Cultivating teachers' knowledge and skills for leading change in schools

Australian policy initiatives and state curriculum reform efforts affirm a commitment to address student disengagement through the development of inclusive school environments, curriculum, and pedagogy. This paper, drawing on critical social theory, describes three Australian projects that support the cultivation of teachers’ beliefs, knowledge and skills for critical reflection and leading change in schools. The first project reports on the valued ethics that emerged in pre-service teacher reflections about a Service-learning Program at a university in Queensland. The second project reports on a school-based collaborative inquiry approach to professional development with a focus on literacy practices. The final project reports on an initiative in another university in Victoria, to operationalise pedagogical change and curriculum renewal in Victoria, through the Principles of Learning and Teaching (PoLT). These case studies illustrate how critical reflection and development of beliefs, knowledge and skills can be acquired to better meet the needs of schools.

Creative partnerships? Cultural policy and inclusive arts practice in one primary school

This article traces the 'cultural turn' in UK educational policy through an analysis of the Creative Partnerships policy (New Labour's 'flagship programme in the cultural education field') and a consideration of an arts project funded under this initiative in one primary school. It argues that current educational policy foregrounds the economic importance of cultural activity and its contribution to the social inclusion agenda. However, 'creativity' is seen as being located outside mainstream school structures, in projects rather than in the National Curriculum, and in artists rather than in teachers. The emphasis is on enjoyment and inclusion rather than cultural or social critique, or significant curriculum change. The transformative potential of involvement in the arts is marginalised in favour of a relatively weak form of social inclusion.

Developing an inclusive model for 'teacher' professional development

This paper reports on the findings of a recent teaching grant awarded in  2004, from the Australian Teacher Educator's Association (ATEA). The grant enabled a professional development teaching (PDT) team to be established at Norlane West primary School, Geelong. The team comprised of twelve 'teachers' who included two teacher educators, six Year 5 and 6 teachers  and four student teachers. The aim of the project was to examine how a  team of new and experienced teachers developed and changed their  teaching repertoire and their professional identity through a process of teaching, learning and reflection. What made this particular project unique was the inclusion of student teachers in the PDT team and the action  reflection cycle adopted by all members of the team. The reflective cycle consisted of a teacher educator, teacher and the team of student teachers all participating in a filmed teaching experience, editing and reflecting on their own teaching and then sharing the video with the other members of the PDT team. This individual and team reflection process proved to be very  successful and an effective model for influencing 'teacher' professional development.

Making the pedagogic relay inclusive for indigenous Australian students in mathematics classrooms

Many students are unsuccessful in the study of school mathematics, not because of some innate ability, but because of pedagogical practices. Bernstein (1996) has argued that pedagogy serves as a mechanism for cultural reproduction, so that for those students whose cultures are different from that represented in and through pedagogy, the task of constructing school mathematics is made more difficult. The paper explores the ways in which a teacher changes the pedagogic relay in order to be more inclusive of her students. Her practice is informed by understanding the ways in which pedagogy is a subtle tool for marginalization in mathematics.

Constructing inclusive education in a neo-liberal context : promoting inclusion of Arab-Australian students in an Australian context

School systems are a major social change agent capable of challenging social inequalities and economic disadvantages. Yet, while schools in Australia are being confronted with increasingly culturally diverse populations as well as an increasing focus on student retention, this transformative role is increasingly being played out in a broader educational context that has been found to replicate rather than challenge patterns of social inequality. Successive governments in Australia have responded to this context with a raft of policy initiatives. This paper, based on three-year longitudinal research undertaken in the city of Melbourne, outlines this policy context and introduces the theoretical approach that underpins its innovative approach to managing cultural diversity in educational institutions. It argues for, and presents, a multidimensional model for managing cultural diversity in schools, one that provides the tools for transformative practices to be undertaken to effect positive change in school environments for the benefit of all students.

