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

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Equal Value – Equal Opportunities

Regional Manager Gertrud Ek
Swedish Institute for Special Needs Education
Kinagatan 7, SE-211 20 Malmö, Sweden
gertrud.ek@sit.se

A PRESENTATION OF THE SWEDISH INSTITUTE
FOR SPECIAL NEEDS EDUCATION

Under the Swedish Education Act, all children, young people and adults are entitled to equal access to education of high quality. All students shall be given equal conditions for attaining the national educational objectives. The responsibility for Sweden’s educational system is jointly carried out by the government, the parliament and the municipal authorities. The role of the state is to define the national general goals of education and to run schools in accordance with the national goals, defined in the Education Act, school curricula and course syllabi, and to promote the fulfilment of these goals.

      This means that the municipalities are obliged to allocate sufficient resources to ensure that all children, young people and adult students of their region will have equal conditions and opportunities to receive a good education in a school intended for all. In order to attain these goals, both knowledge of pedagogical consequences of disabilities are needed, as well as expertise in special needs education. The municipalities need to build up, maintain and continually develop such expertise of their own. The state offers adequate support to the local municipal authorities in this work through the Swedish Institute of Special Needs Education.

      The assignment of the Institute is to support the municipalities in their work to fulfil the national educational objectives.

Knowledge, Competences and Development

The Swedish Institute for Special Needs Education is a national authority, which coordinates governmental support for special needs education. All efforts of the Institute are aimed at augmenting the expertise within the municipal authorities. This will ensure that children, young people and adult students with disabilities will have access to development and education in their home municipalities, and entitle them to support, equal treatment, full involvement, accessibility and equal terms.

      Our task is to offer counselling in matters of special needs education to those responsible for public ad private schools under official supervision. We help by providing information about and knowledge on special needs education, as well as initiating and participating in research and development in this field.

Enhancing Resources

COUNSELLING. Our core activity is to counsel teachers, pedagogical work teams, special education teachers, school management, special resource teams and other personnel – all who work with and around children, youths and adults with disabilities.

      We offer advice in matters concerning pedagogical consequences of disabilities, such as development of the educational environment on short and long terms. We also give advice on issues of treatment, the process of making up remedial programmes and indicate needs of adapted or especially developed teaching material and equipment.

      All our counselling services are given on an assignment basis. The initiative for an assignment generally comes from either a municipality itself, or from a special resource team, a school or a pedagogical work team.

      Pedagogical analyses are included in the enhanced support of our counselling services. Such a process is based on the individual needs of a student, with an aim of helping to discover the possibilities of interaction between the individual and his or her environment. The analyses also aim to clarify the potential need for teaching aids. All pedagogical analyses are made in collaboration with the student’s home municipality – a process which in itself helps enhancing the competence of those involved and may also lead to further educational initiatives.

      The Swedish Institute for Special Needs Education runs national resource centres which target four areas of impairment. The centres provide enhanced expertise regarding special pedagogical consequences for students who have:

–     impaired vision

–     impaired vision with additional functional disability

–     congenital deaf- and blindness or deafness/impairment of hearing combined with       learning difficulties

–     severe speech and language disabilities.

EDUCATION FOR A SPECIFIED TIME PERIOD. A fundamental principle of the Swedish disability policy is to ensure children and young people with disabilities the possibility of living at home and attending school in their home municipality. This principle is however not always possible to follow, as a municipality may lack adequate expertise. Students and municipalities who need an intensified special needs support, have a possibility to attend school for a limited period at the Eke School of Resource Centre Vision or at the HällsboSchool of Resource Centre Speech & Language Disabilities. This schooling is only given for a limited period and emanates from the needs of the individual student. The aim is to find suitable working methods which will enable the student to be educated on equal terms at the home school.

Focusing on Learning

FURTHER EDUCATION AND INFORMATION. An important part of the Institute’s work is to furnish qualification improvement programmes and to provide information on new developments and applications in the field of special needs education. We offer further education programmes both on a regional and national basis, including activities such as educational training days, courses and seminars. We also run an extensive remote education programme on a national scale, offering education within some 20 areas of special needs education. All continuing education offered by us, have to correspond to explicit needs from either schools or municipalities.

      Our courses for further education are mainly aimed at teaching personnel, while our information service is mainly aimed at decision-makers and civil servants of municipal and regional authorities.

