliberal ideals.

In the paper, the theory on policy enactment by Stephen Ball with colleagues is used to analyze resolutions to dilemmas as taking place on an arena where local school actors interpret, negotiate and translate conflicting policy demands. In particular, the analysis of the interviews makes use of the concepts interpretations and translations, which highlight differences between actors' capabilities and inclinations to enact different policies, and thus resolve dilemmas, in different ways. Moreover, the notions of imperative and exhortative policies are used to illustrate how different kinds of policy entail different conditions for resolving dilemmas. By relating theoretical notions of policy enactment and dilemmas to each other in the analysis, the paper aims to provide further insights into how different school actors perceive dilemmas, and how they engage in the work of resolving them. In particular, the paper has the ambition to contribute with knowledge on how school professionals’ perceptions and resolutions can be shaped by conflicting policy demands, their school contexts, and their positions in the local school organization.

The project sought to address the problem that technological innovation can bring about greater levels of sustainability only when all citizens are able to engage with the technology (Bhamra, Lilley and Tang, 2011; Lockton, Harrison and Stanton, 2008). It sought to enhance public understanding of the concept of sustainability, and practical steps to achieving this, by people who are commonly excluded from public education initiatives. To this end, a five-day STEM summer scheme on the theme of sustainability was planned, held in two non-formal learning venues. The project was designed to meet the following objectives for young people with Additional Support Needs (ASN) living in an area of an area of deprivation in the west of Scotland:

• To enhance participants’ awareness of what is meant by sustainability at a local, national, and international level
• To introduce participants to different aspects of sustainable technologies, through interaction with scientists and technologists
• To give participants hands on experience of strategies that will bring them and their community closer to sustainability

Academics working in relevant area of STEM were invited to devise and run a 90-minute workshop showing how their research was enhancing sustainability for the young people. Discussions about the workshops and the form the scheme would take were fostered by three workshops led an external partner who specialises in promoting inter-disciplinary conversations. All invited workshop leaders had been identified through the university’s ‘STEM Equals’ initiative which sought to promote applications for Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (ESPRC) funding from under-represented groups. Through participating in the project, they were offered the chance to provide evidence of addressing the EPSRC’s mission and so enhanced their ability to position themselves favourably for future bids.

The project was conceptualised as critical pedagogy, in which social justice and democracy are integral to the teaching and evaluation (Breuing, 2011). The underpinning model for the scheme was transformational learning theory’, which posits that changes in thinking, beliefs and behaviours can be wrought only when prior assumptions are challenged (Meziro, 2000). Such shifts, although qualitatively different for the young people and the academics, were being sought in both workshop leaders and workshop participants. The framework is commonly associated with attempts to build capacity, but this project was unusual in explicitly seeking to achieve capacity building in the academics and young people through mutual interactions. It also drew on the ideas of Fricker (2007) and took active steps, through recruitments processes and practical organisation, to guard against epistemic injustice for either workshop leaders or young people. This notion considers those whose perspectives are not incorporated into knowledge creation, either because they are excluded from the process, for examples by assumptions of what they can achieve, or because they cannot understand or be understood by those creating the knowledge. This required scrutiny of all aspects of the scheme, for example, travel arrangements of participants to and from the site, availability of suitable clothing for the outdoor environment as well as catering arrangements and support for communication. Drawing on a raft of professional knowledge about effective ways to teach and assess young people with ASN, workshop leaders were given guidance on how to communicate their research in a way that would be accessible to their audience. In addition, other people with relevant expertise, including outdoor activity staff, a storyteller and a professional photographer were employed.

There are different ‘accepted’ research methods, tools and procedures used in research. However, many of these may have been developed by researchers and for participants in the Global North¹. Research in the field of inclusion and diversity has particularly made visible the importance of having approaches that engage with voices from different backgrounds. Due to common aims and values, participatory approaches in recent years have become closely associated with inclusive education research. Participatory research contributes to the development of democratic and inclusive contexts by enabling the participation of those who are underprivileged, challenging existing power relations and fostering development of competencies needed for social change^2,3.

This discussion panel will start from Santos’ concept of Global South: ‘The global South is not a geographical concept (...). The South is rather a metaphor for the human suffering caused by capitalism and colonialism on the global level, as well as for the resistance to overcoming or minimising such suffering. It is, therefore, an anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist, anti-patriarchal, and anti-imperialist South. It is a South that also exists in the geographic North (Europe and North America), in the form of excluded, silenced and marginalised populations, such as undocumented immigrants, the unemployed, ethnic or religious minorities, and victims of sexism, homophobia, racism and islamophobia’⁴.

We will consider the challenge of doing research in the Global South following traditions and ethical procedures developed by and for the Global North. The ethical procedures currently in place in the Global North are a result of historical processes (e.g. Milgram Experiment, Jane Elliott's exercise), and we will argue that they are not appropriate to develop participatory/ inclusive approaches to research, particularly in Global South contexts.

