Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress
International
Special Education Conference
Inclusion: Celebrating Diversity?
1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland
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Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress 1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland |
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Stacy K. Dymond
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
Adelle Renzaglia
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
Euljung Chun
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
Service learning, an educational philosophy and instructional method to connect real-life activities with curricula, offers various activities through which children can learn and apply different skills. Students can expand their cognitive learning to real-life problem solving. Through service learning activities, they can make their learning real and meaningful. Service learning allows different entry points so that all levels of students can participate, which makes service learning a great tool for inclusion.
The National and Community Service Act of 1990 (1991) provides a noteworthy definition since it is very significant legislation for service learning and thoroughly encompasses the components of service learning. Summarizing what it says, service learning is a method under which students learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully organized service experiences that address actual needs in their community through curriculum integration. It provides structured time for students reflect on the service experience.
Examples of service learning programs that include students with and without disabilities are slowly emerging in the professional literature (see Ellis, 1993; Everington & Stevenson, 1994; Gent & Gureka, 1998; Muscott, 2001;Yoder & Retish, 1994; Yoder, Retish, & Wade, 1996). Empirical research, however, is quite limited. A survey of 13 special education teachers conducted by Brill (1994) found that participation in service learning resulted in increased student attendance and academic achievement. A pilot study by McCarty and Hazelkorn (2001) suggests that including “reflection” as a component of service learning positively impacts on the personality and social-emotional development of students with emotional and behavior disorders. Burns, Storey, and Certo (1999) found a positive change in attitudes among students without disabilities who participated in service learning activities where they were equal partners with students with disabilities. In instances where they were told their role was to “help” students with disabilities, there was no change in attitudes.
The purpose of this study was to identify and validate the critical elements of high school service learning programs in the state of Illinois (USA) that effectively include students with and without disabilities. An equally important purpose was to identify effective methods for including students with disabilities in service learning and existing barriers to their participation. To date, no one has sought to define the critical elements, methods, and barriers of service learning programs that include students with and without disabilities (i.e., programs where students with disabilities provide service alongside their non-disabled peers rather than being the recipients of service). The following research questions guided this study:A combination of criterion and snowball sampling procedures (Patton, 2002) were employed to select five high schools in the state of Illinois (USA) for participation. Criterion sampling allowed the selection of schools that met a pre-determined criterion of excellence while snowball sampling narrowed the number of schools to the most information rich cases. Exemplary schools were initially identified as those receiving distinction within the last five years as a National Service-Learning Leader School and/or a Prairie State Service-Learning Leader School. The former designation involves national recognition by the Corporation for National and Community Service (http://www.leaderschools.org/) and the latter involves recognition by the Illinois State Board of Education (http://www.isbe.net/learnserve/). Officials from the Illinois Learn and Serve program, service learning coordinators from high school Leader Schools, and representatives from regional superintendents’ offices were contacted by telephone to obtain recommendations of exemplary programs that included students with disabilities alongside their peers without disabilities. Service learning coordinators from these programs were interviewed individually by telephone to obtain more information about the program. In addition to being identified as exemplary, all programs in the study were required to have at least three years of experience implementing a service-learning program that included students with disabilities.
Schools selected for participation served grades 9 to12 and had four to 10 (M=7.2) years of experience including students with disabilities in service learning. In each school, students with disabilities provided service alongside their peers without disabilities. The five schools selected were purposefully diverse with regards to geographic location, school size, socio-economic status, and presence of cultural diversity (see Figure 1). One to two individuals coordinated the service-learning program at each school. These coordinators simultaneously assumed other responsibilities at the school including teaching (social studies, foreign language, physical education, special education) or guidance counseling.
One focus group was conducted at each school. Each focus group was composed of adult stakeholders who were knowledgeable about the service learning program and its inclusion of students with disabilities. Views from at least three stakeholder groups (e.g., administrators, service learning coordinators, teachers, related services personnel, paraprofessionals, parents, and community members) were included in four of the groups. Participants were chosen by the service learning coordinator at each school in consultation with the focus group moderator. Prior to the focus group, participants received a letter from the researchers explaining the purpose of the study, a statement regarding confidentiality, and a name and phone number to call if they had questions or concerns. Focus groups ranged in size from three to six participants (M= 5) and all participants were financially compensated for participation in the two-hour interview.
