Professional Understanding of a Special Needs Educator: Roles, Expectations, and Implications

Abstract

The current social context presents understandings of professions as vaguer rather than distinct in the everchanging education environment. While education and the medium of education (Teachers) present as a vastly researched sphere, the parallel profession of a Special-needs Educator lacked equal attention despite the challenges that the profession faces in its more complex provisos. The project seeks to determine the professional understanding of a SnE and the varied implied association of professional identity using a qualitative approach, with adaptation from Collie and Mansfield’s proposed model (2022) with an additional paradigm of Social Identity Theory. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 participants at different levels of professional involvement before analysis was conducted using Thematic Analysis proposed by Clark, Braun and Hayfield (2015). Presenting themes of (1) Big Environment, (2) Professional Identity, (3) Expectations (Formal Professional roles), (4) Additional Roles (Hidden Professional Roles) and, (5) Burnout were observed from the data. Key finding notes that dissonance within the profession was resultant of the low clarity of professional responsibilities rather than factors identified by earlier studies (heavy workload, emotional burnout, lack of resources etc); ‘Parents’ and ‘Organization’ were noted to be direct contributors to the low clarity of role, and that; ‘Ambiguous’ was noted to represent the hidden curriculum of the profession rather than any distinct findings. The research notes the maturity of the profession in the developmental context of Singapore and provides recommendations for different profiles-levels to reflect the maturity of the professional environment.