The panel will bring together researchers who have worked with Syrian and Eritrean refugees, mothers of autistic girls in Algeria, refugees in Turkey, disabled and ‘disadvantaged’ children/ young people. We will take into account the dominant and counter-dominant views of research ethics, with a shared understanding that research ethics is always situated in the specific socio-political-historical context, dialogic in its nature and political in its intentions⁵. The panel will discuss the need for:

1) culturally sensitive approaches to research, given the threatening nature of Global North ethical procedures. The ‘ethical’ research procedures including consent forms, participant information sheets, and privacy notices create feelings of uneasiness and anxiety for some (e.g. when researching Syrian families’ opinions of education in Scotland, some families withdrew due to concerns about their citizenship applications, despite being told that their data would be anonymous and confidential). So, some aspects of an ‘ethical’ research process could result in the exclusion of the participants from the Global South, who are already disadvantaged and marginalised in the societies they live in. We will also problematise research that seems to not only document but reinforce the present growth of prejudice and hate in Turkey towards refugees^7,8 by making local participants (non-refugee) feel neglected.

2) questioning ethically approved research as ‘There is no direct or necessary relationship between ethics committee approval of a research project and what actually happens when the research is undertaken (...) responsibility falls back to the researchers’ themselves – they are the ones on whom the conduct of ethical research depends’⁹. And more importantly, we will question ethically approved participatory/ inclusive research considering individualistic, extractionary approaches, failure to address issues of knowledge production, ownership, and (re)distribution of power, epistemology, researcher positionality, research integrity (e.g. an Eritrean refugee stated: ‘We narrate our stories in the hope that a solution would be found to our suffering. The truth is that, often nothing happens’).

The aim of this panel discussion is to discuss the possibilities and contradictions involved in conducting both ‘home-international’ and cross-national comparisons of school exclusion from the perspectives of Australia, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA). We will open up a discussion about the research question: how may we address the methodological challenges involved in home and cross-national studies of school exclusion?

Despite the wide recognition in international human rights law of the right of all pupils to education, increasing numbers of young people in each country are being removed from school through legal (permanent/expulsion and fixed period/suspension) and illegal forms of exclusion such as ‘off-rolling’. This is alarming given the well documented negative short- and long-term consequences of being excluded from school, including various forms of social exclusion, few school qualifications, sexual exploitation and exposure to violent crime and grooming by drug gangs, disengagement from the labour market, long-term psychiatric illness, and being more likely to go to prison (Graham et al. 2019). Each country has also seen a rise in internal forms of school exclusion. The effects of the pandemic have also dramatically increased the number of self excluders, including young people who are experiencing difficulties with school work, relationships with others, who are bored, bullied, or have mental health difficulties (Thompson et al., 2022). School exclusion, in all its forms, is a consequence of disadvantage and it gives rise to inequalities both social and economic. This is an urgent global phenomenon that requires the collaboration of multiple stakeholders across numerous contexts

Researchers from the three continents of Australasia, Europe and North America will highlight the opportunities and challenges from their current mixed methods studies on school exclusion that home-international studies offer for exploring ways in which policy and practice relating to school exclusion varies in local political, cultural and historical contexts. Detailed scrutiny reveals that the political and policy frameworks in a nation state shape the forms which exclusion takes (McCluskey et al. 2019). The three countries share contexts where the education systems have significant national and regional policy influences. The three countries also share high levels of school exclusion that both disproportionately affect young people specific groups e.g. low-income families, from some ethnic backgrounds, or with special needs. Conducting home-international studies, while raising particular challenges, has helped us to understand the distribution of inequalities, explain how different regional educational models and practices contribute to school exclusion or inclusion, and identify targets and priority actions to improve inclusion and inform policy-making. Yet considerable differences in socio-political, cultural, and educational context in different parts of each country substantially changes practices and levels of inequality, exclusion, and inclusion in education. In this context little is known about how professionals, institutional agents, local authorities interpret, design, practice, and discuss educational inclusion policies and practices in their own contexts. Although international comparisons have had some influence on policy making, contextual differences between nations means that there remain challenges in identifying common data sources and language for use across (and between) different nations and regions. We will also argue that while home- international comparisons may provide fruitful sources of practical policy lessons (Raffe 1998, Taylor et al. 2013) there is a need to reconsider what counts as evidence in the understanding of school exclusions (Daniels et al., 2022).

Being born with or acquiring a disability or chronic condition in early childhood influence the chances of completing an education in adulthood. We analyse changes in educational outcomes over two decades for six diagnostic groups, comparing them with a nationally representative sample. Our overarching questions are: to what extent do gaps in participation rates exist, and can we observe a narrowing in the gap in education participation for cohorts born between 1977 and 1995?

A child’s gender as well as parental education are influential predictors of educational outcomes. We address the intersection between diagnostic condition, gender and parental educational background on educational outcomes. Does parental background contribute more to the educational success of children with disabilities and chronic conditions? And to what extent can gaps in educational outcomes be accounted for by gender?

A characteristic of Norway as well as other western societies during the last decades is a general expansion in education, including tertiary education (Thompson 2019). In addition, since the late 1970s, inclusive education had been legally and politically mandated. The expansion involves resources, as well as time spent in school. From 1990 to 2008, the total teaching time in Norwegian schools increased drastically. A focus on “early effort” and reading, writing and arithmetic skills imply longer days in school. Norway also experienced a major growth in special education from the early 2000s. The share of children receiving special education increased from 2 percent in 2002 to 8 percent in 2008. The growth in special education in part reflect an overall heightened awareness of the situation of disabled children. Legislative efforts and acts, such as universal access to school-buildings and other measures, reveal intentions from central authorities to “level the playing field”.

