Claes Nilholm´s blog 2020

Skrivet 2020-12-03 11:36

The title question concerns something that probably almost all teachers think about every day. I will describe in more detail the challenge facing the teacher who wants to contribute to creating more inclusive classrooms and then outline what needs to be developed for these teachers to receive the best possible support in their work.

The challenge

Creating a school for all children is a challenge. One of my definitive favorite passages in texts from the field of educational science research is the following written by childhood and educational historian Bengt Sandin about the emergence of a school for all:

“When more and more children from different social classes were accommodated in the same institution, the differences between the children became visible. The differences between different childhood worlds became dramatic and noticeable when hungry, sick children would sit side by side with children with water-combed hair - observed by an increasingly professional profession - the school teachers, who had an interest and personal commitment in pointing out the differences between the children. Not only the reluctance to go to school and the conflict between school and home became apparent but also the childrens´ other shortcomings. Diseases, abnormalities of a physical and mental and not least a moral nature were noted. The school's task of being a school for all was not very easy to carry out ”(p. 61) /my translation/.

The quote thus shows the enormous variation that historically existed in the classroom and even though the situation looks very different today, the fact remains that the students in the classroom have very different prerequisites for school work. One way to handle the variation among pupils is through organizational differentiation where students who are equal to each other are taught together. The special school is an example of this in Sweden, but also the independent schools which gather ambitious middle-class students. In recent years, however, the idea that special solutions should be avoided and that the teacher should be able to meet a more varied group of students in the classroom has gained momentum.

Teacher strategies

There are several theories about how inclusive schools should be constructed and a number of mantras that are repeated regarding how it should be done. These are often in the form of lists of factors that are said to increase inclusion, the Salamanca Declaration being a typical example of this. On the other hand, it is not as common to have lists of what the teacher should do to increase inclusion. Even when such lists exist it is relatively unclear how they can be used by the active teacher. Such lists are of course worth taking part of (see link to previous blog below with a critical review of David Mitchell's list of strategies for inclusion).

In practice, however, many (but far from all) teachers are not sure about how they should be able to meet the needs of all students in a good way. Many believe that they do not have the skills and support required to meet this challenge.

Teachers have different strategies when meeting heterogeneous student groups. A common way identified in research is to target students at an intermediate level. Other teachers can adapt the teaching to the students who have the greatest difficulties. Another way of dealing with students' different levels and needs has been to individualize in the form of, for example, "individual work", which was popular in the 1990s. The student then plans and carries out the school work at his/her own pace.

Each teacher probably has their own ideas about how the teaching should be differentiated so that all students should be given good opportunities. I am also convinced that there are many teachers who succeed with this and from whom you can learn a lot. But many teachers experience this as an almost impossible task and there is a lack of well-proven theories regarding how to increase inclusion in the classroom.

Thus, many teachers feel inadequate. Inclusion is often called for but the tools are partly missing. Several teachers believe that the task is impossible and demand special solutions for different groups of students, such as those who do not keep up with the pace of education or who do not want to conform to the required order or those who are simply unmotivated.

A didactic question

It is important to state that the question in the blog title is largely a didactic question. Didactics can be said to be the doctrine of the art of teaching and what is a more difficult art than teaching a group of students with very different conditions and characteristics? Unfortunately, there is far too little didactic research on this issue, largely due to the fact that didactics has recreated the distinction between the normal and the deviant.

We have had one teaching for "normal" students and another for the "deviant" and this difference is also reflected in the research where didactics in part provided a "normal student" and special education took care of the students who do not reach the norm.

If students with varying conditions are to be in the same classroom, didactic knowledge is needed about how they can be taught together. In other words, we can say that research is needed on how inclusive didactics can be developed.

It is also important to note that there are a number of framework factors that affect teachers. Framework factors consist of things that are beyond the teacher's control, but which still are important for how the teaching is carried out. Examples of such framework factors are the composition of student groups, the time available for various teaching elements, rules and goals formulated in the governing documents, how the support system is organized, the management of the work and the local school culture. Such framework factors can facilitate but also make it more difficult to create inclusive classrooms.

In summary, we can state that we need more research on the consequences of various framework factors for the possibility of creating inclusive classrooms and on how teachers can more concretely shape inclusive teaching in the daily interaction with students.

A final word

Of course, it is not very comforting that more research is needed for the teacher who has given up on the task of meeting a group of students with varying prerequisites. A first step towards being able to meet all students is, of course, that there is a functioning support system, so that the teacher is not left alone in the face of this difficult task. Then I think it is extremely important to build a collaboration between the school and the university to be able to develop didactics in the school and not least to learn from the teachers who seem to go ashore with the challenge of teaching diversity of students in the classroom.