DEVELOPMENT. We participate in and initiate several forms of special needs development work as well as monitoring and conveying research results in the area of special needs education. The Institute cooperates with organisations and departments of other countries, while participating in or arranging international conferences and fairs.

      By keeping a continuing dialogue with representatives of the municipal school authorities, we obtain a solid ground for making analyses and assessments of which needs that have to be satisfied, with reference to counselling and development of teaching materials.

Supporting Teaching Materials for Equal Terms

TEACHING MATERIAL. The overall role of the Swedish Institute for Special Needs Education is to encourage development and adaptation of teaching material, in order to facilitate for children, young people and adult students with disabilities to attain the national proficiency targets. The purpose of our counselling service on adapted or specially developed teaching material is to achieve an education characterised by participation and equality. Information on different kinds of suitable teaching materials available on the market is included in this service.

      Our primary role concerning the production of adapted teaching materials is to stimulate both publishers and producers of teaching materials. We accomplish this by allocating financial production support and by aiding with expertise within the area of special needs education. Only those disability areas which lack supply from other publishers or producers will be furnished by the Institute itself with suitable adapted or developed teaching materials.

Ways of Collaboration to Create New Possibilities

COOPERATION. We cooperate nationally with interest groups who represent children, young people and adult students with disabilities. One way of doing this is through an advisory body with representatives from different organisations. The Institute also cooperates with authorities and organisations of similar commissions, e.g. the Swedish National Agency for Education, the Swedish National Agency for School Improvement and the Swedish Handicap Institute. On a regional and local basis, we cooperate with county councils, municipalities and interest groups.

A STUDY ON PLAYING WITH A FOCUS ON PARTICIPATION AND GENDER IN GROUPS WITH PRESCHOOL CHILDREN WITH VISUAL IMPAIRMENT

As a part of the development work at the Swedish Institute for Special Needs Education, I have conducted a study within the framework of a Master’s Programme in Disability Studies at the Halmstad University, Sweden. The aim of the study is to augment the knowledge concerning children with disabilities aged 1–5 in preschools. I have called the project “Can anyone join or does the complexity create obstacles?” – a study of preschool teachers’ conceptions regarding play, participation and gender when there are children aged 1–5 with visual impairment in the group.

Introduction

“Will they be allowed to join?” is a question I have posed myself on several occasions in connection with children in need of special support. During my thirty years of professional experience, I have seen different policy documents and varying attitudes of teachers regarding how to treat children in need of special support. A complex arena is at hand for both municipal activities and governmental special education support, concerning how to create conditions for children to participate on equal opportunities within the Swedish preschool system.

      Play, participation and gender are central concepts of the everyday life of preschools and it is difficult to demarcate the meaning of each concept. The notion of play as an activity has always had a central function within Swedish preschool tradition and is a central concept of this study. The concept of play does however occupy a diminishing space in the preschool activities of today, due to various surrounding factors of contemporary life.

Interpretation of Concepts

Play is of vital importance for a child’s cognitive and social development. In this study, play is interpreted from a perspective of interaction with other children as well as with adults at the preschool.

      In the study, participation is interpreted as a requirement for the occurrence of interaction. Participation is also a central concept in current legislation on all levels of society.

      A sociality process related to gender takes place in preschools. Several studies point to distinct differences between how boys and girls play, no matter whether they play indoors or outdoors.

      How conscious is the teacher in relation to her/his own behaviour and in relation to the child’s behaviour?

The ambition of the study is to find out if, according to preschool teachers, there are specific interaction patterns at the point of intersection between genders and play participation for a preschool child with visual impairment. The study starts from a qualitative sociopedagogical onset and aims to elucidate preschool teachers’ understanding and knowledge on play, participation and gender perspectives for children aged 1–5 with some form of visual impairment.

      The study has been conducted as interviews with nine preschool teachers at preschools in southern Sweden, in combination with literature studies. The results have been analysed in a time geographical interpretation frame.

Purpose and Issues

The natural attitude within the preschool system regarding children in need of special support is not to primarily seek special solutions and/or special groups. Instead, participation in activities of a generally good quality is regarded as quite sufficient. The Swedish Government report SOU 1997:157 proposed that for children with special needs, the right to attend preschool should not be restricted to merely receiving a place in a preschool, but should also include the right for each child to be examined individually.

      During the last decade, the Swedish preschool system has been affected by changes made in school curricula, direction and management as well as by framework and requirements created for the purely operational work.