Defining and measuring the outcomes of inclusive community for people with disability, their families and the communities with whom they engage

This paper explores the meaning of ‘inclusive community’ as understood by a major disability service provider in Victoria, Australia. Scope is a major non government agency with 1300 staff, a $50M annual budget and over 4500 clients. The recent adoption of a new Strategic plan for the organisation has focused significant attention on the priority area of building welcoming and inclusive communities. Given this mandate, the organisation has begun research to define and measure outcomes for people with a disability, their families, and the communities with whom they engage, as a result of increased community inclusion. This paper reviews literature on outcomes definition relevant to this task and suggests that outcome measures to date, especially within the field of disability, have offered a set of outcomes that are too limited in their aspiration and breadth. It has been the experience within Scope that people with a disability, including people with intellectual, multiple and complex disabilities, aspire to and experience outcomes across a far broader range of life domains than is currently captured in either existing disability outcome measures or in government policies that frame service delivery. As a result, the paper introduces an emerging outcomes framework which seeks to define outcomes across a range of citizenship domains.

Inclusive policy action : exploring the realities and knowledge of teachers implementing inclusive education

Inclusive Policy Action recognizes the complexity of inclusive policy for teachers. However, the author presents a strong view that a constructive approach for future action can be accomplished by drawing on teachers' own accounts of the significant characteristics contributing to effective inclusion. Accordingly, teachers' work is recognized as a vital contributing factor to successful inclusion, despite the often over-powering emphasis on additional funding. For this reason the finer structures of changed pedagogy, the development of teacher knowledge and the vision of quality education for all students are explored using teachers' own voice to theorize and analyze the actuality of successful inclusive practice. The emergent characteristics relate to the importance of communicative infrastructures promoting knowledge within learning communities rather than political directives associated with inclusive education policy. These characteristics draw attention to the need to reconsider and revalue the knowledge and expertise generated by education policy actors, namely the teachers and school administrators involved in institutional planning and practice.

The outcomes, processes, and challenges of inclusive education in Victoria

A collaborative school culture is important to improve the learning of students with special education needs. This could be met through a consolidation of a school's understanding of students' learning difficulties as environmental causes and an increase of teachers' confidence and knowledge on addressing students' diverse needs.

The Civic School : Australian-Indonesian professional collaboration to model and audit the development of democratic primary classrooms and teacher language using the index for inclusion

The study is a pilot project in Australian-Indonesian institutional collaboration for the professional development of primary school teachers in West Sumatra in citizenship education. Senior staff in the department of Pancasila and Citizenship Education at the State University of Padang (UNP), West Sumatra initiated the project. UNP staff sought the collaboration of the Faculty of Education at the University of Tasmania for bringing about and sustaining changes in teacher practice needed to implement the new civic goals in the 1999 Suplemen. The Index for Inclusion was used to model and audit the development of democratic primary classrooms and language use in a cluster of Padang schools in West Sumatra. The paper describes the background to the project and how the Index for Inclusion was understood during the initial two-week implementation phase by teachers and school principals. The significance of the study lies in the potential of the Index for Inclusion internationally to citizenship education, a field of education that was not considered in the initial development of the Index project and the contribution of the multiple fields of inquiry to the evolving theoretical understandings of inclusive education.

Partnerships for learning : an international perspective on the development of inclusive schools

One of the most difficult issues faced in school university partnerships is the legitimacy of the collaborative relationship. Getting invited in as a university partner and staying on to support teacher knowledge is challenging. Through an account of a case study set in one large secondary school located in the western suburbs of Victoria, we disentangle the importance of seldom considered barriers that impact on professional learning. Shaping our understanding through a theoretical model where the movement between identity, beliefs and decision and action is identified as 'noticing' (Moss et al. 2004, Mason 2002) we describe the potential of the model in developing a 'pedagogy of hope' (hooks 2003). Noticing, working at the elusive intersections of observation and construction, permits non-linear connections. A 'pedagogy of hope' works for a sustainable learning community- a community for all students, teachers and school leaders.

