Inclusive Pedagogy Research Articles

Estrategias Metodológicas que Promueven la Inclusión en Educación Infantil, Primaria y Secundaria

This article analyses the methodological strategies put into practice by Spanish teachers who develop an inclusive pedagogy in Early Childhood Education, Primary and Secondary Education. Qualitative research has been carried out using semi-structured interviews. The participants were 70 teachers from different schools in the province of Seville. The results show the similarities and differences that exist between the three educational stages in terms of the methodological strategies used to facilitate learning and participation of all students. The strategies used by these teachers are explained, as well as what they do and how they use them. Specifically, this study analyses seven methodological strategies: project-based learning, cooperative learning, peer tutoring, dialogical learning, play and gamification, interactive groups, learning corners, experiential learning and service-learning. The conclusions reveal that the inclusive methodological strategies are an opportunity for other teachers to benefit themselves, improve their own practice and learning from other educational stages.

Análisis de Prácticas Inclusivas de Aula desde la Investigación-Acción Participativa. Reflexiones de una Comunidad Educativa

Teaching practices that foster inclusive pedagogy must be supported by authentic assessment that involves all the agents participating in the teaching-learning processes. The paper analyzes the process of reflection and review of inclusive classroom practices that has been developed in a rural school to problematizing and improving teachers' practices at the community level. The study is framed within the parameters of a participatory action research and a case study design is used. The investigated practices were: pencils in the school, hideouts, we read in pairs and Aronson's Puzzle. Teachers, students, families and the research team participated in the analysis. The information has been collected through classroom observations, interviews, field diaries and documents and an analysis of the content has been carried out. The revision of the practices has generated small transformations towards a more inclusive, higher quality and more equitable education where the voices of the entire educational community have contributed to the improvement of the practices.

Paradoxes of white moral experience

Paradoxes of white moral experience

Action research to improve confidence in meeting diverse need and the quality of inclusive practice through lesson observations

This paper reports an action research study undertaken towards the National Award for Special Educational Needs Coordination (NASENCO) on a university‐based course. It follows an earlier evaluative study that identified a tension between teachers’ self‐rated high levels of confidence in meeting diverse need and values which did not appear to support inclusive practice. The ‘action’ which was subsequently taken was the collection of further data through lesson observations to assess whether such confidence was reflected in inclusive classroom practice. Planning reviews were also undertaken. Several recognised features of inclusive practice that are known to benefit pupils with special educational needs (SEN) were not observed in all classrooms. The action research study findings identified very specific training needs relating to inclusive classroom practice, the design of individual education plans and the development of a shared school ethos and understanding of inclusive pedagogy.

Accepting the Inevitability of Politics in the Classroom

Once we acknowledge that we cannot escape politics in the classroom, it is imperative that we, as instructors, adapt our pedagogy accordingly, with the knowledge that our choices in the classroom will replicate, reinforce, or resist the political status quo. The political embeddedness of religion makes this all the more urgent for instructors of Religious Studies, as we attempt to guide students through explorations of communities, identities, histories, ideologies, and representations of human experience which all have political implications in the present. This article delineates several parameters for crafting our pedagogical initiatives, offering classroom climate considerations to keep in mind while we establish our own best practices. It then offers several suggestions—structural, instructor-focused, and student-focused—of best practices to implement in the Religious Studies classroom so as to achieve optimal learning outcomes for all of our students. Key among our conclusions is that inclusive pedagogy is effective pedagogy in Religious Studies.

Transformative Anti-Ableist Pedagogy for Social Justice

Higher education institutions are legally bound to provide equal educational opportunities for diverse learners, traditionally materialized as individualized accommodations. This paper contends that despite the growing interest and scholarship in implementing more inclusive pedagogy enabling access to education for all students (e.g. Universal Design for Learning), those efforts still fall short of systematically addressing intersecting, oppressive, and anti-ableist practices in the classrooms. I argue, that in order to develop a truly inclusive, equitable, socially just and transformative pedagogy and teaching practices, we need a theory that posits disability in the context of learning and development, the theory that integrates disability into human development in a manner that overcomes dichotomized and reductionist perspectives of disability and individualistic notions of learning. Drawing on my research on teaching and institutional practices for a student diagnosed with autism, analyzed through the lens of Critical Disability Studies in conjunction with Vygotsky’s theory of defectology and recent advances in cultural-historical activity theory, especially the Transformative Activist Stance (Stetsenko, 2016), this paper offers steps toward integrating these approaches into a transformative pedagogy framework for inclusive, equitable, and anti-ableist pedagogy for all learners.

