Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress International Special Education Conference Inclusion: Celebrating Diversity? 1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland

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TEACHERS’ SENSE MAKING AND CONSTRUCTION OF MEANING
IN EDUCATION FOR PLURALITY

Inger Assarson
PhD Student
Malmö University
inger.assarson@lut.mah.se

INTRODUCTION

Inclusive education is well illuminated in research studies as far as the normative, political and social aspects are concerned. How to convert the mission into curriculum and education is not that well examined. Although there is a clear support in official documents ever since the seventies for realizing a school for all, there still is a tradition for excluding children who are not expected to reach the goals of the comprehensive school. In Swedish schools today, special needs education is to the greatest extent a matter of finding special solutions outside the classroom for pupils who don’t fit in, rather than to make changes in the school in order to make it suit all students.

Inclusive education in Sweden often is associated with the integration of disabled children. However, inclusion can be seen in a wider perspective implicating education for the benefit of all children despite their eventual shortcomings and avoiding categorizing or diagnosing these deficiencies (Booth, 1998). Being able to educate all children consistent with the expressed ideals in official texts, requires a high rate of competence and puts new demands on comprehensive schools in thinking of all children as their concern. The new teacher educational program was a result of the stipulations in the 1994 curriculum and of the need for an expanded competence to teach in a school for all. In the final government report initiating the new teacher educational program (SOU 1999:63) this is expressed as “The Big Challenge”.

"The big challenge is - from a political and from an activity point of view - how the pre-school and the school should handle the fact that students have different prerequisites, experiences, knowledge, and needs. How can students' differences appear as resources and make steering conditions for the pedagogical work in the school in a direction that is at best for all students?" (SOU 1999:63, p. 192 /translation Rosenqvist, 2000)

The concept of “A school for all” could be called in question as nothing else but political rhetoric (Persson, 2004). Nevertheless there are isolated endeavors to comply with the aspiration to include all children. An interesting question is how professionals in such schools construct the issue and formulate collective competence for their work.

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

Organizing school and education always is a political action. The school reflects and forms the society at the same time as it is an arena of power. The relation between educational efforts and social change is however not linear. Rather it could be seen as complex processes where different groups compete about influence as well as what is going to be preserved or changed (Burgess, 1985). As school serves different purposes at different political and historical epochs its view on knowledge and who is going to be educated varies and so does the approach to the moral questions that is to be mediated. Teacher’s competence has to be considered related to current issues and assignments that always is a consequence of political and ideological compromises.

In present times of decentralization and market economy the official control of education in Sweden is changed from steering by rules to steering by goals. From merely following guiding principles there now is a need for a competence to interpret curriculum (Alexandersson, 1999). As the curricula, national objectives and guidelines for the public education system is a result of political combats these documents show inconsistency in their goals as well as in their meaning. Creating a collective competence for teaching is under these circumstances an intricate undertaking. Despite this there is in Sweden and other countries a trend to regard consensus as a presupposition for inclusive education.

The Malvern and Skidmore study from 2001 showed three different strategies approaching consensus according to inclusive education. The first was the compromising strategy where a work agreement was established to one task at a time. Another strategy was built upon reciprocity, a pluralistic view where everyone looks upon objects from different perspectives. The third strategy then, was the consensus theses on values and goals. This last strategy, to reach full consensus, tends to hinder any change as it is in itself an impossible mission.

AIM OF THIS PAPER

The aim of this paper is to give an image of how a school, which is in progress of an inclusive process, interprets the assignment to educate for plurality. An interesting question is how the complexity and reciprocity in the assignment is handled when teachers construct meaning and make sense in their striving for inclusive education.

METHOD

Sense making implicates to create a meaning in a world where nothing can be taken for granted and where we can’t be sure of if it’s the reality we are going to discover (Weick, 2001). According to Weick sense making can be understood as a way of constructing maps. How the map is drawn depends on what is noticed, on our creative ability, our needs when we construct the map and the fact that sense making is a social act, taking place in a broad ever-changing context.   The landscape is changing and it is essential to outline a short stability in the continuous flow that is life. In analyzing the processes in the dialogue I wanted to outline how teachers constructed sense and meaning in discourses considered important for the competence to deal with pupils in need of special support.     