Then, of course, there is a lot of research to be inspired by, although, as I said, there are very few studies that have more systematically analyzed how different didactic choices can lead to an increased degree of inclusion for all students.

Sandin, B. (1995) The creation of the normal child. In K. Bergqvist, K. Pettersson and M. Sundkvist (eds), Crossroads: An anthology of meetings between young people and institutions then and now. Stockholm: Symposium. (pp. 55-64) /titles translated/

Problematizing blog about strategies to increase inclusion, September 2017: Does David Mitchell´s book "What really works in special and inclusive education" provide a scientfic foundation for teachers and special educators?

Skrivet 2020-10-27 17:18

There are those who think that the social and educational sciences should mimic the more successful natural sciences by increasing the level of quantification. Others argue that since the social sciences and the educational sciences are primarily interested in human meaning-making, they should distance themselves from the natural sciences.

My view is that both of these approaches miss an important factor behind the success of the natural sciences and that is the importance placed in the natural sciences in being clear about what is meant by the theories and words / concepts used. Here, I believe that both quantitatively and qualitatively oriented researchers in the social sciences and not least the educational sciences have a lot to learn.

This conviction is also the reason why I myself in my research and also in this blog have spent a lot of time trying to increase clarity about key concepts in educational research. If it is unclear what we mean by a word we use this easily leads to misunderstandings. This becomes extremely clear in the research on inclusion where we can find (at least) four different uses of the word inclusion. Put differently, the same word indicates different concepts.

Kerstin Göransson and I have written an article called "Conceptual diversities and empirical shortcomings" (see reference below) where we critically examine the research on inclusion. In the first part of the article, we discern four different uses of the word "inclusion" in research about inclusive education. Interestingly, this article has been frequently referenced in international research, which may indicate that we have pointed to a critical point.

From placement to community

Many researchers and politicians define inclusion as indicating placement of pupils. A pupil in a special school who is transferred to a regular class is according to the logic of such a definition included. It is on the basis of such a definition that it is possible to say that "inclusion has gone too far" when, for example the pupil does not feel comfortable in the regular class, does not benefit from the teaching, does not get any classmates or is exposed to or exposes others to bullying.

The following three definitions are also based on placement in a regular class, but for each new definition, the requirements regarding what is to be perceived as inclusion become stricter. Before I go on to definition two, it is important to state that placement is not about the policy of a locked door where no pupil will ever get out of the regular classroom but rather about all students including students in difficulties having a natural class affiliation. There are thus opportunities to work with extra support in connection with the classroom / in flexible group formations.

It should be pointed out that the first definition differs in fundamental ways from the second. The second definition presupposes that the pupil placed in a regular classroom thrives in the class in order for us to be able to say that he/she is included.

Exactly what thriving amounts to can of course be discussed- It can, for example, mean that he/she learns based on his/her potential and develops beneficial social relationships with the other students. According to this second definition, inclusion cannot be said to have gone too far because inclusion is by definition something good. However, it can be difficult to include the pupil for various reasons.

The confusion between the first two definitions has led to a lot of negative consequences. When the Salamanca Declaration talks about "the inclusion principle", it is often about placement. At the same time, the declaration lists a very large number of measures at different levels which must be implemented for the placement to be successful.

Already here, an uncertainty was established, is inclusion only about placement or about placement + measures? I am quite convinced that it is the latter that the declaration implies and therefore inclusion also has a positive value in the declaration; inclusion was considered a good thing because it was thought that these measures would lead to beneficial school environments.

Based on the second definition, a number of measures may be required for the pupil in our example to be included such as visions, adapted teaching and assessment, acceptance, support, resources, well-developed leadership and a functioning collaboration between student health-special educator / special teacher-teacher. If the school provides all this and the pupil still does not thrive in the class, there may be a need for another organizational solution.

My impression is that it is mainly the two definitions described above that has figured in the discussion. However, as has been said, there are additional ways to define inclusion.

The third definition means that inclusion is not only about students in different types of difficulties / with disabilities, but that inclusion means that all students should have a beneficial situation in the school. It is of course difficult to oppose inclusion in this sense, however, one may ask whether it is possible to create an inclusive school and in what ways a particular classroom can be said to be inclusive. To know if a school / a classroom is inclusive, we must, based on this definition, not only examine the situation for pupil with special needs/disabilities but the situation of all students.

That is what Barbro Alm and I did in a study where we were interested in whether the particular classroom we studied could be said to be inclusive. We investigated if the students felt pedagogically and socially involved and if difference was seen as something that was valued within the classroom.