Organization of the inclusive education of children with special needs in Ukraine: modern accentuations

The article highlights topical and top-priority issues of inclusive education implementation in Ukraine. Pedagogical inclusion is regarded as an educational paradigm based on the principles of equality, accessibility, and the guarantee of high-quality education for all, which is a fundamental imperative of its effective functioning, and one of the most beneficial forms of education for the children with special needs. The study analyzes the definitions of the basic categories of the issue and the legal basis for ensuring the organization of the inclusive educational environment. The emphasis is laid on the organizational aspects of inclusive education implementation in the institutions of pre-school and general secondary education.

A Bilingual Special Education Teacher Preparation Program in New York City: Case Studies of Teacher Candidates’ Student Teaching Experiences

ABSTRACT There is a need to better prepare teachers for bilingual classrooms that have students with and without disabilities. This inspired the creation of a new graduate teacher preparation program for the inclusive bilingual classroom in NYC. The program aims to help candidates understand theories and research across bilingual/bicultural education and the teaching of students with disabilities, and how the intersectionality of differences in ability, culture, and language impact learning. This study reports on two candidates’ student teaching experiences. It highlights ways in which the candidates reflected on the intersectionality of differences through teaching, as well as the multi-layered positive reactions of students and classroom teachers to their teaching, describing the emotional connections and manifold learning outcomes that resulted. The findings from this study provide valuable information for mentor teachers and teacher preparation programs interested in promoting equity in education through the preparation of inclusive bilingual educators, and has implications for policy development.

Exploring the role of off-task activity on students’ collaborative dynamics.

Off-task activity is ubiquitous in classrooms, yet little understood. Building on recent work that illustrates the utility of off-task activity to disrupt relations of power among students, this article explores the potential functions of off-task participation during collaborative mathematics problem-solving. We examined 56 instances of off-task participation across 12 collaborative problem-solving sessions in a fourth grade classroom during a collaborative inquiry unit on place value. Results show that the majority of instances functioned to support the collaborative problem-solving process. Further, off-task participation often succeeded in shifting collaborative dynamics after on-task bids to shift dynamics failed. Off-task activity seemed to introduce new storylines that served as discursive tools to navigate local social hierarchies. We close by situating an understanding of the resources that students bring into collaborative learning through off-task activity within conversations on inclusive pedagogies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)

Integrating Inclusive Pedagogy into an undergraduate introductory Physiology course

We are constantly bombarded with images about what type of person “does science”, and these images usually convey a very narrow view of science and scientists. In most science courses and science textbooks, the people highlighted for making most of the significant contributions are white males. Whether or not this lack of diverse representations of scientists registers consciously, the impact of this messaging about the types of people who work in science‐related careers is clear and consistent. Therefore, it is important that faculty recognize the impact of this messaging and act to combat it, especially in light of the increasingly diverse array of postsecondary students interested in STEM majors. One way to enhance student belonging in STEM is to provide assignments that allow students to recognize the contributions of non‐stereotypical scientists. To accomplish this, we added a biographical presentation assignment to an undergraduate Introduction to Physiology course with the objective of providing multiple of examples throughout the course of the semester that counter scientist stereotypes. For the assignment, students selected a scientist to research from a curated list that includes only women and minority physiologists. The assignment required that they write a paper and give an oral presentation to the class about the selected physiologist. The content of the presentation and the paper included a description of the scientist’s career trajectory and scientific contributions as well as information about their personal life and a discussion about which things the student found most relatable to their own life. To assess the impact of the assignment on student notions of scientist stereotypes and overall scientist relatability, we conducted a pre‐ and post‐course survey, which indicated a significant shift in student biases regarding scientists being predominantly white and male. In addition, a focus group assessment revealed themes indicating that the assignment also improved student’s ability to identify with people in science‐related careers. Therefore, this pedagogical intervention appears to be beneficial as a step toward creating a more inclusive STEM educational environment.Support or Funding InformationNSF CAREER 1350448

Reimagining STEM Education to Help Underrepresented Students Thrive in the Classroom

This presentation will highlight a novel, interdisciplinary course for students interested in pursuing an undergraduate degree in STEM. Science, Math, and Research Training (SMART) is a year‐long course that provides first‐year students with a strong foundation in biology, chemistry, calculus, and computer science. These disciplines are integrated in a manner that allows students to develop problem solving skills and to appreciate the value of collaboration and communication across multiple STEM disciplines. SMART is a thematic course that focuses on important and timely issues such as antibiotic resistance and infectious disease. In order to provide this type of interdisciplinary training for students, the topics covered during the course of each semester must be limited. This presentation will discuss the means by which the content that is covered in a traditional introductory science course has been stripped down and limited to the most important, foundational concepts. The purpose of this redesign was to provide students with foundational knowledge of science, but also focus on the development of critical thinking and scientific writing skills. The removal of traditional content also allows the instructors to focus on metacognition to allow students to assess their own learning needs. Our goal is for our students to feel empowered to take charge of their own learning and to determine, early on in their scientific career, the strategies that work best for their learning. Furthermore, this course redesign allows for instructors to implement high impact classroom practices as well as inclusive pedagogy techniques that guarantee the success of all students, regardless of their background and preparation in high school. SMART is geared primarily to first generation college students, student from underrepresented backgrounds, and students with a low socioeconomic status. Helping these students develop a sense of belonging and self‐efficacy in STEM is a primary goal of this program.

