Conference Agenda

There is a perceived misconception that children who are visually impaired (VI) are unable to reach the same level of physical activity (PA) as their sighted peers (Alfrey & Jeanes, 2023). Significantly, children who are VI have the potential to achieve at the same level in the same activities as their sighted peers but only when they are provided with equal opportunities (Lieberman et al., 2019). When provided with these opportunities, the fitness levels of those who are VI who engage in regular PA are comparable to sighted individuals (Stuart et al., 2006). It is also indicated in the literature that mainstream class teachers need considerable support to include children who are VI in Physical Education (PE) lessons (Grenier et al., 2023).

This paper therefore aligns with the theme of the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), Knowing and Acting, acknowledging the opportunities, challenges and dilemmas presented in relation to supporting the inclusion of children with a VI in Primary PE lessons. It also addresses the need to develop practical supports that can be used by mainstream class teachers to enhance inclusive PE practices within the mainstream school setting.

The objective of this study is to design inclusive pedagogical supports which teachers have identified they require to support the inclusion of children who are VI in PE lessons.

This research paper is underpinned by the following research questions:
1. What teaching strategies are currently being employed by teachers during PE lessons to successfully include children who are VI?
2. What are the supports teachers identify that they need for PE lessons to enhance the learning experiences of children who are VI?
3. What support do children identify that they need for PE lessons enhance their learning experiences?
4. How effective are the researcher-designed supports as perceived by teachers and children who are VI?
5. Are there barriers to the implementation of the researcher-designed supports in school settings?

A pragmatic approach will inform the methodology in this research study. Pragmatism focuses on addressing the research questions (Biesta & Burbules, 2003; Clarke & Visser, 2019). Guided by a pragmatic paradigm, the researcher will adopt a sequential design for the study.

Previous research shows that a student’s special needs are structured and understood in different ways. For example, early childhood education pedagogical documents seem to contain varying structures of a child’s special needs (Heiskanen, Alasuutari & Vehkakoski 2018). As a result of the descriptions in the documents, different subject positions are constructed for the child, in which the dominant position is to see the child as problematic and permanently in need of support (ibid; Andreasson & Asplund 2013; Smith 2012.) Isaksson, Lindqvist and Bergström (2010) showed that principals define the student's special support needs using three models: the pedagogical model, the medical model and the social model. Andreasson and Carlsson (2013) in turn suggested that in the personal learning organization plan, the student in need of support is described through deficiencies and characteristics, different from the ideal student in school discourse. According to Vehmaa (2010), defining special needs through pedagogical documents is controversial, as it is based too much on the subjective assessments of professionals about what is good and desired behavior. The practice categorizes children as “ordinary” and “special”. Ultimately, it is also about the power that teaching professionals use when defining a student’s special needs (Ainsworth & Hardy 2004). According to Finnish Basic Education Act (628/1998,7.4.1) the basis for special support is the inadequacy of group-specific forms of support for the student's learning and school attendance. The student's absences, lack of motivation, early stage of the language of instruction or behavioral challenges cannot be grounds for transferring to special support. It is therefore important to also examine the accounts of basic education officials on the grounds on which special support is provided in municipal basic education. With this discursive research, we aim to increase understanding of the constructions of ‘special needs’ultural factors that structure and guide a student’s transition to special support, as well as the subject positions constructed for the student in the accounts. The study draws from socio-constructivist approach: Speech acts of the interviewees are not only representations of the culture of support, but they also contribute to constructing that culture. (Gee 2011; Gergen 2015.) The research aims to answer the following questions:

1. What kind of interpretive repertoires are used for justifying the need for special support?

2. What kind of subject positions are constructed for the student in these interpretive repertoires?

Early childhood education (ECE) is grounded in a pedagogical understanding that views learning as a transaction (Dewey & Bentley, 1991) between children and the world through their bodies, language, emotions, and social relationships, rather than as a linear transfer of information. From this perspective, National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) moves away from understanding developmental domains as separate categories of achievement, and conceptualises them as dynamic, interrelated dimensions that emerge simultaneously within learning processes (NAEYC, 2021). Therefore, in early childhood (EC), holistic development refers to the interplay of developmental domains within the learning context, rather than to their simple accumulation.

STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics) education is deeply rooted in Eurocentric knowledge systems (Kopparla et al., 2022) and defined as an educational approach that integrates science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM) disciplines, addressing learning in interdisciplinary contexts (Bybee, 2010). Due to its interdisciplinary nature, STEAM education is associated with contemporary learning theories that view learning as a contextual (Liu & Wu, 2025), process-oriented (Yang, et al., 2025), and problem-based activity (Akcay Malcok & Ceylan, 2022). The integration of STEAM disciplines emphasises learning experiences in which different forms of knowledge are co-constructed (Hachey et al., 2022), rather than acquired within isolated fields.

In ECE context, STEAM education and its increasing visibility is often grounded in theoretical assumptions in the literature with reference to contribute multiple developmental domains, including language (Aktulun et al., 2024), cognitive (Başaran & Bay, 2023), and socio-emotional development (NAEYC, 2021), as well as related competencies such as communication skills (Nikolopoulou, 2023), creativity (Erol et al., 2023), problem-solving (Akcay Malcok & Ceylan, 2022), and critical thinking (Rosyida et al., 2025).

It is methodologically expected and legitimate for individual experimental studies to focus on a specific developmental domain. However, this focus can obscure the extent to which the widespread claim that STEAM can contribute to multiple developmental domains is reflected in research practices across the field. This systematic review takes as its starting point the assumption that STEAM education in EC is theoretically justified with reference to multiple developmental domains and aims to examine how this assumption is concretised in the empirical literature. Specifically, this review aims to examine which developmental domains (e.g., cognitive, language, and socio-emotional) are most frequently investigated in the literature and which domains are comparatively underrepresented. In this respect, the following research questions are posed: (1) What are the general characteristics of the reviewed studies in terms of year of publication, country of origin, and research design, and how have these characteristics evolved over time? and (2) To what extent do experimental STEAM studies in ECE address multiple developmental domains?

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by persistent difficulties in communication, social interaction, and patterns of restricted or repetitive behaviors (American Psychiatric Association, 2022). Students with mild ASD who are educated in special education classrooms require individualized and context-sensitive educational practices, as effective family–teacher collaboration is essential for supporting their academic, social, and emotional development.

The purpose of this qualitative case study is to explore the educational processes of two primary school students diagnosed with mild ASD who are enrolled in a special education classroom in a public school. The study focuses on how these processes are experienced and interpreted by parents and teachers, with the aim of providing a holistic understanding of students’ learning environments. The study explores these processes through the experiences, observations, and expectations of the students’ parents (two mothers and two fathers) and their teachers. By adopting a qualitative case study design, the research aims to provide a holistic understanding of how educational practices are experienced and interpreted by key stakeholders involved in students’ daily learning environments.

This study is grounded in Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological systems theory, which conceptualizes child development as the result of continuous interactions between individuals and multiple, nested environmental systems (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). From this perspective, the educational experiences of students with ASD cannot be understood solely through individual characteristics; rather, they are shaped by interactions occurring within and across family, school, and broader institutional contexts.

Within this framework, the microsystem includes the immediate environments in which students with mild ASD actively participate, particularly the special education classroom and the family. Teacher–student interactions, instructional practices, and emotional support provided in the classroom play a central role in students’ academic and social development. The mesosystem refers to interactions between these settings, most notably family–teacher collaboration, which is considered a critical factor in the effective implementation of individualized educational practices and Individualized Education Programs (IEPs).

The exosystem encompasses contextual factors that indirectly influence students’ educational experiences, such as school management practices, availability of guidance services, and institutional support structures. At the macrosystem level, national policies, cultural perceptions of disability, and societal attitudes toward inclusion shape how special education services are designed and implemented. Finally, the chronosystem highlights developmental changes over time, including the timing of diagnosis, transitions within primary education, and evolving family and school expectations.

To further strengthen the mesosystem dimension of the study, the research also draws on family–school partnership perspectives, which emphasize shared responsibility, mutual trust, and collaborative decision-making between families and educators. This complementary lens supports a holistic understanding of how parents’ and teachers’ experiences intersect in shaping the educational processes of students with mild ASD in special education classrooms.