In the period of investigation, medical and technical advances may enable individuals with specific diagnostic conditions to be in a better position to benefit from education. In the Curriculum from 1997, the deaf were for the first time given the right to education in sign language as their first language, and an increasing number of cochlear implants are in use in Norway. Better and more effective medication to control diabetes and asthma are now available, and new information technologies can assist children with sensory limitations. Use of social media and other digital platforms for educational purposes can counter the limitations of not being physically present.

However, other changes in the period may increase the risk of further marginalization within the educational system for children with disabilities and chronic conditions. In a meritocratic society, success in the educational system may have an increasing influence on the chances of success in adult life in terms of employment status, occupational attainment, and earnings. In a situation with heightened competition within the educational system, children with disabilities and chronic conditions may be increasingly at risk. A number of studies suggest that a process of social exclusion is going on, following placement in segregated school settings within ordinary schools as well as special schools (De Bruin 2020). Contrary to officially stated policy objectives in Norway, local municipalities and schools continue a practice of segregating children with outside of ordinary classroom education. In higher education, financial assistance intended to compensate for the constraints faced by students with disabilities have been also cut back.

History of serving students with special educational needs has started from segregated placements like special schools and facilities outside of mainstream education. During decades, along with disability right movements and more developed pedagogical solutions based on differentiation and individualization, the inclusive placement in mainstream education has been set as a priority for every student. However, smaller teaching groups called as special classes/self-contained classroom are still a valid option in Finland like in elsewhere.

The questions of the effectiveness of special vs. inclusive setting is one of the most actual issues both in the field of inclusive and special education as well as in global education policy (Kauffman et al. 2017). Interestingly, the question of the best placement option has not been scientifically fully solved anywhere; the decisions at the school level are based mainly on pragmatic and ideological grounds. One reason is, that the effects and outcomes (for both students with and without disabilities) are not easy to investigate; there are several challenges related to the research group formation (like sample attrition, baseline equivalence), measures and also to ethical questions (see Gersten et al. 2017; Hienonen et al. 2018).

One of the major challenges is, that for practical and ethical reasons, it is not possible to follow the ‘gold standard’ of randomized controlled trial, where study participants are randomly assigned to inclusive or special education group (Gersten et al. 2017). Instead, many former studies in special education have used natural setting, meaning that the selection to groups has made by administrative grounds and therefore the groups are not necessarily comparable. The typical findings is, that students placed in separate settings, are found to have more severe difficulties, in particular related to the social-emotional behaviour (Lane et al. 2005).

However, in some previous studies, a quasi-experimental design has been used. This means that the similarity of the study groups has been tested afterwards (Zweers et al. 2019) or an artificial experimental/control group matching has been created using available background factors and propensity score matching technique (Hienonen et al. 2021; Kojac et al. 2014).

In our study, we are empirically exploring the outcomes of placement and the actual support offered to students with special educational needs in both inclusive and special educational settings. Our main research question is: What kind of cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes is produced by inclusive vs. special education group placement?

Inclusive education has historically referred to teaching and learning for students with disabilities (UNESCO, 1994). Over time, though, the term has broadened, responding to the diverse needs of all children in relation to gender, language, religion, culture, geographic location, economic status, caste, migration and afflictions from conflict (Shaeffer, 2019). In this paper, we identify the outcomes, and explore how program elements contributed to the outcomes, of an international inclusive education short course program designed to build on the capacities of a group of educators from Nepal to lead inclusive education reforms in their local schooling contexts. Further, we discuss the ongoing challenges in delivering reforms. Developing countries, such as Nepal, have attempted to develop inclusive education policies and practices in schools as per the global trend towards inclusion evident over the past decade (Pradhan, et al., 2021). To date, however, the implementation of inclusive education in the region has been variable. For example, while inclusive education is part of Government policy in Nepal (Government of Nepal, 2017), there has been limited enactment of the policy in practice (Regmi, 2017; Thapaliya, 2018). Contextual features, such as the geography of the country, together with limited infrastructure, few teaching resources, negative, societal attitudes towards disability, and a lack of teacher training in inclusive education (Thapaliya, 2018; Sharma, 2021) continue to contribute to the challenges in implementing inclusive education in Nepal.

The program that provided the focus of this paper is an Australia Awards South and West Asia (AASWA) short course, an international aid initiative of the Australian Government through which short-term training and professional development opportunities are delivered by an Australian Higher Education Provider to a range of countries in South and West Asia (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), 2020). Through this initiative, staff in public, private, and non-government organisations in developing countries can undertake short-term study and professional development in Australia with the aim of building human capacity to contribute to development in their home countries (DFAT 2018). In this case, the program centred on developing inclusive education understanding and practices that could be applied in local settings in Nepal.