In interpreting the dialogue I used an approach inspired by discourse analysis. Discourses represent reality at the same time as they create the world by choosing emphasis and selecting the parts described. My interest is focused on how school staff constructs their assignment by dealing with the different and often divergent discourses concerning inclusive education. In discourse analysis the issue is altered from studying a problem to studying the process of how and in witch context the problem was created. This moves focus from the reality to how reality is created (Börjesson, 2003).

Dialogues are taking form in interactive processes. The challenge is to seize these processes in order to get insights and uncover significant dimensions helping us to understand what occurs when governmental ordinances meet practice in school. Interaction develops in relation to the given assignment, educating all children, and to the space of the organizational structure and the given mandate. The texts in a dialogue are formed in complex adaptive systems where all factors change and adjust to each other in an everlasting process. One way to seize the complexity is to regard discourse as an activity or process of continuously shaped and reshaped systems of thoughts to construct meaning and make sense of reality. In my thesis the analysis focuses on discourses as different explanation models and thought systems constructed to make sense and shape meaning in school reality as well as in the mission to educate all children.

The school in focus for the study is a rural school whose teachers have expressed positive attitudes towards inclusion of children from a special school. The children from the special school are now attending comprehensive school and most of the day educated together with their schoolmates in regular classes. Some of the schoolteachers work in teams with groups of students. The special education teacher is seen as a resource for all of the school and closely connected to the school management.

In the investigation 16 teachers, a school assistant and a school nurse participated split into two different groups who met at two separate occasions for 1½ hour. The group dialogues were initiated through some public texts intending to inspire talking on the assignment of school. One of the chosen documents is considered as the base for the new Teacher Educational Program, To Learn and to Lead (Att lära och att leda SOU 1999:63). The chapters chosen for the conversation was the third chapter The New Teacher Assignment (Det nya läraruppdraget) and the ninth chapter Competence to encounter all students (Kompetens för att möta alla elever). These texts can be seen as interpretations of the political intentions of a school for all. The purpose was to use texts that could stimulate a dialogue around the mission also in an ideological perspective. The other document concerned ways of differentiating pupils in order to facilitate teaching (Wallby et al 2001). The dialogue was initiated by an open not too demanding question: What thoughts did you get reading the material? The aim with this every day question was to put as little pressure as possible on the group. The first thought to raise questions during the session was soon abandoned as it often was followed by silence. A ‘question’ was supposed to be answered in a correct way. Instead I used ‘incitements’, small stories, to inspire further thoughts. The dialogues were taped, transcribed and categorized after the themes of conversation before they were analyzed.

RESULTS

The conversation crystallized in different themes interpreted as consistent with the assignment. The processes in which the themes emerged are presented in this paper.

Cooperation with parents

In the curriculum there is an emphasis on parents taking active part in schooling. In the research group though, to a great extend, parents were talked-about as problematic rather than as a resource. There was an implicit taken for granted concerning how the “good” parents were supposed to perform in their contact with school. This unspoken normative and moral model became the ground for evaluating other parents. As the discussion proceeded a group of parents emerged seen as victims of their negative experiences at a school that put into practice an elderly set of values. These parents were referred to as almost never showing up at school and as themselves having children in need of special support. They were mentioned in terms of having “bad self-confidence” and “not feeling well” and this was considered to be a “sad” situation that is connected to their previous school experiences. In this reasoning an opinion became visible that for some pupils school even today is a torment. The aim for school then was expressed as giving these children “at least something” good from all those years at school.