Fostering Empathy through an Inclusive Pedagogy for Career Creatives

AbstractWith the emergence of an entire generation of technologically infused learners comes a new challenge for educators to combat their desire for technologically enhanced isolation. The impact of social media on self‐absorption and the ramifications of excessive screen time are already evident in our current generation of tech‐native students. Meanwhile, the need for more empathetic employees who show compassion toward clients, exercise tolerance for co‐workers and demonstrate cultural awareness in all aspects of their work is already being prioritised over discipline‐specific skills and even STEM expertise by current business leaders. Similarly, the demand for more empathetic creatives is being catalysed by a design industry that now values human‐centredness. Empathy brings the human component to user‐experience and interface design and is now widely acknowledged as the first step in any design process. As a corollary, the development of empathy as a pedagogical deliverable will not only be necessary for the workplace of the future but for future generations to become fully‐functioning members of society. This research explores how an inclusive art and design pedagogy can foster collaborative learner‐centred approaches to develop empathy as a key component of emotional intelligence. Our methodology for triggering meaningful experiences and transformational growth harnesses collaborative play as a way to engage learners in stimulating, socially conscious teamwork. By becoming more intentional about designing the future of higher education in order to nurture more empathetic career creatives, we also lay the groundwork in preparation for educating the most technologically advanced, yet potentially socially isolated learners of any generation yet.

Foucauldian parrhesia and Avicennean contingency in Muslim education: The curriculum of metaphysics

This study examines the Foucauldian notion of “parrhesia” within the context of curricular practices through a renewal of scholarly interest in Islamic metaphysics as represented by the Avicennean modalities of reality: necessity, contingency, and possibility. It explores the role of contingency in advancing educational practices that generate inclusive dissemination of knowledge that captures the language of Tajdeed (legitimate renovation) in Islamic education. This article argues that contingency, as a causality-oriented modality, determines whether meaning is relative or absolute, while necessity, as an acknowledgment of universal truth, slips into demagoguery that can be used to canonize strict textualism and absolutism. Contingency is defined here as a practice that stimulates synthesis and dialogical understanding of knowledge. Accordingly, the study asks the following questions: How does infusing the Avicennean concept of contingency into curriculum practices offer opportunities for inclusivity and free speech? How can revisiting Islamic cosmological modalities help Muslim educators and curriculum writers move into the broader path of inclusive pedagogies? From an educational position, the article introduces a curriculum of metaphysics that advocates the implementation of contingency, which is considered essential to parrhesia and democracy. It also draws attention to an anti-metaphysical attitude that is generally present in curriculum theorizing. Accordingly, Metaphysics is invoked to challenge a state of flux or hegemonized assumptions; hence, metaphysics validates parrhesia.

Toward a borderless, decolonized, socially just, and inclusive Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

In the context of global curriculum transformation and from a global South perspective, this article explores the imposed and self-created borders that continue to “discipline” us into reproducing scholarly processes, practices, and traditions that privilege dominant forms of knowledge making and knowing in teaching and learning. Drawing on Africa as a case study to explore a framework for thinking outside borders, the author invites the reader to embrace a global social imagination that disrupts and transcends the epistemic, social, and cultural borders designed to produce knowledge that is ahistorical and decontextualized. Using a social mapping of how we thrive on neatly delineated borders that detach the known from the knower by marginalizing or delegitimizing knowledges of the Other, this article, which draws on an earlier version presented as a keynote at the 16th annual conference of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, presents a theory of change geared toward borderless, decolonized, socially just, and inclusive pedagogy and scholarship.