The procedures selected for moderating the focus groups adhered to the guidelines provided by Krueger and Casey (2000). The first author served as the moderator. Her role was to ask the pre-identified questions, probe for more information, summarize responses, and ensure all participants had equal opportunity to participate. The third author served as the assistant moderator. She recorded notes on a flip chart, clarified participants’ responses, and led the post-session debriefing following data collection. Although a digital voice recorder was utilized to record each session, the flipchart notes allowed participants to see the ideas that had been generated previously and enabled the moderator to summarize the group’s responses prior to moving on to the next question. All focus group questions were posted on the wall throughout the session for the participants to review.
Each focus group was held at the participants’ school in a room that was free from distractions. Participants were seated around a table. The moderator began each focus group by introducing the focus group members, clarifying the roles of the moderators and participants, explaining the purpose of the focus group, discussing confidentiality and how the results would be used, and reviewing the focus group questions. The moderators convened following each focus group to discuss, clarify, and summarize the main points of the session.
Each focus group interview consisted of five structured questions. The first question asked participants to identify what they believed made their service-learning program exemplary. This question was chosen because it was an easy question for the participants to answer and allowed the moderators to learn more about the school’s program. The second question requested participants to review a four-page list of elements and descriptors of high school service learning programs that the authors had developed based on a review of the literature. Participants were encouraged to add to, delete, or change the elements and their descriptors. The third question asked what additional elements were necessary to effectively include students with disabilities in service learning. The purpose of this question was to generate additional elements that were not identified through the literature review. In the fourth question, participants were asked to define effective methods they employed for including students with disabilities in service learning activities. The final question required them to identify what, if any, barriers they experienced in including students with disabilities in service-learning.
The digital recording of each session was transcribed verbatim. Each focus group transcript was initially analyzed individually to summarize the group’s recommendations about the elements and descriptors. Since recommendations varied widely among the five focus groups, changes to the initial list of elements and descriptors were made when consensus about the changes were agreed upon by all authors. The authors reviewed each focus group’s recommendations and 1) added descriptors that were not already part of the list, 2) clarified terms that were ill-defined, and 3) omitted descriptors that were vague or duplicative of other items. The transcripts were further analyzed to create an unduplicated list of methods for and barriers to including students with disabilities in service learning. The authors individually reviewed the methods and barriers from each focus group, and came to consensus through verbal discussion regarding the elimination of duplicative items.
The findings from this study suggest that all elements of effective high school service learning programs described in the professional literature were deemed important to programs that included students with and without disabilities. Some differences of opinion existed across schools regarding how the elements should be defined and implemented. As a result, additions, deletions, and wording changes were made to the descriptors within many elements to reflect the participants’ beliefs about how the elements should be implemented. Figure 2 describes the elements and descriptors of effective high school service learning programs that include students with and without disabilities, as defined by the participants.
Methods
The participants identified a variety of methods for including students with disabilities in service learning alongside their peers without disabilities (see Figure 3). These methods focused on the areas of encouragement, expectations, collaboration, activity selection, instruction, and grouping. Stakeholders provided varying levels of detail regarding the methods they employed. In fact, many struggled to identify specific strategies for including students with disabilities. A common remark among participants was that the methods they employed were ones they found to be effective with all students, regardless of whether they had an identified disability.
Encouragement . All participants agreed that it is important for teachers to encourage students with disabilities to actively participate in service-learning activities. They do this by “asking” students to participate, inquiring how they would like to be involved, and negotiating the role they want to assume. One participant explained it this way: “We just need to encourage them more. I think some of the kids with needs or disabilities sometimes sit back and don’t want to be involved because they don’t think they can or they don’t think they should, and they don’t want anybody to know.”
