Conference Agenda

Inclusion is vital for societies that strive for social justice and is an essential part of the European Commission’s strategic plan for 2021 – 2030 (European Commission, 2021). In 2009, The Education and Training 2020 agenda stated that:

‘Education and training systems should aim to ensure that all learners — including those from disadvantaged backgrounds, those with special needs and migrants — complete their education… Education should promote intercultural competences, democratic values and respect for fundamental rights and the environment, as well as combat all forms of discrimination, equipping all young people to interact positively with their peers from diverse backgrounds.’ (Council of the European Union, C119/4).

To realize these aims, teachers require knowledge and skills on how to deliver high quality education to all students, in addition to having positive attitudes towards diversity and inclusion. Teacher education has a key role in educating teachers about different students’ needs and inclusive practices. However, teachers and teacher educators feel unprepared and in need of more information in this area (Florian & Camedda, 2020; Guðjónsdóttir & Óskarsdóttir, 2020).

The purpose of this symposium is to contribute to the limited knowledge base of research-supported educational practices that promote inclusion and social justice. It was initiated by members of the International Forum for Teacher Educator Development (InFo-TED), an international group that aims to contribute to teacher educators’ professionalization by sharing ideas, practices and research (Kelchtermans et al., 2018). The symposium will present three teacher education programmes that deal with inclusion and social justice from different perspectives. The first programme helps student teachers and teacher educators to bridge ethnic tensions, respect and collaborate with each other as they deal with shared social justice issues such as gender and poverty. The second programme helps teacher educators re-examine their own beliefs and practices and consider how best to address challenges associated with social justice with student teachers. The third programme supports the transition to work of beginning teachers with significant physical or sensory impairments. Together, the three presentations deal with multiple aspects of diversity. Although the three national contexts are very different from each other: Ireland, Belgium (Flanders) and Israel, they all must address tensions emerging from ethnic diversity, social inequalities and physical disabilities. In the discussion, we will compare the theoretical perspectives and practices each programme employed and specify shared, as well as unique, principles that may help other teacher educators to promote inclusion and social justice through teacher education programmes.

Baseline data on PSTs’ understandings of social justice and Development Education (DE) issues and consideration of the implications for initial teacher education programmes North and South, was presented by Bryan et al. (2011). While the study garnered data from North and South, no specific attention was paid to the teaching of social justice and the meaningful and innovative ways in which such teaching practices can encourage PSTs’ learning with and from peers in the respective jurisdictions. The aim of the project is to develop and share a teaching approach to social justice across two initial teacher education (ITE) programmes from North and South Ireland. The aim is to encourage (seven) teacher educators and (32) pre-service teachers (PSTs) to learn with and from each other, within and across their respective jurisdictions. Teacher educators and PSTs will appreciate the extent to which specific social justice issues are unique (or not) to their jurisdiction and also the school placement contexts. The research questions are; (1) In what way does ITE programmes from the North and South sharing discussions around social justice enhance PSTs’ and teacher educators’ perspectives and experiences with respect to the reality of addressing social justice in schools? and (2) What considerations need to be addressed in formalising a shared North and South ITE space to discuss and enact social justice in schools? Informed by Freire’s (1973) concept of dialogue, and underpinned by agonistic respect (Monforte & Smith, 2021), our social justice journey will involve a community of learners where PSTs and teacher educators will reflect and develop their pedagogical approach and curriculum delivery for matters relating to social justice through practitioner research. The project will extend a three-tiered teaching model that is well established in one university with respect to encouraging PSTs as practitioner researchers (Tannehill et al., 2020). This project will provide empirical data on teacher educators’ and PSTs’ experiences of sharing a social justice space across North and South and subsequent teaching practices. This will lead to capturing the teaching practice realities of striving to teach for social justice while theoretically developing a pedagogy for social justice. The social justice space captures the distribution of opportunities and privileges within a society. This provides a clear warrant for ITE to work toward the development of PSTs who are socially just in their beliefs and practices and better equipped to work in diverse and inclusive school learning environments.

Bryan, A., Clarke, M., Drudy, S., Gallagher, T., Hagan, M., & McEvoy, B. L. (2011). Social justice education in initial teacher education: A cross border perspective. School Leadership Policy and Practice North and South, p.133. Freire, P. 1973. Education for critical consciousness. New York, NY: Continuum Monforte, J. and Smith, B., 2021. Conventional and post qualitative research: An invitation to dialogue. Qualitative inquiry, 27(6), 650-660. Tannehill, D., Scanlon, D., & MacPhail, A. (2020). Applying Research to Practice in Physical Education. Physical Education Matters, 15(3), 80-84.