The program comprised a two-week component of inclusive education policy and practice, delivered in Australia with ongoing online support from university academics in Australia for participants on their return to Nepal. The program structure included workshop activities, visits to exemplary schools that provide embedded inclusive practices and principles, reflective conversations, and professional planning for participants’ return home. Structured networking events introduced participants to a range of educators with expertise in inclusive education, alongside thematic discussions and experience sharing among the program participants. A follow-up workshop was conducted in Kathmandu approximately three months following the Australian component.

Data were collected before, during and after the program. The multiple sources of data collected at different points throughout the program allowed us to identify the impact of specific program elements on outcomes. For example, observing inclusive education in practice across a range of educational contexts in Australia and opportunities for reflection prompted participants to examine their own assumptions, values, and beliefs about inclusion and to consider how to assimilate these changes into their workplaces in Nepal. Some program participants had a disability and it appeared that having a disability provided a unique perspective as they attempted to reconcile their prior understandings of inclusive education with the new. On reflection, findings also indicate that a deep understanding of context is needed by program planners to better understand how and why particular program elements lead to change of practices for the participants. Our paper concludes with recommendations for developers of similar programs in the future.

Following the legal requirements at international (UN-BRK, 2006) and national level in Switzerland (BehiG, 2004), learners with special educational needs are increasingly being taught in mainstream classes. In most educational systems, special measures exist with intend to support inclusion of students with special educational needs in mainstream schools. In Switzerland, the most common inclusive school measure for learners with mild disabilities is “inclusive support” to develop or improve knowledge, skills, behaviours, cognitions, or emotions. Inclusive support is given by a special education teacher for one or several hours per week and either within the mainstream classes (e.g., team teaching) or outside the classroom in individual or group setting.

Due to the federal system in Switzerland, the education system and the implementation of integrative measures is to a large extent in the responsibility of the cantons (i.e., the states). Nonetheless, the work of the cantons is not entirely separate but coordinated by the special education concordat (EDK, 2017). However, due to lack of binding guidelines in terms of the concrete implementation, there are considerable disparities in the implementation, designation, allocation, and funding of integrative measures across cantons (Sahli Lozano et al., 2021a). Further disparities may also exist within cantons, as school districts and even teachers have some degrees of freedom when it comes to the implementation and allocation of integrative school measures.

These disparities can have consequences in two broad areas. Firstly, disparities may lead to educational inequalities. It is possible that comparable learners benefit from inclusive support to a very different extent depending on their canton of residence, or that the distribution of resources influences whether "comparable learners" are integrated into a regular class or attend a special class (Luder, 2021; Sahli Lozano et al., 2021a). Secondly, the disparities complicate research on inclusive support, as findings may not directly be comparable across cantons and even within a canton the implementation of inclusive support and its target population can be heterogeneous.

In this presentation, we will explore the extent to which inclusive support is allocated and implemented throughout Switzerland and within one single canton (using the example of the canton of Bern).

Systemic school change of students due to changing demographics or personal factors (change of residence, conflicts) are just some of the reasons why students have to change schools.The transition from one school to another is a stressful change for every student, as they have to adapt to the new school environment as well as the social network (Graham & Hill, 2003).According to Cauley and Jovanovich (2006), changing schools means for a child to adapt to a new, often larger school environment, with new fellow students and teachers, with different academic expectations. At the same time studies have shown that the student`s age, gender and special educational needs also play an important role in adapting to the new school environment (Anderson et al, 2000; Evans et al, 2018; Hebron, 2018; Makin et al, 2017; McCoy et al, 2020).

The effect of changing schools can be manifested in the decline of academic results and abilities, and difficulties in psychosocial coping, which is why it is important to consciously support the students' school change – to uphold students’ academic performance and social well-being. This is particularly important for students with special educational needs, who have been shown to be at an increased risk for mental and physical coping difficulties.

School- and teaching-related effects, such as teaching strategies, in-school support system, and preparation play an important role in helping students adapt with the changes (Evans et al., 2018). Also, support from parents is relevant for adapting with the situation (Serbin et al., 2013). Thus, positive social network and support system are essential when supporting students’ school transition, especially for students with special educational needs.

The purpose of the study was to find out how students with special educational needs are supported in school change in Estonian schools.

The fundamental task of educational institutions is the integral development of every person from an inclusive point of view. In this approach to the 21st century school, not only the family and the community are a necessary and essential pillar, but also the guidance counsellors and teachers specialised in Therapeutic Pedagogy and Hearing and Language Therapy. Their work goes beyond the integration of appropriate knowledge, skills and abilities, as it involves managing complex situations and having competences that allow them to face the continuous changes that schools and society demand, while at the same time having the necessary material and human resources (Martínez Garrido et al., 2010).

The first step towards the achievement and scope of inclusive education, in the words of Souto (2021), is undoubtedly to have legislative instruments available, as these incorporate specific mandates that oblige public authorities to promote quality education for all people and provide the necessary resources for this purpose.

Particularly in Spain, the current Organic Law 3/2020 of 29 December, which modifies Organic Law 2/2006 of 3 May, on Education (LOMLOE) establishes in its preamble the objective of reinforcing the equity and inclusive capacity of the system, with the aim of making effective the right of all people to inclusive education, with measures such as personalised attention, the prevention of learning difficulties and the development of reinforcement mechanisms.