Inclusive schooling : representation and textual practice

This paper reports on a larger study carried out in the island state of Tasmania, Australia, between 1996 and 1998. The research reviewed the impact of the Inclusion of Students with Disabilities Policy (ISDP) within the government school system. The qualitative study describes the interpretations of five key informants: a parent; two teachers—a support teacher and a class teacher—a policy-maker and a university academic, during the early period of the implementation of the ISDP. The visual and literary ‘data stories’ of the research are woven together to narrate inclusive schooling in the Tasmanian context as a ‘detective story’ of the special education knowledge tradition. Drawing from poststructuralist methodology and narrative theory the multi-voiced text is a deliberate attempt to enter into conversations with the reader rather than tell the story. Researching inclusive schooling policy through representation and textual practice, I question dominant research practices in the special education field and populist slogans of ‘inclusion’.

Inclusive schooling policy : an educational detective story?

Since the publication of the Salamanca statement (UNESCO 1994), inclusive schooling has formed a growing part of the deliberations of the special education community. Inclusive schooling research in Australia in the main continues to reproduce traditions of the special education field, emphasising the dominant psychological perspectives that have been superimposed on inclusive education discourses. At the fifth International Congress of Special Education (ISEC 2000) held in Manchester, ‘the death knell of the concept of special education’ (ISEC 2000) was announced. The concept proposed by Mike Oliver, Professor of Disability Studies at the University of Greenwich, asserts an end to understandings of diversity dependent on medical, psychological and charity-based discourses. From a recent study of inclusive schooling policy, and drawing from poststructuralist methodology, I suggest an approach to research, policy development and practice that questions traditionalist theorising in the special education field. Reflecting on the implementation of the Inclusion of Students with Disabilities Policy (DECCD 1995) in the Tasmanian government school system, I outline my alignment with Oliver’s view and highlight how questions of epistemology and reconstructions of research methodologies are central to rethinking understandings of difference. I also illustrate a methodological orientation that offers possibilities for a different science to take place, thereby understanding diversity as multiple and contradictory – and beyond the single ‘detective story’ (Gough 1998) of the medical, psychological and charity-based discourses that circulate in schools as the populist conceptions of ‘inclusion’.

The mathematical and science skills of students who are deaf or hard of hearing educated in inclusive settings

This study examined the science and mathematics achievements of 16 Year 9 students with hearing loss in an inclusive high-school setting in Western Australia. Results from the Monitoring Standards in Education (MSE) compulsory state tests were compared with state and class averages for students with normal hearing. Data were collected from three cohorts of Year 9 students across a 3-year period (2005‐2007). Results from mathematics MSE9 and the MSE9 science assessments showed that the majority of students with hearing loss performed below the state average (88%). Findings in this study suggest that students with hearing loss demonstrated more mathematical strength in the areas of space and measurement, which use visuo-spatial skills. Results for students with hearing loss in the five sections of the science assessment suggest more consistency across the different areas tested in the MSE. Comparisons with the MSE9 English paper for the 2005 cohort of students with hearing loss suggest a strong relationship between reading and writing skills and performance on mathematics and science assessment. In particular, questions with high language content created difficulty. On the science assessment, questions requiring a written explanation appeared to be particularly challenging. These findings have implications for teaching and learning in these crucial areas for students with hearing loss in inclusive secondary school settings. Greater attention to the interpretation of the language of mathematics and to writing about science concepts may help to improve outcomes for students with hearing loss on statewide assessments

The dissection of paraprofessional support in inclusive education: ‘you're in mainstream with a chaperone’

The experiences of young people with disabilities of inclusive schooling are largely underresearched. This paper reports recent findings of a small-scale Australian qualitative study, in which secondary students with vision impairment spoke about their experiences of receiving paraprofessional support. Two overarching themes emerged from this study: ‘light’ and ‘heavy’ paraprofessional support. The results presented here demonstrate that participants described that support personnel upheld the strong arm of the special education tradition, which was manifestly detrimental to their inclusion. Raw data is presented to elucidate the emergent themes, and to explain the various pedagogical and general support roles of class and special educators in eliminating the need for direct paraprofessional presence in lessons. The light and heavy model of support is also examined in terms of how it fits into the complexity of the education discourse and the young people’s own aspirations for full inclusion.