Teacher educators have an important responsibility in being responsive to diversity, as they foster how issues of diversity, inclusion and equity are addressed in education by preparing the next generation of teachers (O’Hara & Pritchard, 2008). However, prior research on teacher educators’ ways of dealing with diversity has pointed out that they feel insecure and experience various barriers to be responsive to diversity (Ponet et al., under review). Well-designed professional development initiatives (PDI) are therefore needed to respond to these constraints. Unfortunately, in many national and higher education institutional policies only limited attention is given to PDI’s for teacher educators (Vanderlinde et al., 2021). In this study, it was our goal to investigate and describe the design for an impactful teacher educator PDI on responsivity to diversity. After a first consultation of the literature on effective PDI’s in education and the professional development of teacher educators (e.g., Merchie et al., 2016; Tack et al., 2021), a co-creative tailored-based approach for the design of the PDI seemed most promising. A case study design gave insight 1) into the context of two teacher education colleges in Flanders that participate in a PDI to foster teacher educators’ dealing with diversity, and 2) into the individual professional development needs of participating teacher educators. In particular, building on qualitative methodologies, semi-structured interviews were conducted (Mortelmans, 2011). On the one hand with all teacher educator participants (n=20), on the other hand with one key actor per institution that is involved in policy regarding professional development and regarding diversity, inclusion and equity. Additionally, the communication between the research team and the facilitators of the PDI were scrutinized. The data was explored via inductive coding techniques. Consequently 8 design principles for the PDI emerged from the data. For instance, the PDI should challenge their frames of references as a precondition to foster other practices; and include choices to focus on and cater the specific individual needs of the participants. Taking these design principles and the specificity of each teacher college in account, a new PDI was designed with tailored alterations to the specific contexts. This study adds to the field in a theoretical and practical way. Theoretically, the design principles expand the limited literature on teacher educators’ PDI for responsivity to diversity. Practically, policy makers as well as teacher educators themselves can find inspiration to design own PDI’s to foster dealing with diversity and make tailored alterations.

Merchie, E., Tuytens, M., Devos, G., & Vanderlinde, R. (2016). Evaluating teachers’ professional development initiatives: Towards an extended evaluative framework. Research Papers in Education, 33(2), 1–26. Mortelmans, D. (2011). Handboek kwalitatieve onderzoeksmethoden. Acco. O'Hara, S., & Pritchard, R. (2008). Meeting the Challenge of Diversity: Professional Development for Teacher Educators. Teacher Education Quarterly, 35(1), 43-61. Ponet, B., Tack, H., Vantieghem, W., & Vanderlinde, R. (under review). Uncovering the role of teacher educators in the reduction of inequalities in education: a critical discourse analysis. Tack, H., Vanderlinde, R., Bain, Y., Kidd, W., O’Sullivan, M., & Walraven A. (2021). Learning and design principles for teacher educators’ professional development. In R. Vanderlinde, K. Smith, J. Murray & M. Lunenberg (Eds.), Teacher Educators and their Professional Development: Learning from the past, looking for the future (pp. 51-64). Routledge. Vanderlinde, R., Smith, K., Murray, J., & Lunenberg, M. (Eds.). (2021). Teacher Educators and their Professional Development: Learning from the past, looking for the future. Routledge.

Employing teachers with physical and sensory impairments (PSI) has significant advantages. Their presence in schools contributes to diversifying the teaching force, and provides opportunities for social and personal interactions that are often limited and evoke discomfort. Effective teachers with PSI can reduce negative stereotypes relating to disabilities. Furthermore, they can be positive role models for students with disabilities (Neca et al., 2022; Parker & Draves, 2018). The transition from initial teacher education into teaching requires particular attention and support, as this is the most vulnerable stage in the career of most teachers. In Israel, during the first two years of teaching, beginning teachers (BTs) have regular meetings with school-based mentors, and participate in an obligatory workshop facilitated by a higher education based teacher educator. This case study examines a unique online workshop that was devised to support BTs with PSI. It explores how the workshop’s facilitators supported BTs with PSI’s professional development as teachers and their integration into the education system. The participants are the four facilitators of the workshop. The data are transcripts of audio recordings of the workshop’s 18 meetings. We received the participants’ (and the institutional IRB’s) permission to analyze the recordings, while disguising participants’ identities. We performed a thematic analysis of the facilitators' audio segments in the recordings (Braun & Clarke, 2021). The analysis resulted in themes that describe the facilitators’ behaviors as ‘actionable principles’ (Schechter, 2019): 1. Workshop facilitators were devoted to BTs by being available to them at all times (Miller & Kass, 2018). 2. They set high expectations and performance standards (Miller & Kass, 2018; Hewett et al., 2020). 3. They supported BTs’ wellbeing and psychological needs by strengthening BTs’ sense of autonomy, relatedness, self-efficacy and accomplishment (Hewett et al., 2020; Ryan & Deci, 2020). Specifically, facilitators encouraged BTs to share solutions they devised themselves to overcome challenges, and added further ideas. 4. They designed the academic workshop as an online Community of Practice (Kaplan et al., 2022). The first two principles are known as supporting individuals with disabilities, whereas the latter two support BTs. Together, these principles can be implemented in other contexts, and thus contribute to successful inclusion of teachers with SPI in schools.

Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2021). One size fits all? What counts as quality practice in (reflexive) thematic analysis? Qualitative research in psychology, 18(3), 328-352. Hewett, R., Douglas, G., McLinden, M., & Keil, S. (2020). Balancing inclusive design, adjustments and personal agency: progressive mutual accommodations and the experiences of university students with vision impairment in the United Kingdom. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 24(7), 754-770. Kaplan, H., Alatawna-Alhuashla, H., Bar-Nadav, B., & Al-Said, K. (2022). Developing Excellence Leadership and Autonomous Motivation among Beginning Teachers in the Arab-Bedouin Community in Israel: A Self Determination Theory-Based Intervention Program. Open Journal of Leadership, 11(3), 246-278. Miller, E., & Kass, E. (2018). Professional success stories of people with disabilities. (Research report No. mof.‪study_13131). Tel Aviv: MOFET (In Hebrew).‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬ Neca, P., Borges, M. L., & Pinto, P. C. (2022). Teachers with disabilities: A literature review. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 26(12), 1192-1210. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2020). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from a self-determination theory perspective: Definitions, theory, practices, and future directions. Contemporary educational psychology, 61, 101860. Schechter, C. (2019). The collective wisdom of practice: Leading our professional learning from success. Thousand Oaks, Cal.: Corwin Press.