In order to see how the aforementioned law is being put into practice in terms of inclusive education, the research project "What are we forgetting in inclusive education: A participatory research in Galicia", funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2019-108775RB-C41), was carried out under the National R+D+i Plan. Its aim is to investigate school inequality and exclusion as well as inclusive responses through the voices of the different actors in the educational field (tutors, specialists, families, associations, politicians...).

Within this research framework, the purpose of this work is to study in depth the perception of specialist teachers and counsellors on the political-administrative barriers in relation to resources, working conditions, the regulatory framework and administrative bureaucracy.

Providing care is a moral act. According to care ethics, provision of care aims to satisfy the needs and promote the well-being of vulnerable others. To this end, the one-caring takes decisions regarding the assumed best interest of the cared-for (Noddings 2002). Although the definition of care is closely related to cultural and contextual factors, care in general is considered both a labour and an ideal that guides normative judgement and action (Held 2006). Hence, care may be understood as a virtue or motive (Rachels 1999). Tronto (2005) suggests that care involves the following elements: a) attentiveness, aiming to recognize the other’s needs; b) responsibility as a behaviour that is different from obligation; c) competence, in terms of having the adequate knowledge to provide care; and d) responsiveness, as the outcome of understanding the vulnerability of the cared-for and the inequality in the caring relationship.

In the context of impairment, being cared for is sometimes inevitable, particularly when the impairment is severe. Thus, some disabled people may find themselves permanently dependent on others. According to Oliver (1989) though, disabled people’s dependency on non-disabled people is not a de facto situation; in contrast, it is created ‘not because of the effects of the functional limitations on their capacities for self-care, but because their lives
are shaped by a variety of economic, political, and social forces which produce this dependency’ (p. 17). Thus, in a context where caring for disabled people is considered a moral obligation of the non-disabled ones (Kittay 2011), particularly of mothers (Tronto 2005), and an act of welcomed philanthropy towards some allegedly pitiful, incapable, and less than human creatures (Oliver 1989), caring may eventually generate unequal power relations, stigmatize the cared-for as a weakling, and thereby reproduce disability
(Scott and Doughty 2012).

Even though being a disabled parent may be a challenging and fulfilling task, which may imply ‘recapturing’ a lost gender (Ganle et al. 2020), in the long-term the combination of parenthood and disability may entail receiving care from adult children (Ireland and Pakenham 2010). According to Heger (2017), adult children, daughters more often, seem to feel a social obligation to take care of their disabled parents. However, being the one-caring for a disabled parent is not always an easy task. Thus, elevated levels of anxiety and greater adverse caregiving experiences have been reported by some children of disabled parents compared to children of non-disabled parents (Shepherd-Banigan et al. 2020). In addition, likely negative caregiving experiences, coupled with lack of choice, seem to be closely related to poor adjustment to caring for a disabled parent (Heger 2017).

On the other hand, it is argued that caring for a disabled parent may result to benefits for the one-caring child, because of reaching higher levels of maturity and independence, as well as acquiring practical skills (Ireland and Pakenham 2010). Hence, it seems that there are contradictions regarding the literature around the impact of caring for disabled parents on non-disabled children, which need to be better explored.

Since simply imagining what life is like when a non-disabled person giving care becomes a disabled person needing caring, and the opposite, is not enough, it seems essential to go beyond the superficial, aiming to comprehensively understand the impact of an event like disability and its dimensions. However, observations made by outsiders may miss a large part of what disabled people really think and experience (Oliver 1990). For this reason, it seems essential to listen to the stories of disabled people, who had to switch roles, in the context of reality, within which an interpretation of care as a tool for (dis)empowerment and (in)dependence may occur. Thus, through a shared activity of meaning-making, a better understanding of care in the context of disability may occur.

Research questions

This study focuses on main aspects of the pedagogical encounter between teachers and unaccompanied asylum-seeking adolescents in introductory non-formal classes within the frame of a non-governmental organization (NGO) in a Greek island.

This NGO offers housing to about 100 hundred unaccompanied asylum-seeking adolescents as well as introductory non-formal teaching in a number of subjects as Greek and English language, mathematics, music and art. The students are from different countries for instance, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Ethiopia and Morocco.

Specifically the research questions concern:

- Which are teachers’ main pedagogical and didactical challenges and concerns in this context?

- How do teachers approach the unaccompanied asylum-seeking students’ heterogeneity in introductory non-formal classes?

- How do the unaccompanied asylum-seeking students experience the pedagogical encounter with their introductory non-formal classes? Which are their main challenges and concerns?

Theoretical background

Research on the education of newly arrived refugee students is limited and mainly descriptive aiming at evaluating best practices (Nilsson Folke, 2017). Several researchers have emphasized the importance of a holistic model of addressing the refugee students’ social, emotional and learning needs (Arnot & Pinson, 2010). Moral issues such as a welcoming environment without racism (Candappa, 2019; Rutter, 2006), a caring ethos and giving of hope (Taylor & Sindhu, 2012), engagement in education Christie & Sidhu, 2006) and even compassion (Pinson, Arnot & Candappa, 2010) are signified. Devine (2009) have highlighted how the friendships that the refugee students develop at school are crucial for the sense of regularity and belonging. Specifically, during extended transition time that intensifies uncertainty and vulnerability (Dånge, 2022).