Participants talked at great length about the importance of providing students with “choices” and “options”. Choice was viewed as a key method for encouraging reluctant students to participate and creating student ownership for the service project. In a couple of schools, participants advocated spending time getting to know students in order to make them feel comfortable with the teacher, the other students, and the activities. Teacher encouragement was viewed as a method to help build students’ confidence.
Expectations . Participants’ expectations for students with disabilities varied widely. The majority of participants were adamant that teachers have the same expectations for students with and without disabilities, and treat students with disabilities the same way they treat students without disabilities. For one participant, this included allowing students to fail. “Everybody fails at something and a person with a disability has the right to fail just as much as the next person.” Another participant justified having the same expectations for all students by saying that it results in peers without disabilities more readily accept students with disabilities.
Across schools, participants’ expectations for students with disabilities focused on active participation in activities. Because choices are available within activities, students are able to self-select out of completing tasks that are difficult for them or accentuate their weaknesses. For example, if a student experiences difficulty with writing, he would likely choose a different part of the service learning activity to complete that allows him to use his strengths. High expectations were not necessarily tied to high expectations to perform at grade level in content area subjects. The following participant’s comment was supported by everyone at her school: “There’s no distinction if a kid has a disability or not. It (service learning) is a great barrier killer. It crosses every barrier there is. I don’t care what your limitation to learning is.”
Although most participants felt they treated all students the same, a few felt they treated students differently. For example, one participant said, “I think subconsciously, I’m gonna make it consciously, even a lot of time, we tend to treat those kids a little differently. I don’t know that it has anything to do with service learning, but I think sometimes we may tend to accept some of their behaviors a little more readily for them than we might from some other kids.” Another participant at a different school remarked “I don’t force it (service learning) on them. If they don’t want to do it, they don’t have to do the project. I’ll leave them with some other class.” Still another participant commented that she wasn’t always sure about students’ capabilities and would feel bad if her expectations were too low. Although these types of comments were voiced somewhat reluctantly, they underscore the issue inherent in determining appropriate expectations for students with disabilities. If anything, participants’ expectations for students with disabilities appeared very high.
Collaboration. Most participants mentioned teacher collaboration as an important method for including students with disabilities. In their schools, general and special education teachers work together to determine how to include students with disabilities; they share information about each student’s disability; they take time to learn about the students’ strengths and needs; and they provide support to each other. In one school, the special education teacher provides general education teachers with a list of the strengths and weaknesses of each student included in his/her class. Other schools discuss students more formally during IEP, transition, and/or 504 plan meetings. These meetings provide the student and his/her team an opportunity to review service-learning requirements, determine how the student might benefit from this form of instruction, and identify the supports and accommodations necessary for participation.
Activity Selection. Many participants mentioned the importance of selecting service learning activities for students with disabilities that are “at their level” and will enable them to be “successful” and “feel safe” with engaging in the project. At one school, teachers find it helpful initially to invite students with disabilities to participate in service learning projects that the teacher has initiated. As the students become more comfortable, they are encouraged to create their own service learning projects. Providing a variety of tasks, offering choices for student participation, and incorporating hands-on activities, also presents an avenue for engaging students with diverse abilities. With these types of activities, “their disabilities aren’t so noticeable.”
Instruction. Instructional practices that facilitate the inclusion of students with disabilities in service learning include providing additional instruction, monitoring students with disabilities more frequently than students without disabilities, providing supplementary instruction in the special education classroom (e.g., pre-teaching behavior expectations), providing consequences for misbehavior in the community, and modifying the rules and grading practices. Although all schools identified instruction as an important method for facilitating inclusion, none identified specific curriculum modifications, adaptations, or accommodations used with students with disabilities. Modifications to service-learning activities were not viewed as necessary because the activities themselves provide multiple avenues for student participation.
Teaching assistants were considered essential in programs that included students with severe disabilities or a large number of students with mild disabilities. These individuals are needed to provide instruction to students and help those with wheelchairs move to various locations during group activities. Participants at two schools emphasized the need to create classes with heterogeneous groups of students. Over-representation of students with disabilities in service learning classes can make it difficult for all students in the class to adequately learn and participate.
