Contributions from: Mel Ainscow - UK, Pilar Arnaiz - Spain, Alfredo Artiles - USA, Alan Dyson - UK, Janette Klinger - USA, Carmen G. Pastor - Spain, Helmut Reiser - Germany, Maria Jose Gomez Torres - Spain, Rolf Werning - Germany
Abstract
Changing Roles In many countries, the emergence of more inclusive approaches has led to a new or changing role for special educators working in regular schools. In some cases, such a role has had to be established de novo. In other cases, the focus of the role has changed from direct interventions with learners 'with special needs' outside the regular classroom to a more consultative and supportive approach focused within the classroom. This symposium reports on a four-country (England, Germany, Spain and USA) research project aimed at tracking this changing role in different national contexts and relating those changes to wider aspects of the education systems and societies of the countries involved. A team of researchers in each country has investigated these changes using a range of methodological approaches and will produce a 'country report' which will be presented at the symposium. The symposium itself will consider the way the special education teacher's role is defined in each country, the changes taking place in that role and the implications of these changes for inclusive education in the countries themselves and more widely. It will also consider methodological issues in researching these changes.
Contradictions In Practice: The Difficult Role Of Support Teacher
Dra. Carmen Garcia Pastor, in Special Education, M. Jose Gomez Torres,
Associate , University of Seville
The proposal of our work is to give evidence about the difficulties that support teachers' experience in their professional practice, and the barriers for moving towards a more inclusive model of intervention in their job.
These difficulties and barriers could be analysed not only at a personal-professional level, but also at an organizational and political level, because these three levels could be useful in order to explain the fundamental contradictions that are affecting professional practices.
When we consider 'contradictions' we are underlying assumptions according to several contributions in special education field (Skrtic, 1991, 1999; Clark et al., 1997; Stangvik, 1998). Their explanation pointed out contradictions at different levels that we use as the theoretical framework to interpret empirical evidences that we have obtained from educational practices in inclusion. We have collected data through semi-structured interviews from support teachers, headteachers and professional team that support the six primary schools which compose the sample of our study.
The results obtained through a qualitative data analysis - inductive process of coding, contents reduction into categories and further triangulation of data from different sources- illuminate the situation in which professional support teachers current practices are developed, and they permit us to explain how some contradictions, given at professional, organizational and political level are reflected in these practices.
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