04. Inclusive Education
Paper
The Hope of Multi-professional Collaboration for Inclusive Education in Austria & Germany? – The Trilemmatic Inclusion as a Theoretical Systematization
Josephine Laukner1, Lisa-Katharina Moehlen2
1Technical University Braunschweig, Germany; 2University Wien, Austria
Presenting Author: Laukner, Josephine;
Moehlen, Lisa-Katharina
Building national states after World War 2, both Austria and Germany reorganised their school systems and established separated school types for students with(out) disabilities. The CPRD (2009), ratified by Germany and Austria, intends to establish a common understanding of inclusive education in order to guarantee the right to inclusive education for all. The SDG 4 (2015) proclaims a wide understanding of inclusive education considering all students in all diemensions of heterogneity and aiming to institutional changes adapting mainstream learning environment for all and closing special schools.
Unless there are no fundamental systematic change towards one common inclusive education system within the last 15 years in both countries (Klemm, 2022). Both Austria and Germany still operate with assessments producing a school-specific disability category referred to as special education needs (SEN). The SEN labels are clustered by eight to nine different categories of disabilites, impairments, or handicaps in both countries. Compared to Germany, a medical-psychiatric orientated diagnosis is mandatory for the SEN assignment in Austria (Schwab et al., 2015). This claim poses a fundamental dilemma for the Austrian and German school systems that still differentiates between separate organizations of mainstream and special schools.
The decentralized organization of the education systems leads to different implementation ideas and very different progress in inclusive education depending on the federal state. Bremen (GER) relies on an inclusive school system with individual support centers (Senate Bremen, 2014), Lower Saxony relies on a cautious introduction of inclusive education by initially only phasing out the special school for learning since the 2013/14 school year (Nds. KM, 2012). All other forms of special schools still persit any reformation. In the German context, data shows an increasing trend towards diagnosing pupils with an SEN label and placing them in special schools instead of a mainstream schools (Kultusministerkonferenz, 2021). In comparison, Austrian data show a stagnating trend of SEN labels but a slightly increase of placing them in a special school instead of mainstream schools (Statistik Austria, 2023). Austria implemented so-called inclusive model regions in 2013, which tried to build best practice examples but were never implemented comprehensively (Feyerer, 2016). In Vienna special schools were opened for all students regardless SEN label or not.
All this reorganisation effects educators´ work and professionalisation in (pre-service) teacher training, which is already highly differentiated regarding the regular subject teachers and SEN categories (Buchner & Proyer, 2021; Sansour & Bernhard, 2018). There are mainstream school teachers, special needs teachers, school assistants. Based on the different pedagogical professions operating in the field of special and inclusive education, multiprofessional cooperation became a central issue for implementing inclusive eduction after the ratification of the CPRD (Lütje-Klose & Urban, 2014). Researchers promote multi-professional cooperation and collaboration as the central keys to providing inclusive education in mainstream schools for all pupils (Hollenbach-Biele & Vogt 2016; Massenkeil & Rothland, 2016). Multi-professional collaboration comprises a "diffusely used concept" (Fabel-Lamla & Gräsel, 2023, 3) in school eduction research, but describes the cooperation of different groups of actors in inclusive settings and distinguishes between various forms of cooperative collaboration (Prengel, 2020; Serke & Streese, 2022).
Nevertheless, the SEN label still determines the staff resourcing, which implies that the special educator has the responsability for the SEN student and multi-professional collaboratiaon is only possible to a limited extend. This leads to the following research questions: What demands and challenges hinder the multi-professional collaboration to implement inclusive education from a transnational viewpoint? The paper aims to describe the demands and challenges of multiprofessional cooperation in two central European school systems with similar stuctures, which still persists and strenghthen the separation into mainstream and special schools.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe paper uses the two different heuristics to theoretize the multi-professional collaboration for inclusive education of from a transnational perspective, using Austria and Germany as two central European countries with a similar structure of the school systems.
As inclusive education can only be understand as a holistic approach across different levels (Prengel, 2022), for example the macro, meso, and micro level (Fend, 2008), we use the ecology of inclusive education (Mitchell, 2018) to analyse the challenges of multiprofessional cooperation. We assume that the consideration of an systematical interplay contains an additional value to analyse the challenges of multiprofessional cooperation. Furthermore, we argue against the narratives that the implementation of inclusive education only depends on the national legislation or pedagogical practices on the ground. The heuristic demonstrates the importance to research multiprofessional cooperation for inclusive education from a transnational viewpoint.