Developing Inclusive Pedagogies in HE through an Understanding of the Learner-Consumer: Promiscuity, Hybridisation, and Innovation

This article contributes to debates about how to respond to the changing profile of Higher Education (HE) students, and the marketisation of HE, by challenging prevailing views about student engagement, in order to develop learner-centric and inclusive pedagogies which are relevant to the twenty-first century. The concepts of ‘participatory culture’ and ‘co-creativity’ are often associated with the digital world in which the current generation of students have grown up. But it is a mistake to assume that some learning styles are inherently more participatory than others: participation is not an effect of the medium or form, (analog vs digital), or the space (actual vs virtual), or the mode of interaction a (face-to-face vs networked) through which the learner participates – it is an effect of the practices involved. Students engage with a complex network of both digital and analog texts and spaces, and it is this postdigital hybrid setting within which student engagement takes place. Marketisation provides an opportunity to actively demonstrate our commitments to student-centredness and inclusive practice, by transcending the binary opposition between ‘Student as Partner’ and ‘Student as Consumer’ and recognizing that students are learner-consumers, and allowing students’ diversity to drive innovation, rather than continuing to disempower students by bolstering practices which privilege some learning styles above others, informed by the assumption that innovation is technology-led.

Enacting inclusivity in the preparation of emerging scholars

This article explores how three doctoral candidates enrolled in the discipline of Higher Education gained an understanding of social justice, equity-mindedness and diversity in the academy. Prior to the admission of these three students, two faculty members had reformed the doctoral programme to align it with the principles of inclusive pedagogy. They created a conceptual framework for the redesign of the programme’s mission, curriculum and pedagogy. Echoing an article that those faculty members wrote about the programme, the authors use a collaborative autoethnographic approach to share their experiences of the programme. Just as the faculty members engaged in a fictitious dialogue with their source of inspiration, bell hooks, the authors engage in a conversation with the programme chair about their pursuit of education as the practice of freedom.

Editorial

In this issue of Learning and Teaching: The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Sciences, authors from Denmark, Jamaica, the United States, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom analyse measures to encourage students to change their educational expectations and complete their degrees earlier; the experience of inclusive pedagogy on a doctoral programme; the impact of new managerial practices on the teaching of qualitative research; the positive effects of using the online platform Socrative to involve less confident students and stimulate discussion; and a game that reinforces students’ understanding of important issues in research ethics.

Conflicting Demands of Chemistry and Inclusive Teaching—A Video-Based Case Study

Almost every country in the world is obligated to implement education policies to enable an inclusive school system. However, implementing techniques to be inclusive in schools is a major challenge to teachers, especially to those teaching a subject at secondary level and higher. Most of the literature concerning inclusive science education was published in recent years, and is more normative than empirical. Teachers struggle to transfer these normative demands to their accustomed way of teaching science. In this study, we analyze conflicts a teacher experiences when teaching a so-called ‘hard science’ like chemistry at an inclusive school. On the one hand, inclusive science education should facilitate participation in science specific learning processes for all learners. This broad perspective on inclusion demands that everyone can take part in everyday classroom life. On the other hand, chemistry strives for the understanding of abstract concepts, theories and models, which forms a barrier to learning chemistry for many people. This paper presents an explorative case study focusing on these conflicting demands. To reconstruct the inconsistencies, we analyzed a videotaped teacher–student discourse on atoms. Using the documentary method, a qualitative approach developed by the sociologist Ralf (Bohnsack et al., 2010). distinguishing between explicit and implicit knowledge, it was possible to reveal the orientational frameworks guiding the teacher’s actions. On the surface level, traditional scientific educational approaches structure the discourse. Reconstruction of the discourse is deep, as evidence was found for a participation-oriented framework as well as for the challenges the conflicting demands of chemistry and inclusive teaching put on teaching. We implicate that future professional development courses must not only concentrate on combining chemistry with inclusive pedagogies, i.e., how to teach, but also on the reflection of implicit beliefs concerning inclusive chemistry teaching.

Breaking the Boundaries of Prescription: Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Inclusive Pedagogic Practices in a Full Service School

The present study investigated the extent to which teachers at a Full Service School in Soweto understand and practise the principles of a Full Service School. I focused on three teachers in the foundation phase. Classroom observations, individual semi-structured interviews and document analysis were used to generate data. This qualitative study was framed theoretically by Florian’s framework of inclusive pedagogy. Extrapolation of data suggests that teachers understand the concept of inclusion, make use of different teaching approaches and they indicate that there are quite a number of challenges they face on a daily basis.

Faculty members who engage in inclusive pedagogy: methodological and affective strategies for teaching

ABSTRACT In this article, 119 faculty members from 10 Spanish universities who engage in inclusive pedagogy reveal some of the methodological and affective strategies they use to motivate their students, including those with disabilities, and help them learn. The study described is a qualitative one in which one semi-structured interview was held with each participating faculty member. A system of inductive codes and categories was used for the data analysis. The results revealed that faculty members believe in and trust the capabilities of all their students. They meticulously plan their syllabus to ensure practical learning, using a diverse range of strategies and providing continuous feedback. They also adopt a student-centred teaching approach and attach value to emotional and affective aspects, as an effective strategy for learning. The study helped identify a series of practices regarding the components and methods required for constructing inclusive university communities.