The fourth definition means that inclusion involves, in addition to all students having a beneficial situation, also the construction of communities in schools and classrooms. Such communities can involve different features, e.g. forms of work that require cooperation, a perceived sense of belonging and common goals. This latter ideal is quite far from the discussion that is going on about schooling today which often concerns educational achievement. In the classroom examined in the study mentioned in the previous paragraph, the teachers carried out a lot of community-creating activities, which is why the classroom to important parts also lived up to the fourth definition.

But how should we then look at linguistic constructions such as "social inclusion” in relation to the four definitions? The expression "social inclusion" often appears in international research. The notion of “social inclusion” implicitly builds upon a placement definition. In definition 2-4 above, “social inclusion” is, so to speak, inscribed in the definition of inclusion. If the student is not socially included, he/she is not included at all. Although it is wise to distinguish between different aspects of inclusion (social, pedagogical), it is important to realize that such specifications are basically based on the placement definition.

It should also be mentioned that sometimes the word inclusion is used to denote that a student has a good situation no matter where he/she is educated. Thus given such an inclusion concept we can say that a pupil t in a special school or in a special teaching group is included if he/she thrive in these contexts. However, it is very doubtful to use the word in this way because the placement is a very central point in the Salamanca Declaration (with the exception of students who need instruction in sign language and students who can harm other students / who get hurt in a regular classroom).

Better research is needed

In the second part of the article mentioned above, Kerstin and I mapped the research that exists on how an environment (class, school) through some form of action / change can become more inclusive. We then started from definitions 2 and 3 above and looked for studies that could show positive effects of some action/change in terms of learning and social factors for both students in difficulty and other students. We did not find any article within the time span we examined that lived up to this criterion. It is always possible that we missed someone / some studies, but our study illustrates that the research has a long way to go before it can clearly show how more inclusive environments can be created. To put it differently, we need better theories concerning how schools and classrooms can become more inclusive (see link to article below).

Göransson, K. and Nilholm, C. (2014) Conceptual Diversities and Empirical Shortcomings - A Critical Analysis of Research on Inclusive Education. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 29: 3, 265-280.

Reference to article where the degree and nature of inclusion in a classroom was examined:

Nilholm, C. and Alm, B. (2010) inclusive classroom? On inclusiveness, teacher strategies and children's experiences. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 25 (3), 239-252.

Skrivet 2020-09-29 11:27

It may seem a little strange that we have so little knowledge about how school environments can become more inclusive for all students now that 26 years have passed since the publication of the Salamanca Declaration.

In a research article that has recently been published (see link below), I try to argue for how we can gain more knowledge about how such environments can be created. I intend to somewhat develop the reasoning in the article in this blog.

First, though, I want to explain to the reader what kind of article it is. By far the most common article in educational research report outcomes in empirical studies and puts this outcome in a research context.

Empirical research is sometimes brought together in research reviews. More rarely, but not less importantly, research reviews can be about how concepts / theories / methods are used within a research area.

The article I wrote is none of this but is a positioning article. In such an article, one tries to shed light on the entire field of research, evaluate it and try to see development paths for future research. In this way, a positioning article is supported by what is at best a clear line of argumentation.

The starting point for the argument in the article is that there is a lack of empirically based theories regarding how more inclusive environments that include all students can be created at the system, school and classroom levels.

Another starting point for my reasoning is the social psychologist Lewin's idea that "there is nothing as practical as a good theory", which means that if a theory is not useful, it is not a good theory. Similar ideas can also be found in Dewey´s thinking and in pragmatism more generally.

Everyone who is familiar with the field of inclusion knows that there is no shortage of theories, so why are they not sufficient when it comes to developing an education system that includes all students?

Limited and elaborated theories

In the article, I argue that two different types of theories dominate in the field of inclusion research, limited and elaborated theories.

On the one hand, there are what can be labelled as limited theories, which focus on the relationship between variables. Examples of questions asked in such a perspective are: What influences teachers' attitudes to inclusion? Is inclusion effective?

The problem with these types of theories is that they are too general (de-contextualized) and often start from a traditional view of special education, where the focus is only on students in need of special support and not on the inclusion of all students.

On the other hand, there are what I call elaborated theories. Perhaps the most interesting theorist in research on inclusion is, in my opinion, Thomas Skrtic. I choose to discuss his theories in the article as an example of elaborated theories (there are many other examples).

Elaborated theories include, unlike limited theories, complex descriptions of how different levels and processes in society and the education system relate to each other. The problem with these theories, which becomes not least clear with Skrtic, is that they are not tried out in practice. In this way, there are constructions that often solve problems in theory, but we do not know what it means, and what consequences it will have, if their usefulness were to be tested out in practice.