Following this, we use a second heuristic referred to as the trilemmatic inclusion origining from the German context and describes different paradigms based on civil right and political movements (Boger, 2017). It aims to repoliticalize the existing (scientific) narratives of inclusive edcuation (Göransson, & Nilholm, 2014). The trilemmatic inclusion indicates a theoretical triangle consisting of empowerment, normalisation, and deconstruction (Boger, 2017). Each triangle leg conceptionalize inclusion in school education but excludes the third aspect simultaneously. The trilemmatic situation thus appears with the realization of two aspects, which automatically negates the third aspect. By applying this heuristic, we aim to analyse the demands of multiprofessional cooperation for inclusive education with the help of empirical data from Germany and Austria.
Based on these two heuristical approaches, we hope to understand the demands and challenges appearing in multiprofessional cooperation for inclusion and how is affects educators. We attempt to investigate different policies of multiprofessional cooperation and practices of educators in the Austrian and German context against the backdrop of the theoretical approach of trilemmatic inclusion (Boger, 2017). Combining both heuristics helps us to generate new theoretical findings regarding the multi-professional collaboration and its role for implementing inclusive education comprehensively.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsWe living currently in times of uncertainty, (inter-)national and local challenges make an impact on the education systems, learning enviornment but also the individuals. In Germany, there is a slight tendency to move away from an inclusive school system (Klemm 2022). We run the risk of reinforcing familiar patterns like exclusion and separation, even though they prevent progress towards change. Thus, inclusive education become indispensable for change aiming to a peaceful and social society - inclusive education is essential for the development of a society (UNESCO, Agenda 2030).
The paper demonstrates the role of multi-professional collaboration for the implementation of inclusive education across national boundaries. Educators work in the tensioned field of decreasing resources and increasing demands at the same time, which causes an systematic overload that might end in a systematic collapse. We figured out that the different pedagogical professions follows different aims within contradictive paradigms. This can be explained by the trilemmatic inclusion, because one aspect always be left out. This acknowledgement leads to the challenge that multi-professional collaboration needs to balance the three aspects of empowerment, normalisation, and deconstruction within pratice. Thus, inclusive education is highly depends on situative practices and the involved actors in everyday schooling.
The collaboration of these diverse actors across all system level has an essential impact on students´ learning. Althogh actors as school administrators do not have an explicit impact on the student in everyday life, the implicit impact can be a game changer. This demonstrates the importance of each professional actor because it impacts the childs educational carrier always to some extent. Concesily, the focus should always be on the common goal combined with a reflective attitude in keeping with the motto: Leave no child behind. Only with are shared vision, it is possible to tackle future challenges as a community.
ReferencesBoger, M.-A. (2017). Theorie der Inklusion – eine Übersicht. In Inklusion online. https://www.inklusion-online.net/index.php/inklusion-online/article/view/413
Buchner, T. & Michelle Proyer (2019). From special to inclusive education policies in Austria – developments and implications for schools and teacher education, European. In Journal of Teacher Education 43 (3), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2019.1691992
Fabel-Lamla, M. & Gräsel, C. (2023). Professionelle Kooperation in der Schule. In T. Hascher, T. Idel & W. Helsper (eds.). Handbuch Schulforschung. Wiesbaden: Springer, 1189-1209.
Fend, H. (2008). Schule gestalten. Systemsteuerung, Schulentwicklung und Unterrichtsqualität. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag.
Feyerer, E. (2016). Mit Inklusiven Modellregionen auf dem Weg zur inklusiven Schule? Österreichische Bildungspolitik zwischen Vision und Pragmatismus. In Zeitschrift für Inklusion. https://www.inklusion-online.net/index.php/inklusion-online/article/view/361
Göransson, K. & Nilholm, C. (2014). Conceptual diversities and empirical shortcomings – a critical analysis of research on inclusive education. In European Journal of Special Needs Education 29 (3), 265–280. https://doi.org/10.1080/08856257.2014.933545
Hollenbach-Biele, N. & Vogt, D. (2016). Inklusion kann gelingen! Forschungsergebnisse und Beispiele guter schulischer Praxis. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann.
Klemm, K. (2022). Inklusion in Deutschlands Schulen: Eine bildungsstatistische Momentaufnahme 2020/21. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann.
Kultusministerkonferenz (2021). Sonderpädagogische Förderung an Schulen. https://www.kmk.org/dokumentation-statistik/statistik/schulstatistik/sonderpaedagogische-foerderung-an-schulen.html
Lütje-Klose, B. & Urban, M. (2014). Professionelle Kooperation als wesentliche Bedingung inklusiver Schul- und Unterrichtsentwicklung. Grundlagen und Modelle inklusiver Kooperation. In Vierteljahresschrift für Heilpädagogik und ihre Nachbargebiete 2, 112-123.
