Conference Agenda

Inclusive pedagogy has become a central principle in global and national education agendas, emphasizing the right of all children to participate meaningfully in learning regardless of ability, language background, or socio-economic status (Ainscow et al., 2006). In early childhood education, inclusive pedagogy is particularly critical for literacy acquisition, as early literacy skills form the foundation for later educational success and social participation (Lerkkanen, 2025). Teachers play a pivotal role in translating inclusive policy commitments into classroom practices, as their knowledge, skills, beliefs, and professional experiences shape how inclusion is enacted in daily teaching (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017).
In Tanzania, policy frameworks such as the Education and Training Policy (URT, 2014) and the National Strategy on Inclusive Education (URT, 2021) strongly advocate inclusive education across all levels, including pre-primary education. Despite these commitments, empirical studies indicate that inclusive pedagogy for literacy acquisition remains inconsistently implemented in pre-primary classrooms (Kamanzi et al, 2026; Mligo, 2025; Mlolele et al., 2023;). Challenges include large class sizes, limited teaching resources, multilingual learning environments, and, most importantly, insufficient teacher preparation for inclusive literacy practices (Kabate, 2025; Ndijuye et al.,2020). While existing literature has examined inclusive education broadly (e.g Rugambwa & Thomas, 2013) and early literacy instruction separately (see Ndijuye et al., 2020), there remains limited empirical evidence on how pre-primary teacher training and professional development specifically support inclusive pedagogy for literacy acquisition in this study context Tanzania.
Teacher education is widely recognized as a key mechanism for strengthening inclusive pedagogical practices (Herrera-Seda & Walton, 2025). Pre-service teacher training is expected to provide foundational competencies in child development, early literacy, assessment, and inclusive education, while teachers’ professional development (TPD, e.g. Darling-Hammond et al., 2017) is intended to sustain, deepen, and adapt these competencies over time (Avalos, 2011). However, studies from Sub-Saharan Africa suggest that teacher education programs often remain largely theoretical, with limited opportunities for practical engagement with inclusive literacy strategies (Miles & Singal, 2010). As a result, many teachers report feeling underprepared and lacking confidence in supporting learners with diverse literacy needs (Savolainen et al., 2012).
This study, therefore, examined pre-primary teacher training and professional development as pathways for implementing inclusive pedagogy for literacy acquisition in pre-primary education in Tanzania. The study addressed two research questions:
i. What kind of skills does pre-primary teacher education provide for inclusive literacy acquisition in pre-primary classrooms in Tanzania?
ii. What are teachers’ perceptions of professional development in implementing inclusive pedagogy for literacy acquisition in pre-primary classrooms in Tanzania?
The study was guided by Transformative Learning Theory (TLT) which conceptualizes adult learning as a process of critically examining and transforming existing frames of reference (Mezirow, 2000). TLT is particularly relevant for teacher education, as teachers enter training and professional practice with deeply rooted assumptions shaped by prior schooling, cultural norms, and professional socialization (Illeris, 2014). In the context of inclusive literacy pedagogy, TLT provides a lens for understanding how teacher training and PD may challenge deficit-oriented views of learners, promote reflective practice, and support shifts toward more inclusive and learner-responsive teaching approaches (Taylor, 2017). By applying TLT, this study conceptualizes teacher training and TPD as potential transformative spaces where pre-primary teachers can rethink traditional, whole-class approaches to literacy instruction and adopt inclusive practices such as differentiation, formative assessment, and play-based learning (Zerai et al,. 2023)

Despite its commitment to equity and participation, the practice of inclusive education is shaped by historical post/colonial knowledge and power structures that continue to determine what is recognized as legitimate knowledge, normality and difference within educational contexts (Grech & Soldatic, 2015; Muthukrishna & Engelbrecht, 2018). Although inclusive education is generally considered a response to the growing diversity in contemporary classrooms, its epistemological basis is often taken for granted. Teacher education plays a pivotal role in this regard as it is a key place where ideas about inclusive education are formed and passed on to future teachers (European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education, 2012). In the European context, this role is particularly significant, as education systems face increasing classroom heterogeneity resulting from global and international crises alongside nationally specific frameworks for children with disabilities, requiring diversity-sensitive engagement with all learners.