A problem concerning both types of theory is that it is often not entirely clear what is meant by inclusion within the framework of the theories. I mentioned above that limited theories are often based on a view that inclusion is only about students in difficulty. In my article, however, I am interested in theory as a tool to create inclusive environments for all students.

Of course, a number of insights have been gained and interesting research results have been obtained within the framework of these two types of theory. What I suggest in the article, however, is that they need to be developed to become better tools for creating more inclusive environments.

The case study as a vehicle to develop better theories

A large part of the article is devoted to advocating case studies as a way of developing theories of inclusion. The case study as a method fits the complexity that characterizes education and teaching. Case studies have the advantage that they a) combine different levels of analysis b) take into account the complexity of the phenomenon c) do not violate the integrity (the whole) of the studied phenomenon and d) are suitable for theory development.

Case studies can focus on entire education systems, such as in articles of the type "Inclusive education in X" where X is a country. They can also focus on schools and classrooms. In both latter cases, it is of course important to contextualize the study in the educational system where the study is conducted.

The case study of course has to be related to prior research. If, for example, I want to do a study of a classroom that seems to develop in an inclusive direction, it is good to take previous studies about how such a development takes place as a starting point. Through a careful mapping of the case, a theory about how inclusive classrooms can be created can be further developed and nuanced.

It is also advantageous if case studies have a longitudinal dimension because we then have better opportunities to analyze which factors can explain the development of and decline in inclusive processes.

In the article, I exemplify how case studies can be used for theory development with the help of Bengt and Elisabeth Persson's studies of inclusion processes in the Essunga municipality in Sweden and my and Barbro Alm's study of an inclusive classroom, also in Sweden (see link below for references).

The studies are chosen because, based on my argument, they are central and important to the area of research on inclusion. I discuss in the article how they could contribute to theory development to an even greater degree than has been the case. In both studies, a number of factors are mentioned which seem to have been important for the inclusive development studied, but we need more knowledge about how these types of factors interacts in the developmental process towards more inclusive practices.

When I received comments from the reviewers of the article, I decided to remove a long section where I put the idea of ​​inclusion in relation to liberal democracy. Within the framework of an article, only a limited number of themes can be included. Another topic that I could not fully discuss in the article concerns the question of what theories are and I therefore choose to end this blog with a discussion on this important issue.

Theories exist in different contexts

In the field of educational science, it can be fruitful to discern beteen theories about, for and in practice. Theories about practice aim to explain and increase the understanding of why the practice looks the way it does. These theories are often described as being non-normative.

Theories for practice aim to develop practice in a desired direction. We can see an analogy to these two types of theory in the division that is usually made between research about and research for the school.

The starting point for my article is, as mentioned, Lewin's maxim "there is nothing as practical as a good theory". This starting point breaks in a way the distinction between theories about and for practice since theories about practice should also be tested for their usefulness in developing practice.

The term "research for schooling" often means that research should contribute to increased goal fulfillment etc. But we can also see that more ideology-critical research can also be for practice, even if it proposes changes of such practices in the longer term.

Now, I would not go so far as to say that all theories must be for practice even when this is interpreted broadly and will also include research that is systemically critical. Some research can simply provide insights and understanding without necessarily affecting the practice more than very indirectly.

However, a lot of the research that is about the school contains a lot of, often unspoken, assumptions about what is good for the practice / how the practice should be developed. This is because the educational science researcher hardly escapes the question of educational ideologies and it is not possible to analyze the school from an ideology-free vantage point.

Theories in practice, finally, is about the theories that head teachers, teachers and others have about schooling. What is interesting in the two case studies discussed in the article is that it is practitioners who develop the inclusive processes. Usually we think that theories are developed in research and then these are to be transferred to practice, but here it is almost the opposite.

If we again invoke Lewin, it seems that these persons have had "good theories". The theories differ from scientific theories in that they are constantly tested in, and retested by, practice. They are not tested in empirical studies but within the framework of everyday experience and are negotiated in discussions with colleagues and others. Strictly speaking, they also exist only as aspects of interpretation and action in practice. They are thus not as de-contextualized and formal as scientific theories.

So I think we can learn a lot from the practitioners who have proven to have good theories in practice. By critically analyzing such theories in practice, we as researchers can contribute to developing theories for practice. Here, of course, a complex translation work takes place from interpretations and actions in practice to more formal theories on how more inclusive environments can be developed.

I thus believe that it is important that we try to bridge the gap between theories for practice and theories in practice in order to be able to develop more inclusive schools and classrooms. In that context, of course, theories about practice are also important.