Home conditions

Home conditions composed a theme referred to in the dialogues in a narrow individualized perspective as well as in societal terms. The stressed up speed in society and the presumed increased demands on parents were mentioned as some factors having impact on school. The tempo in society was supposed to influence pupils’ attitudes in a way that they are unable to reflect and are bored of working hard when they don’t find an immediate pleasure. Parents were talked about as curling parents sweeping out any resistance for their kids in a way that their self confidence was hurt. The normative and moral aspects of family upbringing were obvious. To give compensation for these lacks in family upbringing was seen as one of the tasks of school although not unproblematic. Emphasis in compensation was on adapted challenges and tasks that developed self-reliance.

Mass media

In introduction of a theme considering the impact from Internet, computer games and television these mass media first appeared as having negative influence. All these impressions from pupils’ leisure time at first were seen as destructive and important for school to set up against. As the dialogue went on there gradually emanated statements changing focus from a view of danger towards a view of how these experiences in stead could get used in education. The discussion changed perspective and the responsibility of school was expressed as to guide the pupils in this world of mass media into what was considered to be the right thinking. There also arose voices taking all the information and knowledge emerging from media as a justification for not giving even more knowledge at school. Instead schooling should help children to organize and sift out among all the impressions. This was seen as especially important for children who were supposed to have attention and learning difficulties. The dialogue group eventually moved towards consensus in the opinion that the obligations for school were increasing when an everlasting amount of new matters were put on the school agenda and now it was time to remove some of the objects that earlier had been seen as invaluable.

Teachers’ responsibility

The complexity and challenge in the teachers’ responsibility was expressed in terms that indicated a dread for not being sufficient. Changing emphasis from mediator of knowledge to a social tutor, an extra mother, was expressed as the mayor trend in the transformation related to the new expectations of teachers. The new demands educating for plurality were mentioned both as a burden and as a challenge. In the range of discoursive expressions there was seen a diversity and ambiguity that became more polyphonic as the dialogue went on. There could be discerned a movement in the discussion towards a common discourse where this reciprocity was allowed but with a dominance for the normative inclusive points of view. Collaboration and understanding of the other was pointed out as a condition for success.

Values

The curricula, national objectives and guidelines for the public education system all emphasize democratic values, equivalence, equity and equality. In the dialogue appeared a cursory consensus connected to this normative discourse. Voices were raised, indicating that some parents disagreed with these values which could indicate a projecting of divergent thoughts that actually existed among the school staff. However it was seen as an obligation for school to convey the democratic message from the basis that this was the correct way of thinking and those parents and those thoughts that diverged were wrong. The importance of democratic values was taken for granted and explicitly only imprecisely referred to in terms of ethic questions, empathy, and understanding that different pupils have different needs. Implicitly, however it was possible to carve out at least two discourses of values from the entire dialogue. The stronger of them used the perspective of equity and indicated the right of every child to feel successful. The other concerned anxiety for the harm inclusion could cause some week children. However this latter view faded away every time it was brought up and there was no space for the arguments to become further developed. A contrary view dominated seeing it as vital that children, considered as weaker, were exposed to challenges at school where they could get support.

Equity was formulated as giving every child what it needs, seeing the possibilities in stead of the problems and seeing the different needs as depending on social circumstances. These normative opinions inspired further to thoughts of the meaning and idea of being a teacher. The variety in behaviour of the children from one day to another lead to further arguing in favour of individualism and developing self confidence by giving each child a modified task. The discussion opened for scrutinizing the way in which pupils are faced to questions at school, where the right or preferable answer is predetermined. Enabling the pupils self confidence presupposed questions opening up for different answers. There appeared an opinion seeing individual tasks as a solution to encounter the diversity but also an assertion of the importance of tasks encouraging every child’s ability.

Societal circumstances

The impact of societal circumstances was brought up according to views of the change in the function of the school today and in the past, the consequences for learning and knowledge and the causing of stress. The importance of school was seen as changed from a position where its authority was natural into a precarious standing where the teachers constantly have to earn his or her respect from parents, pupils and from society. School as an institution was considered taken for granted and its traditions seldom called in question. There emerged a dilemma between preserving subjects habitually connected to school-work and new pedagogic ideas and new requests from a changed society. In the groups there was a concordance concerning the impossibility to change school and at the same time comply with the current expectations of schooling.