Grouping. Participants at three of the schools described strong rationales and strategies for pairing students with and without disabilities to perform service-learning. When thinking about the benefits of diverse grouping, one participant commented: “We had a strength here, and a strength here, and a strength here. As a group they’ll work together, but if individually, they had to do all three (tasks), they’d struggle.” Teachers group students so that each person can contribute a different, yet complementary, strength to the group’s project.
Some participants carefully pair students to work together and some allow partners to emerge on their own. At one school, students with disabilities are paired with individuals who are “more experienced” in service learning than the student with a disability. Experienced students were described as individuals who are “more mature” or “advanced” (e.g., a student taking Advanced Placement courses). In another school, students with disabilities are paired with students who can serve as “role models”. For example, students with behavior problems are often paired with students who do not have behavior problems.
An alternative strategy to grouping is to have students select their own partners. Participants at one school indicated they do not purposefully group students. They believe that having students work with partners is important and that students need to choose their own partners. When partners don’t work well together, the adults ask another student to “help out”. They do not force students to work together. Students always have choice about their partners. In order for this strategy to work, teachers need to be observant and sensitive to student interactions, and be prepared to “step in” when problems arise.
All schools, except for one, experienced barriers to implementing inclusive service learning programs (see Figure 4). At the school that did not experience barriers, participants unanimously agreed that potential obstacles to including students with disabilities were avoided by steering students toward appropriate service activities that matched their strengths. Since this school’s population of students with disabilities is limited to those with mild disabilities, participants acknowledged that barriers might exist if they served students with more severe disabilities or students with extensive behavior problems. Barriers to including students with disabilities identified by the remaining four schools focused on student characteristics, teacher attributes and experience, organizational structure, planning, and resources.
Student Characteristics . Some students with disabilities have low self-esteem and do not want to be placed in a situation where they face potential embarrassment. They lack confidence in their abilities and are fearful of participating in service activities. Student characteristics were viewed as a barrier by only one school. Participants acknowledged that the self-esteem and confidence issues faced by students with disabilities are also prevalent among some students without disabilities. These student characteristics, more than the presence of disability, negatively impact students’ willingness and ability to participate in service learning.
Teacher Attributes and Experience . While adult collaboration and high expectations for student participation were viewed as facilitators for including students with disabilities, participants from three schools spoke at length about the need for all faculty members to become more effective in educating students with disabilities. Teachers and community members need more training about how to include students with disabilities. In particular, participants indicated a desire for more information about students’ disabilities, the “problems” associated with the disability, and how to adapt the curriculum to meet student needs.
Several participants voiced concern that they were not always aware of which students in their classes had disabilities. For example, one participant noted: “When I get some of these kids, I don’t know what is wrong. I don’t know that there’s a problem. I don’t know anything about these kids.” Communication breaks down and teachers are not informed of students’ disabilities, IEP objectives, and accommodation needs. Sometimes students have a “hidden” disability that is not identified. Furthermore, some schools were not sure if all students with disabilities at their school participated in service learning. This was particularly true when the school housed full-time self-contained classrooms. Participants were positive about desiring to include these students but admitted they needed much more information about the students’ skills and goals, and would need to work closely with the special education teacher.
In addition to lack of training, another barrier to inclusion is the negative attitudes toward students with disabilities possessed by some adults. At one school, where students with severe disabilities are just beginning to participate in service learning projects, one participant noted: “I don’t think people know what to expect of students who have more moderate to severe disabilities. I think there’s fear out there.” At other schools, participants admitted that some teachers have low expectations for students with disabilities and lack the patience needed to work with them. One general educator eloquently commented on the attitude he aspired all teachers to embrace: “It’s a person with a disability. It’s not a disability on a person. We need to think beyond what we think they may or may not be capable of. We don’t allow those barriers to be put in front of the child without a disability.” This participant stressed the need for more adults to “think outside the box” when determining how to include students with disabilities.
Organizational Structure . Three barriers emerged related to the organizational structure of the school. First, the schedules of students with disabilities prevent or limit their participation in service learning. Some students are on a shortened school day or leave early to go to work. Others participate in community-based instruction at times that overlap with when service learning activities are offered.