Against the backdrop of growing socioeconomic and educational inequalities relating to dis/ability, gender, class and race, teachers working in inclusive settings are increasingly expected to demonstrate critical and reflexive competence. However, this paper argues that dominant understandings of inclusive education are profoundly influenced by postcolonial knowledge and power relations (Grech & Soldatic, 2015; Walton, 2018). These relations are not only articulated in global inclusion discourses, but also reproduced and enacted within teacher education programs and classrooms. Consequently, inclusive education is predisposed to perpetuating the very inequalities it aims to address, creating cycles of epistemic reproduction and self-legitimization under the guise of inclusion. Mignolo cautions, failing to interrogate the epistemic foundations of inclusion risks reproducing “the blind epistemic ethnocentrism that makes difficult, if not impossible, any political philosophy of inclusion” (Mignolo, 2002, p. 66).

Based on my recently completed PhD project examining post/colonial knowledge production in inclusive education, this paper conceptualizes teacher education as a vital epistemic site where knowledge about inclusion is created and normalized. Rather than treating inclusive education as a transferable set of pedagogical methods or competencies, the paper approaches inclusion as an epistemic practice. From this perspective, inclusive education involves ongoing epistemic decisions about which knowledge and experiences are recognized as valid and which are marginalized (Ballard, 2013; Slee, 2001; Spivak, 1988).

The papers guiding research question is:

How do post/colonial knowledge orders influence what is recognized and enacted as inclusive education in teacher training, and how these orders be made analytically visible in order to foster epistemological reflection within teacher education programs?

The theoretical framework combines three interrelated levels:

Firstly, post/colonial perspectives on knowledge production are employed to analyze historical and geopolitical asymmetries in the production and circulation of educational knowledge, particularly with regard to inclusive education and dis/ability (Escobar & Frye, 2020; Mignolo, 2002).

Secondly, critical discourses on inclusive education are considered as a contested project situated between de/colonization and social justice (Muthukrishna & Engelbrecht, 2018; Slee, 2001).

Thirdly, these perspectives are connected to current debates on teacher professionalization under conditions of growing social, cultural and epistemic diversity in Europe (Bartels & Vierbuchen, 2024; Lindmeier & Lindmeier, 2024).

Central to the analysis is the concept of epistemic positionality - developed in the dissertation. It captures how the professional knowledge of future teachers is shaped by historically and geopolitically situated assumptions regarding normality, dis/ability, and difference. From this perspective, inclusive education is not merely a pedagogical task, but an epistemic practice embedded in post/colonial regimes of knowledge that continue to influence European teacher education and the ways difference is addressed in inclusive classrooms. Epistemic positionality therefore provides the basis for a transferable heuristic analytical framework – also developed in the dissertation - that renders these epistemic orderings visible and open to reflexive interrogation.

The fourth goal of the 'Agenda 2030' (United Nations, 2015) 'Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all' (p. 14) calls for unconditional equal opportunities for individual education in the sense of a broad concept of inclusion. Due to its multi-perspective orientation and its subject-specific basic education mandate, primary science education (Sachunterricht) is considered to have great potential for inclusive education (Schroeder & Miller, 2017). Against this backdrop, teachers face the challenge of implementing school inclusion in primary science education as well (Schroeder et al., 2023). To meet this didactic challenge, 'adaptive teaching competence' is considered a key skill (Parsons et al., 2018; Schroeder et al., 2023). Adaptive teaching competence refers to teachers' ability to align instruction with individual learning prerequisites (Brühwiler, 2017). Based on the review by Gallagher et al. (2022, pp. 298-315), adaptive teaching competence is understood as a mediating ability (reflection) between a stimulus and the visible adaptive performance (Blömeke et al., 2015). This corresponds to Hattie's (2012) understanding of an adaptive teacher: 'Teachers are adaptive learning experts who know where students are on the continuum from novice to capable to proficient, when students are and are not learning, and where to go next, and who can create a classroom climate to attain these learning goals' (p. 99). In the context of this research, adaptive teaching competence is located and operationalised at the level of professional vision. Professional vision is operationalised as comprising two sub-dimensions: 'noticing' and 'reasoned decision-making' (Weyers et al., 2023, p. 10). Since the study is conducted in the context of primary science education didactics, 'reasoned decision-making' is operationalised through the constructs of 'scaffolding' and 'classroom management', which are well-researched in primary science education (Gippert et al., 2022; Kleickmann, 2012; Lehmkuhl et al., 2022). However, measuring adaptive teaching competence remains an open challenge in inclusion-oriented primary science education (Beck et al., 2008, pp. 10-11). Existing studies on the assessment of adaptive teaching competence in (prospective) teachers employ a variety of different methodological approaches: vignette tests (e.g. Beck et al., 2008; Schmitz, 2023), video recordings of the test subjects (Kufner, 2017) and evaluation of lesson planning (Rey, 2022). They focus on different content areas regarding different (sub)dimensions (adaptive teaching competence, adaptive action competence, adaptive planning competence). In addition, the composition of the population is very heterogeneous across the different studies. To date, no study has operationalised and measured adaptive action competence in prospective science teachers in inclusive primary schools through the lens of professional vision. The aim of this dissertation project is to develop a valid measurement scale for the standardised measurement of adaptive action competence as a fundamental component of the adaptive teaching competence of prospective primary teachers in inclusion-oriented primary science education. With the help of a video-based measurement scale, this study tests a method for objectively, reliably and validly assessing the adaptive competence of prospective primary teachers in inclusion-oriented primary science education. To this end, approximately N = 100 students are surveyed, and an expert validation (N = 12) is carried out. Using a partial credit model in line with item response theory, the applicability and quality of the measurement scale will be examined using item- and model-fit indices.