National assessments

In the Swedish educational system there is an emphasis on knowledge in mathematics, Swedish and English and all pupils have to pass in these three subjects. The difficulties were expressed as to give priority to these subjects and at the same time not disregard subjects that could fascinate the pupils and help them to engage in school work. This was supposed to be a disadvantage to pupils in need of special support. The stress from the national assessments also was supposed to trespass upon the effort for increasing the pupils’ social competence which was seen as the most important mission for school as it was assumed as a necessary qualification for succeeding in life. The importance for school was seen as diminishing the damage of these assessments.

Pupils in need of support

The increasing stress in society was seen as also affecting school children. Home works were considered as a contributory factor to the stress in pupils’ life and was seen as most damaging for children in need of support. No matter how they exert themselves they have to give priority to school work leaving no time for recreation in their leisure time. When they have to give up everything enjoyable there was a fear this could lead to burnout syndrome. So the aim was to organize school in order to give fewer home-works.

Some pupils were seen as late matured. They were supposed to require more time and more reasoning to understand. The individualized methods seemed unsuitable for these children in favour of a collaboration model based on taking part in their school mates’ exchange of thoughts. At the same time arouse conclusions from practice where individualized tasks very firmly structured were the most effective way of having children with attention difficulties to concentrate. To transform theoretical subjects into concrete form was assumed to be favourable for pupils coming from special schools but as the discussion continued this idea was extended to concern not only children in special needs but all children. The dialogue turned into a conversation concerning how to be able to implement a more concrete form of education. There was seen a conflict between implementing an education more linked to reality and remaining the traditional textbooks and teaching aids.

Adjusting education to pupils with learning difficulties without stigmatizing them was regarded as a dilemma. Removing some parts of the courses was causing anxiety for not fulfilling the assignment. Using different teaching materials for pupils depending on their capability was assumed to facilitate learning although it appeared to become too complicated to administer. Voices were raised for letting pupils get used to having different books without questioning it and without feeling uncomfortable or singled out. As the conversation was carried on a suggestion was raised having the same text books but sorting out certain parts for some children. This was supposed to ensure the feeling of fairness.

The pupils from special school were seen to adapt the social play as soon as they came into the classes of the comprehensive school. This brought up arguments for not isolating children with disabilities or learning difficulties because of the boost they could get from other pupils. There was noticed a tendency for overprotection that could impede development. The aim was to give these children challenges at school in order to prepare them for their future participation in a more cruel society.

Organizing education

The tradition of a single handed teacher in a class was seen as gradually broken for the benefit of teamwork. Teamwork was noticed as one of the prerequisites for including pupils from special schools. In organizing school the earmarked resources deposited for these pupils could be used to increase teacher frequency. The discussion led to reflections about the benefit of teamwork. School staff and teachers who had been working in other occupations alluded to a more common culture of teamwork and gave vent to their missing it at school. This caused a long conversation around plausible reasons to the lack of teamwork at school formulated as “it’s attached in our walls”; you “have never experienced it” and “don’t know what we miss”. The advantages of collaboration were discussed in contrast to the establishing of teams at schools sometimes without knowing for what purpose. Looking for answers to the phenomenon of routine based teambuilding the argumentation went back again finding the reasons in the traditions and the taken for granted that permeate through schools as institutions. Team work was seen as another load where the teachers first had to do his own planning only to make it all over again with his colleagues. Eventually there appeared a common view on the importance of the difference between natural team and forced teams. The natural teams were characterized by the metaphor; “you don’t lay out a path way until you know where people are going”. Only in the natural teams the group saw the benefits of team work as obvious and the conclusion became that “you better taste it to taste that it tastes rather good”.  There was a dominance of favour of teamwork although strong voices were heard that this also could become an extra burden if the conditions creating the teams were forced and not spontaneous.