Massenkeil, J. & Rothland, M. (2016). Kollegiale Kooperation im Lehrerberuf. Überblick und Systematisierung aktueller Forschung. In Schulpädagogik heute 7 (13).
Mitchell, D. (2018). The Ecology of Inclusive Education: Strategies to Tackle the Crisis in Educating Diverse Learners. London: Routlegde. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315110448
Niedersächsisches Kultusministerium (2012). Einführung der inklusiven Schule in Niedersachsen. Hinweise für die kommunalen Schulträger. https://www.mk.niedersachsen.de/download/66896
Prengel, A. (2022). Schule inklusiv gestalten. Eine Einführung in die Gründe und Handlungsmöglichkeiten. Opladen; Berlin; Toronto: Budrich.
Sansour, T. & Bernhard, D. (2018). Special needs education and inclusion in Germany and Sweden. In Alter 12 (3), 127-139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.alter.2017.12.002
Schwab, S. (2020). Inclusive and Special Education in Europe. In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Inclusive and Special Education, edited by Umesh Sharma, and Spencer J. Salend. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1230
Senat Bremen (2014). Aktionsplan zur Umsetzung der UN-Behindertenrechtskonvention im Land Bremen. Bremen: Der Senat der freien Hansestadt Bremen.
Serke, B. & Streese, B. (2022). Wege der Kooperation im Kontext inklusiver Bildung. Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt.
Statistik Austria (2023). Schulstatistik ab 2006. https://statcube.at/statistik.at/ext/statcube/jsf/dataCatalogueExplorer.xhtml
04. Inclusive Education
Paper
An Intersectional Architecture and Inclusive Education Whole School Paradigm: School Communities Becoming Leaders of Change
Foteini Pasenidou
University of South Australia, Australia
Presenting Author: Pasenidou, Foteini
As the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) suggests, “inclusion involves a process of systemic reform embodying changes and modifications in content, teaching methods, approaches, structures and strategies in education to overcome barriers with a vision serving to provide all students of the relevant age range with an equitable and participatory learning experience and environment that best corresponds to their requirements and preferences” (UN 2016, p. 4). Yet, a “sign of absence of clear guidance on how teachers should behave in order to create an inclusive environment for all students” has been reported (OECD, 2020, p. 216) calling for clear guidance on how to create an inclusive environment for all students that is informed by research.
The International Forum on inclusion and equity in education that took place in Colombia, in 2019 reinforced the role of “educational leaders, families, teachers and students” in “build[ing] a climate of trust, fair treatment and non-discrimination” (UNESCO, 2019, p. 15). Inclusive education as a process involving the entire school was previously supported by Ainscow and Miles (2008) who conceptualised schools as organisations with “internal complexities” that constrain inclusive education (p. 26), reinforced by Mr Álvaro Marchesi, “meet[ing] the needs of each and every student…is not just a matter of teachers, but … a process involving the entire school” (UNESCO, 2019, p. 12). Therefore, it is suggested that inclusive education can be promoted when “increasing the capacity of local neighbourhood mainstream schools to support the participation and learning of an increasingly diverse range of learners” (Ainscow, 2020, p. 125), which is also supported by UN (2016) and UNESCO (2017). It is important to promote inclusive school communities in which “every learner matters and matters equally” (UNESCO, 2017, p. 12). This includes working together to further foster the participation of students with disabilities “in learning experiences and the learning environment with their same-aged peers” (Graham, 2020, p. xxi), whilst enhancing the autonomy of local schools in becoming “leaders of change” (Bills & Howard, 2021, p. 13).
In addition to advocating for a systemic lens, the CRPD also supported the potential lens of architecture as an approach to advance inclusive education, through removing architectural barriers. UN (2016) called on States parties to ensure “accessibility” of “any future education infrastructures” including safe and accessible school transport, toilet facilities and recreational school spaces (p. 8). Within the policy context, the role of school spaces and environments in students’ inclusive education were further raised by UNESCO (2019, 2020), with research studies beginning to emerge to explore the role of architecture in inclusive education. This presentation shares a case study exploring the role of architecture in inclusive education whilst informing a whole school approach to promoting inclusive education.
The following research questions guided this case study:
- What role does architecture, inclusive of physical, social and semantic space, play in students’ inclusive education?
- What do school community members perceive to be the enabling and/or challenging arrangements to students’ inclusive education?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe study employed a qualitative case-study participatory co-design approach with its epistemological and ontological premises informed by a practice architectures (PA) lens (Kemmis et al., 2014; Mahon et al., 2017). A practice architectures lens enabled the study to explore practices consisting of certain sets of arrangements in three dimensions of space intersecting with inclusive education: cultural–discursive (semantic), that is arrangements “that make possible the language and discourses used in and about this practice”; material–economic (physical), that is arrangements “that make possible the activities undertaken in the course of the practice … the physical set-ups and the activity structures of work and life at the site”; and social–political (social space) arrangements “that make possible the relationships between people and non-human objects that occur in the practice” (Kemmis et al., 2014, p. 32).