Second, classes that offer service learning need to be monitored so they do not become a “dumping ground” for students with disabilities. Over-representation of students with disabilities makes the classroom dynamics difficult to manage. Participants suggested putting a “cap” on the number of students with disabilities in each class so that all students are able to sufficiently benefit from service learning.
Third, students with disabilities need to be more visible throughout the school building and “more integrated into the population”. When students with disabilities are served primarily through self-contained special education classrooms, it is important for their classrooms to be integrated into the general classroom areas rather than placed in a separate part of the building. These students also need to be served in more general education classes in order to facilitate their inclusion in the service learning program and the school.
Planning . One school identified planning as a major barrier to including students with severe disabilities. Insufficient time exists for staff to meet to talk about the students’ needs and collaboratively plan activities. Lack of common planning time reduces the extent to which activities and staff efforts are coordinated across the school. Several participants believed that resuming weekly, whole school faculty meetings would enable them to share information and coordinate activities better. Interestingly, no other school mentioned lack of planning time as a barrier to including students with disabilities. Since this is the first year that students with severe disabilities have been included in service learning at this school (the school has always included students with mild disabilities), it may be that more time is needed for faculty to collaborate and identify methods for addressing the unique needs of this population of students.
Resources . Resources were available within all of the schools to include students with disabilities in service learning, however, most schools identified additional resources that were needed to improve the participation of students with disabilities. One of the primary resources needed is additional funding for transportation. Specialized buses are required for students who use wheelchairs. Since these students cannot ride the regular school bus, there is an increased cost for an extra bus each time a student with a wheelchair performs service in the community. If service-learning activities occur after school or on weekends, it is often difficult to procure school transportation.
One school experienced difficulty finding appropriate equipment in the community. Students with disabilities need accessible washrooms and specialized chairs that may not be available in all community settings. This impacts students’ access to some service learning activities.
Staffing was viewed as another barrier to including students with disabilities. One participant commented that if he had more time to work with students with disabilities they would be more successful. Since some students with disabilities require additional support in order to participate, participants at this school advocated having a peer mentor, other service learning student, or staff person available to provide support when needed. These participants worried that if they had more students with disabilities they would need more staff resources to implement the program. At another school, staff turnover was viewed as a barrier to maintaining the program in general. Position cuts at the school eliminated many teachers who had been implementing service learning within their curriculum. Although pockets of people exist to champion the program, time is needed to attract and train new teachers to incorporate service learning in their courses.
Lack of administrative support was problematic at two schools. Some felt that the administration was not supportive of service learning in general and had difficulty seeing how it “fit” with the general curriculum and overall academic program. This barrier was not specific to the inclusion of students with disabilities. Others thought their administration was not knowledgeable about the needs of students with disabilities and offered minimal support to advance their participation in the community.
The findings from this investigation offer preliminary evidence regarding the elements of effective high school service learning programs that include students with and without disabilities. Adults and students from schools nominated as having effective inclusive service learning programs identified effective methods and barriers to including students with disabilities in their programs. Given the limited professional literature addressing the pedagogy of inclusive service learning programs, these research findings make a contribution to an initial theory base regarding how exemplary high school service learning programs include students with and without disabilities.
Although each focus group included representation from at least three stakeholder groups, the type of stakeholders present at each school may have impacted the data obtained. Most participants were general educators representing diverse curriculum areas. Community members, paraprofessionals, administrators, and parents were not consistently included in the focus groups. By inviting only those individuals with the most knowledge about the service learning program at each school to participate in the focus groups we increased the validity of the findings about service learning, but may have inadvertently narrowed the number of perspectives represented.
The data from this study begin to define the elements, methods, and barriers of service learning programs that include students with and without disabilities. Given the research methodology and sampling procedures, the findings from this study cannot be generalized to other programs. Further, it should be noted that we did not observe the service learning programs at each school, therefore it is unclear the extent to which the methods and barriers identified by each school were actually present.