Across global education systems, the imperative to prepare teachers for inclusive education has intensified (Florian, 2022; UNESCO, 2020) amid what Morin and Kern (1999) describe as a “polycrisis”, a convergence of social, political, environmental, and technological disruptions that reshape the conditions under which knowledge is produced, mobilised, and enacted. In both European and non-European contexts, teacher education is increasingly positioned as central to sustaining democratic and equitable schooling systems aligned with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) (United Nations, 2006). This paper examines how teacher preparedness for inclusive education is conceptualised and governed in two contrasting yet interconnected contexts: Australia and Scotland (with specific attention to Glasgow as a major urban school district). By placing these cases in dialogue, the paper offers insights of direct relevance to a European audience concerned with the future of inclusive teacher education policy and the operationalisation of European inclusion frameworks.

Drawing on the ECER 2026 theme “Knowing and Acting: The changing conditions and potentials of education research,” this paper investigates how knowledge about inclusive education is codified in national policy and translated into expectations for Initial Teacher Education (ITE). Using documentary analysis, we examine key legislative and regulatory texts shaping teacher preparation in Australia and Scotland, including the Disability Standards for Education (Australian Government, 2005), the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (AITSL, 2017), accreditation requirements for ITE (AITSL, 2019), the Additional Support for Learning (Scotland) Act (Scottish Government, 2004), the GIRFEC framework (Scottish Government, 2008), and the GTCS Professional Standards (GTCS, 2021). These are analysed through the lens of the CRPD (United Nations, 2006) and the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education’s Profile of Inclusive Teachers (European Agency, 2012), a key reference point for European teacher education reform.

Existing research highlights persistent tensions between inclusive rhetoric and classroom realities (Anderson & Boyle, 2015), variability in preservice teacher preparedness (Arias-Pastor et al., 2023), and the need for sustained, systemic capacity-building to support inclusive practice (AckahJnr et al., 2024). Evidence also points to the importance of teacher beliefs and self-efficacy in shaping inclusive enactment (Woodcock et al., 2023), alongside the role of evidence-informed pedagogies (Mitchell, 2017).

The analysis identifies key convergences across contexts, including a shared rhetorical commitment to inclusion as a rights-based imperative, recognition of teacher responsibility for all learners, and alignment with international and European discourses of equity, diversity, and participation. However, significant divergences emerge in how preparedness is framed. In Australia, policy texts emphasise compliance, accountability, and demonstrable competence aligned to national standards and accreditation processes, reflecting broader reform agendas (Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group, 2014). In Scotland, inclusion is more explicitly embedded within professional identity, collegial responsibility, and inter-agency collaboration under GIRFEC, positioning inclusive practice as relational and systemically shared.

These differences reveal contrasting constructions of the “inclusive teacher”: as technically proficient and standards-aligned practitioner in one context, and as relational, reflective, and socially accountable professional in the other. For a European audience, this comparison underscores the importance of critically examining how European and global frameworks such as the CRPD and the Profile of Inclusive Teachers are translated within national governance systems. Teacher preparedness cannot be reduced to a checklist of competencies; it is discursively constructed within policy regimes that prioritise particular forms of knowledge, evidence, and professional action. By situating national policy within a broader global and European architecture of inclusive education, this study contributes to Network 04’s ongoing discussions about the future of inclusive teacher education in times of polycrisis.