Significance of the Study

Educational experiences of individuals with ASD should be addressed through a multidimensional framework that integrates individual needs with environmental and contextual factors (Tekin-İftar & Kırcaali-İftar, 2020). While existing research has documented effective instructional strategies for students with ASD, studies offering in-depth, case-based analyses that simultaneously incorporate family and teacher perspectives remain limited, particularly within special education classrooms.

By focusing on two students with mild ASD, this study aims to capture both shared patterns and individual differences in educational experiences. Data derived from parents’ and teachers’ observations are expected to reveal strengths and limitations of current educational practices and contribute to the development of more effective IEPs for students with similar profiles (Kasari & Smith, 2016). Additionally, the study emphasizes the importance of family-teacher collaboration and seeks to offer practical insights for educators, school counselors, and special education professionals (Karal & Alev, 2021; Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2021).

In the context of Italian primary schools, characterized by increasing linguistic and social complexity (Hannerz, 1992), educational inequalities and fragilities are intertwined with diversity management policies and cultural representations. In this scenario, the inclusion of pupils at the intersection of ‘migrant background’ and ‘disability’ requires educational models capable of recognizing the complexity of identities (Zoletto, 2023) and combating interconnected forms of discrimination. Despite the existence of a formal regulatory framework for inclusion, significant disparities remain between inclusive policies and practices, resulting in processes of marginalization (Migliarini et al., 2020; Migliarini & Elder, 2023). This section starts from this gap and considers language education as a privileged observatory: language is both an object of teaching and a condition for access to participation and social inclusion (Cummins, 1979; De Mauro, 2018). The reference framework is the intersectional one (Crenshaw, 1991) of Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit), which highlights the interdependence between racism and ableism underlying labels and categorizations that cause marginalization and recognizes the multiple identities of students (Annamma et al., 2018). Alongside this, the Critical Disability Raciolinguistic Perspective highlights the role of language in the processes of exclusion, racialization, and pathologization of those who speak a language other than the dominant one (Flores & Rosa, 2015). These dynamics fuel the dichotomy between “disability” and “language acquisition” (Przymus & Alvarado, 2019), reinforcing institutional procedures that are riddled with racial bias (Barrio et al., 2023). The management of diversity organized in parallel channels in Italian schools and the related barriers to the inclusion (see Caldin & Cinotti, 2018) are critically examined through this framework. While international literature on the intersection of factors such as migration background, language, and disability highlights positive examples of linguistic inclusion, in which linguistic repertoires are valued as an enabling condition for participation and belonging (Baker et al., 2021; Vender et al., 2021), a dominant theme is systemic inequalities. This is due to processes of over/under-identification, medicalization, and categorization (e.g., Grzymała-Moszczyńska et al., 2019; Migliarini et al., 2020). In addition, evaluative and diagnostic barriers emerge (monolingual tools, reporting bias, confusion between language acquisition trajectories and disability), which can contribute to forms of segregation (e.g. Baker et al., 2021; Hertel et al., 2021). These dynamics lead to fragmentation in the management of inclusion: on the one hand, language support interventions and, on the other, procedures and resources for disability/SEN, often organized in channels that struggle to communicate with each other and end up compartmentalizing students, channeling them into parallel paths (Stinson et al., 2025). In this configuration, bi- and pluri-lingual students labeled as disabled risk ‘falling’ between the two systems: language acquisition can become an all-encompassing explanation that renders barriers and functioning invisible, while disability can be used to stabilize or pathologize multilingual repertoires (Cioè-Peña, 2021). This project considers language education as a hub where such fragmentation occurs and can be made visible and transformable, adopting an intersectional and critical approach. In particular, the project aims to investigate how language education practices aimed at bilingual (or plurilingual) students labeled as disabled in primary school are constructed and implemented and how they affect participation and inclusion. The study aims to highlight the concepts of language, learning, and difference that guide everyday choices, and to understand how these interact with formal categorization and assessment mechanisms. The research also aims to identify how to make visible and problematize the (often naturalized) assumptions that guide these practices, opening up spaces for renegotiation and transformation through a process of action research from a DisCrit and raciolinguistic perspective.