This study connects to the holistic approach highlighted by the referred previous research and investigates an unsearched area, the non-formal forms of education of unaccompanied asylum-seeking adolescents within the framework of an NGO in Greece. Although the educational activities of NGOs concern a transitory period, they are of great importance, as it is the first offer to unaccompanied asylum-seeking adolescents to be involved in an organised learning environment during a demanding, usually long period, of waiting for the outcome of asylum-seeking.

Inclusion of all students in a warm and welcoming school environment is a central goal of school districts and individual schools (Hilt, 2017). Moreover, as Fahey et al. (2019) point out, education is key to equity and inclusion in a diverse society of migration. In an Erasmus+-project, we investigated how primary and secondary schools in five European countries collaborated with other actors to support pupils with migration backgrounds. Focus is on inclusion and ensuring equivalence of opportunity for the migration background students. To succeed, schools cannot work in isolation, but requires the support of the local community, families, and professional networks (Ainscow, 2020). This paper aims to investigate what characterizes networks where leaders, teachers and other school professionals collaborate with external actors to support migrant students enrolled in introductory classes.

Theoretically, the paper draws on institutional theory, more closely the ideas of intra- and interinstitutional collaboration. As claimed by for example Eisenberg et al. (2010), organizations exist in complex, dynamic, and relatively unstable environments. To make meaning of a phenomenon in question, in our case the inclusion of students with migration backgrounds, multiple actors cooperate within and between heterogenous, institutional boundaries (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008). Through such dynamic forms of interaction, actors must moreover work together in both formal and informal meeting places, and through this both form and engage in various networks (Czarniawska, 2008).

In Norway, many young students in basic education coming from countries outside the EU arrive without their parents; often males aged 16-25 (Eide et al, 2017). In many cases, these migrants lack papers or documented formal education. To qualify for admission to main-stream upper-secondary programs or higher education, they must first acquire basic qualifications through a separate introductory program (“kombinasjonsklasser”), aimed at young, adult migrants. By law, all students are legally obliged to attend comprehensive school (Years 1-10); whilst most students complete upper-secondary education (Years 11-13/14), even though dropout rates are substantial (Education Act, 1998; Halvorsrud, 2017). To retain students, schools collaborate with a range of other public and private partners, such as healthcare facilities, youth clubs, local police authorities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the Norwegian Red Cross. Such collaboration is focus of this report on the Norwegian case through zooming in on two separate networks.

Once young migrants arrive the country, and are granted e.g. asylum status, enrol into combination classes to acquire necessary basic education and Norwegian language skills. These classes are a collaboration between the county-run upper-secondary schools and the local, municipal authorities. Schools offering such programs were targeted in the case studies, since they handle most of the teaching and social-pedagogical work surrounding these students, in collaboration with other actors in their respective networks such as health services, social services, and the local police force.

Public upper-secondary schools are legally governed by one of the 11 counties, responsible for carrying out demands put forth in the Education Act (1998) and the National Core Curriculum (LK20). To oversee enactment of these responsibilities, County Governors’ Offices (CGOs) inspect schools on a regular basis. Official inspection reports are regularly published on CGOs’ websites (Author A, xxxx). In addition, each county must ensure that each school within their respective jurisdictions have a sound system for assessing and monitoring regulatory requirements in accordance with §13-10 in the Education Act (1998). Risk management is also an important part of such a quality system on the regional and school level.

In the study, two key questions are addressed; What characterizes collaborative processes in support of students with migration backgrounds, and what challenges do these actors experience?

Achieving inclusive and equitable quality education is recognised as crucial to global sustainable development. Internationally, much research has been conducted to explore policies and practices to effectively support diversity in educational systems and many meaningful and transformative insights have been gained (Ainscow, 2015; Hernández-Torrano et al., 2020). Nevertheless, substantial questions remain about the role digital technologies may play in promoting the agenda of inclusive education, given that the use of technology for teaching and learning has not only greatly increased as a result of the recent pandemic, but has also amplified the prevalence of automated decision-making in classrooms (Selwyn et al., 2023).

While established inclusive education research has tended to focus on human relationships rather than technology (Knox et al., 2019), the growing ability of powerful data-driven systems to actively shape the education sector, from policy and governance to the professional role of the teacher, serious attention must now be given to the potential impact of current and future technologies on the inclusive education agenda. Conversely, the research and development of digital technology in education has tended to overlook issues of inclusion, often adopting solutionist and reductionist approaches that position digital technologies as a ‘technical fix’ for increased performativity and measurement, as well as encompassing a broad de-professionalisation of the teacher (Watters, 2013). As such, digital technologies tend towards the standardisation of education provision, rather than the valuing of diversity (Knox et al., 2019).

Responding to recent examinations of the extent to which digital technologies may perpetuate inequality, biases, divides, and exclusion (e.g., Goodley et al., 2020), this panel aims to bring together researchers in inclusive education and critical digital education in order to address this substantive gap in the literature. We argue that the lack of a more critical and in-depth examination of how digital technologies intersect with inclusive education is a pressing matter to steer the current development and usage of digital technologies to support inclusion and minimise marginalisation.