Aiming to provide evidence of how inclusive school communities can be created through the aforementioned arrangements, a participatory co-design methodology was employed. Ten students from Reception (aged 5-6) and 21 Year 4 students (aged 9-10) including nine students with disabilities, three parents/carers, and 34 educators from a primary school community in South Australia participated in the current study. Data was collected through document analysis, surveys, focus groups and visual participatory co-design methods, including auto-photography, digital and hand-made storybooks, and digital construction models using Tinkercad. Data sets in this study included document analysis of the school’s website along with 19 school policies, 37 surveys, data from auto-photography with nine PowerPoint presentations and 124 photos of school spaces, 50 storybooks, 47 Tinkercad designs, six focus groups, and nine recordings. Data was then imported into a user-friendly qualitative computer software, NVivo. The coding process followed a thematic content analysis. Themes were analysed under the PA analytical lens.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsInforming a whole school approach to promoting inclusive education, “in the dimension of physical space-time and in the medium of work/activity” (Kemmis et al., 2014, p. 34), school architecture can enable students’ inclusive education through open plan spaces, co-located early learning centres, seating arrangements, natural elements and classroom décor. “In the dimension of semantic space and in the medium of language” (Kemmis et al., 2014, p. 34), promoting practices of metalanguage in schools by inviting educators to use “an explicit language of inclusion” (Bristol, 2015, p. 817) seemingly promoted reflective and proactive inclusive practices. Educators being trained in inclusive education and pedagogies as part of professional development courses offered by their school can enable them to critically engage with their sayings, having an impact on their whole school collective discourse. “In the dimension of social space and in the medium of solidarity and power” (Kemmis et al., 2014, p. 34), the enabling role of relatings between school and home, students and educators, students and students in inclusive education clearly emerged in this study. Students’ relatings with their teachers can foster a caring and safe learning environment, enhancing their sense of inclusion in schools. For a school community inclusion to be promoted, school leadership needs to support community members in interacting, working together and building relationships. Of significance are relatings with psychologists, architects, occupational therapists and university researchers, thus an interdisciplinary collaboration of working together and work[ing] closely. Incorporating “simultaneously a call to action and an analytic framework” (Slee, 2018, p. 3), this presentation will discuss the implications of these findings for the field informing how students, educators and parents/carers can work together to identify and purposefully employ material-economic, cultural-discursive and social-political arrangements present in their whole school context, to further enable students’ inclusive education globally and locally.
ReferencesAinscow, M. (2020). Inclusion and equity in education: Making sense of global challenges. Prospects, 49(3-4), 123-134. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-020-09506-w
Ainscow, M., & Miles, S. (2008). Making Education for All inclusive: Where next? Prospects, 38(1), 15-34. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-008-9055-0
Bills, A., & Howard, N. (2021). It’s time to act: Making the case for a cross sectoral response to school disengagement and detachment in South Australia. Industry paper no. 1. Adelaide: CEPSW, Flinders University.
Bristol, L. (2015). Leading-for-inclusion: Transforming action through teacher talk. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 19(8), 802-820. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2014.971078
Graham, L. J. (2020). Inclusive education in the 21st Century. In L. J. Graham (Ed.), Inclusive education for the 21st century: Theory, policy and practice (pp. 3-26). Routledge.
Kemmis, S., Wilkinson, J., Edwards-Groves, C., Hardy, I., Grootenboer, P., & Bristol, L. (2014). Changing practices, changing education. Springer.
Mahon, K., Kemmis, S., Francisco, S., & Lloyd, A. (2017). Introduction: Practice theory and the theory of practice architectures. In K. Mahon, S. Francisco, & S. Kemmis (Eds.), Exploring education and professional practice (pp. 1-30). Springer.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2020). PISA 2018 Results (Volume VI): Are Students Ready to Thrive in an Interconnected World?. https://doi.org/10.1787/d5f68679-en.
Slee, R. (2018). Inclusion isn't dead. It just smells funny. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429486869
UNESCO. (2017). A guide for ensuring inclusion and equity in education. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000248254_eng
UNESCO. (2019). Final report: International forum on inclusion and equity in education. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000372651
UNESCO. (2020). Global Education Monitoring Report 2020: Inclusion and education: All means all. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000373718
United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, General comment No. 4 (2016), Article 24: Right to inclusive education, 2 September 2016, CRPD/C/GC/4, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57c977e34.html
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