Additional research is needed to validate the elements, methods, and barriers identified through this study. Data obtained from a large-scale validation study could provide useful information about the extent to which the findings from this study are representative of other inclusive high school service learning programs. Information should also be gathered to determine the degree to which service-learning programs that include students with disabilities address the elements identified for effective programs. Future research should also investigate the impact of students’ disability level (i.e., mild, moderate, severe), teacher to student ratio, general education teacher experience in working with students with disabilities, and role of the special education teacher on the processes employed to include students with disabilities. Additional work is needed to investigate how students with disabilities can apply challenging curriculum content within service learning activities.
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Figure 1
School Demographics
Demographics |
School 1 |
School 2 |
School 3 |
School 4 |
School 5 |
Number of students |
144 |
362 |
1,984 |
595 |
2,193 |
Average class size |
17.5 |
20 |
25.7 |
7.4 |
15 |
Teacher to student ratio across the school district |
1:13 |
1: 16 |
1:21 |
1:19 |
1:19.3 |
Percent of low income students |
19 |
15 |
3.4 |
40.3 |
31.5 |
Minority representation White Black Hispanic Asian Native American |
100 0 0 0 0 |
99 .3 0 .6 0 |
89 1 5 4.5 .5 |
23 62 14.5 .7 .2 |
41.6 11.2 40.3 5.8 0 |
Disability levels of students participating in service learning |
Mild |
Mild, Moderate, Severe |
Mild |
Mild, Moderate, Severe |
Mild, Moderate |
Figure 2
Elements and Descriptors of Effective High School Service Learning Programs
That Include Students with and Without Disabilities
Authentic Context
Link to the Curriculum
Home, School, and Community Partnerships
Programmatic Support
Frequency of Instruction
Planning and Preparation
A variety of service learning activities
Varying complexity of tasks
Activities that build on each other
Time to prepare
Action
Reflection
Celebration
Student Assessment and Program Evaluation
School and community participants debrief collaboratively to evaluate each project
Program Participation
Student Participation
Teacher/Adult Participation
Figure 3
Methods for Including Students with Disabilities in High School Service Learning Programs
Encouragement
Allow students to have an active role in decision-making
Give students choices
Allow students to have ownership of the project
Ask students how they would like to be involved in service learning
Get to know the students with disabilities
Expectations
Have the same expectations for students with and without disabilities
Treat students with disabilities like everyone else
Expect students to participate
Allow students to fail
Collaboration
Obtain support for service learning from all staff involved with students (?)
Collaborate with general and/or special education teachers
Share information on students’ strengths and weaknesses
Obtain information about students’ abilities
Obtain information about methods for ensuring students’ success
Provide teachers with information about students’ disabilities
Discuss service learning opportunities during IEP meetings, 504 meetings, or transition meetings
Activity Selection
Include more hands-on activities
Offer a variety of activities
Choose activities depending on students’ ability level
Place students with disabilities in situations where they will be successful
Start with smaller, teacher initiated projects
Instruction
Assess students to determine their capabilities
Provide students with additional instruction
Provide more support to students/Provide teacher aides to support students
Provide supplementary instruction in the special education classroom
Modify the rules for students when needed
Modify grading practices
Include normal proportions of students with and without disabilities
Grouping
Pair students with and without disabilities to complete projects
Carefully choose students without disabilities to work with students with disabilities
Figure 4
Barriers to Including Students with Disabilities in High School Service Learning Programs
Student Characteristics
Students are afraid of participating in the service activities
Teacher Attributes and Experience
Lack of patience to work with students with disabilities
Low expectations of students with disabilities
Lack of knowledge about students’ disabilities
Lack of communication among staff about students with disabilities
Lack of experience with students with disabilities
Negative attitudes toward students with disabilities
Organizational Structure
Schedules of students with disabilities are not flexible
Students with disabilities have a shortened school day
Too many students with disabilities in service learning classes
Lack of proper equipment (e.g., washroom, chairs) in the community
Not enough time to work with students with disabilities
Planning
Not enough time to co-plan
Not enough advanced planning occurs
Too much effort required to coordinate the inclusion
Resources
Lack of money
Lack of administrative support
Lack of staff development
Not enough transportation
Not enough people/staff
Staff turnover
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