The research questions the symposium will explore are:

• How can digital technologies be better designed to address key barriers to inclusive education?
• How might digital technologies reinforce or even aggravate marginalisation and exclusion in education?
• What are the possible strategies of negotiating the tensions between digital technologies and inclusive education?

The symposium includes a group of international researchers, who have been at the forefront of exploring the intersections of digital technologies and inclusive education through empirical and theoretical research that considers a range of national contexts including Singapore, Australia, UK and China. The discussant has leading expertise of international perspectives on inclusive educational development. The presenters and the discussant will together discuss and articulate explicitly some of the connections and divergences between the key arguments relating to the parallel development of digital technologies and inclusive education. The symposium aims to stimulate productive conversations between the less connected research communities in the fields of inclusive education and digital technologies, to inform shared understandings, ethical practices, and future interdisciplinary research in this emerging space.

Recent decades have seen a widespread ‘technification’ of education (Selwyn, 2021), with digital technologies now part of the fabric of schooling and schools. This technification has encompassed the domain of school discipline, whereby education platforms, such as ClassDojo, are increasingly adopted by teachers to ‘manage’ student behaviour (Manolev et al., 2019). Its presence too has emerged in inclusive education with technology seen as a way to support its advancement (Hersh, 2020). The aim of this paper brings these two areas together by, a) reporting findings from an Australian study which investigated the ways teachers used ClassDojo to enact school discipline practices and, b) considering these findings in relation to educational exclusion/inclusion. Little is known about the ways teachers use ClassDojo to discipline students, and the influence it is having on school discipline practices. Research into the impact of data-centric platforms is emerging; however, there remains a pressing need to understand how they are shaping classroom practices ‘on the ground’ (Knox et al., 2019). We draw on Foucault’s analytics of power to interpret our findings and to understand how power is exercised through ClassDojo. In particular, we use Foucault’s concepts of disciplinary power and panopticism to explain how disciplinary power is exercised through ClassDojo’s platform architecture via processes, practices, and techniques of surveillance and visibility (Foucault, 1977). This critical qualitative inquiry used a multimethod data collection approach: online documentary research, unobtrusive online observations, and semi-structured interviews. Documentary data included website content, weblog posts, instructional videos, and school policies. Observations were conducted in online news webpages and weblogs and focussed on reader comments. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven South Australia primary school teachers. A hybrid iterative inductive-deductive thematic analysis was used to analyse data (Fereday and Muir-Cochrane, 2006; Tracy, 2013). The study found that teachers often used ClassDojo’s platform as a surveillance technology to monitor and make students visible for the purpose of shaping their behaviour. Furthermore, the surveillance practices teachers employed were at times combined with practices of exclusion as a form of punishment. Therefore, we argue that these findings indicate that the use of ClassDojo as a school discipline technology is introducing into schools ‘more pervasive and intrusive patterns of surveillance and regulation’ (Slee, 1995, p.3) which promote, facilitate, and are being used to exclude.

Fereday, J., & Muir-Cochrane, E. (2006). Demonstrating Rigor Using Thematic Analysis: A Hybrid Approach of Inductive and Deductive Coding and Theme Development. International journal of qualitative methods, 5(1), 80-92. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690600500107 Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. Penguin. Hersh, M. (2020). Technology for inclusion [Background paper]. UNESCO. Retrieved 20/01/23, from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000373655 Knox, J., Williamson, B., & Bayne, S. (2020). Machine behaviourism: future visions of 'learnification' and 'datafication' across humans and digital technologies. Learning, Media and Technology, 45(1), 31-45. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2019.1623251 Manolev, J., Sullivan, A., & Slee, R. (2019). The datafication of discipline: ClassDojo, surveillance and a performative classroom culture. Learning, Media and Technology, 44(1), 36-51. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2018.1558237 Selwyn, N. (2021). Resetting Ed-Tech … what is digital technology really good for in education? Critical Studies of Education and Technology. https://criticaledtech.com/2021/11/11/resetting-ed-tech-what-is-digital-technology-really-good-for-in-education%EF%BF%BC/ Slee, R. (1995). Changing theories and practices of discipline. Falmer Press. Tracy, S. J. (2013). Qualitative research methods: collecting evidence, crafting analysis, communicating impact. Wiley-Blackwell.