CONCLUSIONS

The normative perspective is critical and hard to bypass when discussing inclusive education. The main reason could be it’s emotionally connection to concepts like fairness and justice as we have understood them since childhood. Those concepts are socially constructed and vary from time to time and there is no answer to what is supposed to be complete equity or justice. Inclusive education is more of a striving for the good than a precise condition to be reached. That’s why we never are going to understand the width of its significance or its consequences. However, as the concept and the meaning of inclusion are explored the knowledge and recognition of its complexity is gradually increasing. Just like the concept of inclusion always is in a process of change getting new meanings as we understand more of its width, the dialogue in the investigated school also shows an interchange between complex pluralities of voices dealing with the significances in the assignment of educating in a more including manner.

The school in focus for the study had begun a process for a more including education not out of any special progressive pedagogical thought, special knowledge of official texts or research in the area nor as a consequence of political decisions. Instead I could find indications for a pragmatic point of view that was related to the school culture as a hole. Although the complexity of the challenge in educating for plurality was expressed in an ambiguity related to new burdens, the school had an endeavour of seeing new demands as challenges. The reflecting on and questioning of traditions taken for granted appeared as a part of the school culture. Although there was a strong idea of schooling as compensation for the harm home conditions and societal impact could cause, there also were considerations for involving parents and for using mass media as a part of school work.  

In proactive organizations the culture is characterized by preventing situations that could cause difficulties or hindrances. Its aim is to take control over the situation instead of being controlled by it. The contradictory culture is the reactive where ad hoc solutions are common and little is made to promote longsighted answers that could reduce further problems. The reactive organization is waiting for a problem to become a crisis and then react. Taking an urgent decision in a context of crisis has more to deal with emotion than with cognition (Ledoux, 1999). In a proactive organization planning and anticipating is an important part of the work. Although the study reveals thinking according to ad hoc solutions in educating for plurality the main features concern reflecting and thinking of ways to prevent and organize in order to avoid problems for the future. This corresponds to an interactive process between a proactive and a reactive philosophy that could promote organizational changes in order to develop prerequisites for a more inclusive education.

Educating pupils concerned as having learning difficulties emerged as being less problematic than handling the variety of social problems brought to school. An explanation can be that teachers have the tools for teaching and learning but not for solving social problems. The social part of school work has been increased as the mediation of values and the social competence of the pupils are emphasized in the new curriculum; an assignment schools consider themselves insufficiently prepared for.

The innermost meaning of inclusive education is a complex continually transforming weave of normative, pedagogical, psychological and philosophical attitudes closely connected to the societal development. In my PhD thesis the intention is to get a closer look at the creative processes and the complex adaptive systems underlying the construction of inclusive education at school. This will be done from a point of view inspired by an approach of deconstruction and discourse analysis with the dialogues in focus.

REFERENCES

Alexandersson, M.(red) (1999). Styrning på villovägar . (Steering gone astray). Lund: Studentlitteratur.

Booth, T. & Ainscow, M. (1998). From them to us: An international study of inclusion in education. London: Routledge.

LeDoux, J. (1999). The emotional brain: the mysterious underpinnings of emotional life. London: Phoenix.

Malvern, D. & Skidmore, D. (2001). Measuring Value Consensus Among Teachers in Respect of Special Educational Needs. Educational Studies, Vol. 27, No. 1, 2001

Persson, B. (2004). Policies and practices in special needs education: Discourses of inclusion and exclusion. Paper presented at the ECER conference, University of Crete, September 22-25 2004.

SOU 1999:63 Att lära och att leda (To learn and to lead). Stockholm: Utbildningsdepartementet.

Wallby, K., Carlsson, S. & Nyström, P. (2001). Elevgrupperingar – en kunskapsöversiktmed fokus påmatematikundervisning . (Group differentiation of pupils – a survey of knowledge with focus on teaching mathematic.) Stockholm: Skolverket.

Weick, K. (2001).   Making sense of the organization. Oxford: Blackwell Business.

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