As a small country with great ethnic diversity, Singapore embraces inclusive education and is committed to optimise the potential of every student. One recent advancement is the implementation of full subject-based banding that allows lower secondary students to learn in one of the three levels that match their strengths and interests in respective subjects. It makes learning more relevant to students’ learning needs in each subject and provides meaningful interactions among diverse students who were previously streamed based on their ability levels, creating opportunities for students to appreciate diversity in an inclusive environment. Yet, teachers often feel unprepared to optimise learning of diverse students (Florian and Pantić, 2017), constrained by their knowledges, skills and workloads (Huang, 2022). Artificial Intelligence for Education (AIED), when developed and used in equitable and inclusive ways, has the potential to help bridge social and learning gaps when moving towards inclusive education. For example, Adaptive Learning System (ALSs) allows students to learn procedural knowledge, at an individualised pace with personalised support. ALSs also have the potential to identify a particular student’s learning difficulties so that interventions can be implemented within and outside ALSs. AI-powered assistive technologies such as speech recognition can also be included to support students with impairments. However, there are limitations to using AIED for inclusive education, if the technology itself is not designed to be inclusive and equitable. Inclusive education often requires changes in teaching methods, school culture, and policies to ensure that all students have equal opportunities to succeed. These changes are hard to be addressed solely by using AIED alone. In this presentation, we adopt Cerna, et. al. (2021)’s conceptual framework to propose five aspects of consideration in adopting AIED for inclusive education. First, for AIED to meet diverse learning needs, the designing of AIED needs to be in collaboration with various educational stakeholders so that AIED is human-centred and reflects student diversity. Second, resources need to be provided for equal access, particularly by students from low-income families. Third, teacher capacity should be developed, particularly for teacher-AI augmentation in inclusive classrooms so as to avoid AIED depriving student’s agency and voices in learning. Fourth, processes and outcomes of inclusive education and students’ achievements should be rigorously evaluated for continuous improvement. Last, culture and governance for both AIED and inclusive education are needed to sustain the effective use of AIED for inclusive education.

Cerna, L., Mezzanotte, C., Rutigliano, A., Brussino, O., Santiago, P., Borgonovi, F., and Guthrie, C. (2021). Promoting inclusive education for diverse societies: A conceptual framework. OECD Education Working Paper No. 260. Accessed 27 January 2023 https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/94ab68c6-en.pdf?expires=1675088838&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=31B1AA71231B12EAE94C3C1AE4963CBC Florian, L. and Pantić, N. (2017). Teacher education for the changing demographics of schooling: policy, practice and research. In Florian, L. and Pantić, N. (eds) Teacher Education for the Changing Demographics of Schooling: Issues for Research and Practice. Switzerland: Springer. pp. 1-5. Huang, J. S. (2022). Optimizing the potential of every student in Singapore - Is AIED a solution to embrace the complexity in teaching and learning? In E. Walton and R. Osman (eds) Pedagogical Responsiveness in Complex Contexts. Switzerland: Springer. pp. 75-94.

This presentation draws on recent research in the UK and China that has examined the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) to develop and deploy so-called ‘personalised’ or ‘adaptive’ education technology. Suggested by these terms, AI technologies might be perceived as rather straightforward ways of adjusting, differentiating and individualising educational provisions in response to student diversity; attributes which tend to be framed as effective approaches to realising inclusive education (Lindner and Schwab, 2020). However, we argue that there is a pressing need to re-examine such assumptions and consider how AI technologies might be better designed in the future, by building a greater understanding of the precise functioning of AI systems and connecting this knowledge deliberately with critical perspectives on inclusive education, particularly those that pose important questions over the implications of continuing a traditional special, additional, or individualised needs response to diversity (e.g., Florian, 2014; Slee, 2011). The analysis developed in this paper builds on the recent call for critical studies of digital education platforms (Decuypere et al. 2021). In particular, Decuypere et al. suggest the need for more research that examines the ‘performative effects of platforms’ (2021, p2); in other words, the capacity of such technologies to shape educational practice, often in ways unforeseen by technology designers and teaching practitioners themselves. Two specific AI-driven software platforms will be discussed: UK-based ‘Century’ (https://www.century.tech/) and China-based ‘Squirrel AI’ (http://squirrelai.com/), with a focus on how particular conceptualisations about knowledge, learning, and teaching are ‘built-in’ to the design and subsequent functioning of the technology. This includes, for instance, the ways such technologies predefine a mathematical representation of all knowledges in a particular domain, position and categorise learners as passive recipients of automated decision-making over what they should be learning and how, and de-professionalise teachers by marginalising their roles with the AI-infused classroom. Such effects are counterproductive for inclusive education systems that value diversity, especially as such AI systems appear to standardise curricula, activities, and experiences, and significantly reinforce barriers to learners and teachers’ agency. The paper concludes that we must give more attention to the current development and usage of AI technologies and ensure the participation of learners, teachers, and broader communities in a process of co-creating change for inclusive education (Pantić and Florian, 2015; Wang, 2023).

Decuypere, M., Grimaldi, E. & Landri, P. (2021) Introduction: Critical studies of digital education platforms. Critical Studies in Education, 62(1): 1-16. Florian, L. (2014) Reimagining special education: why new approaches are needed. In Florian, L. (ed) The SAGE Handbook of Special Education (2nd edition). London: SAGE. pp. 9-22. Lindner, K. and Schwab, S. (2020) Differentiation and individualisation in inclusive education: a systematic review and narrative synthesis. International Journal of Inclusive Education. AHEAD-OF-PRINT, 1-21. Pantić N., Florian L. (2015). Developing teachers as agents of inclusion and social justice. Education Inquiry, 6(3), 333–351. Slee, R. (2011) The Irregular School: Exclusion, Schooling and Inclusive Education. Abingdon: Routledge. Wang, Y. (2023) ‘It is the easiest thing to do’: university students’ perspectives on the role of lecture recording in promoting inclusive education in the UK. Teaching in Higher Education. Advance online publication. pp.1-18.