The purpose of this paper is to

examine the understanding and knowledge of preschool teachers concerning play, participation and gender when 1–5 aged children with visual impairment are incorporated in the group of children.

The object is to see if it is the preschool teacher’s own understanding and knowledge that creates opportunities for children with visual impairment to participate in different activities of playing and if gender perspective or external circumstances have any significance.

Consequently, it is important to focus on the following issues:

·     How does the preschool teacher describe and have influence on the possibilities     of playing for the child with visual impairment?

·     How does the preschool teacher describe and have influence on the possibilities     of participation for the child with visual impairment?

·     How does the preschool teacher describe and have influence on the possibilities     from the view of a gender perspective for the child with visual impairment?

Time Geography

The time geographic approach sets time and space in the centre and uses a conceptual apparatus that enables people’s daily lives to be elucidated, and details to be studied and placed into a whole. Everything we do takes time and occurs somewhere. The types of resources we have access to both set limits to and provide opportunities.

      The purpose of a time geographical study is to tie different threads together, while placing central concepts in a time and place consistency. Time geography focuses on certain central concepts dealing with analysis and descriptions of specific phenomena. Terms such as project, activity, restriction, and prisms are used when time geographical analyses are made.

      A normal day consists of many different routines, which affect how possibilities and obstacles appear in everyday life. These routines should be seen in a context where an individual’s behaviour and everyday life are related to the following factors: The social organisation which surrounds the person; the restrictions which influence life on both individual and organisational levels; the projects the person is involved in.

      It is important to call attention to each individual’s possibilities of taking control of one’s everyday life and of influencing routines by oneself.

Empirical Study

The empirical study consists of nine interviews, made during November and December 2004. All interviews were recorded with a tape recorder. The selection was made among those preschools situated in southern Sweden that had had contact with the Swedish Institute for Special Needs Education during 2004.

      The interviews were carried out using a question guide, consisting of a combination of semi-structured and unstructured questions. The object was to use the question guide as a backing, when treating areas dealing with the subject of the paper. According to the respondent’s answers, different areas were given different degrees of exploration.

Method and Method Problem

The researcher’s own reactions and reference framework are important to know in order to understand how collection and analysis of empirical data have been influenced. I have taken an active part in the interviews, based on my own pre-comprehension as it has been hard to avoid asking subsequent questions, requesting the respondent to elaborate on certain issues.

Results

The survey’s starting point is in the project PLAYING. The surrounding world, participation and gender are all parts that contribute to and influence the play in different ways. The object of the survey has been to analyse in what way the different parts can contribute to or consolidate restrictions occurring in the preschool teachers’ descriptions and whether the teachers consider they have possibilities to influence such restrictions.

      THE SURROUNDING WORLD. Some of the restrictions limiting the possibilities to play, as described by the preschool teachers, are: an augmenting number of children in the groups, small premises and decreasing possibilities of receiving support from assistants. Other factors preventing the teachers’ possibilities to play are changed tasks such as increasing demands on documentation, lack of close leadership and more practical duties. The teachers also feel that they have small possibilities of influencing restrictions concerning the surrounding world.

      PLAY. The preschool teachers describe how they in the line of their profession create more or less conscious restrictions. These stem from how the day is planned, the balance between adult-guided and child-guided activities and in which ways they are able to give support during the play. It is not always the disability of the child that sets a restriction; it may also be the child’s age.

      PARTICIPATION. Preschool teachers describe the level of participation as depending primarily on the child’s individual capacity restrictions. Some preschool teachers also describe how they pick friends for the child. Depending on the preschool teacher’s opinion on what is best for the child, restrictions are created that lead to different possibilities for the child’s way of participating. As an example, one of the preschool teachers describes that the best for the child is to be with an adult and practise certain activities.

      GENDER. In the survey, preschool teachers describe traditional gender patterns when selecting activities and play materials. None of them describe themselves as doing any conscious work to minimise restrictions that are related to traditional boys’ and girls’ plays. One preschool teacher said that gender differences need to be accepted.

PLAYING AND THE OVERALL PICTURE. Preschool teachers describe different forms of restrictions within the surrounding world, as well as in play, participation and gender. It is however difficult to draw sharp borderlines, since everything is interlaced in a great whole.

      Although there are different prerequisites in the surrounding factors and in the perspectives on play, participation and gender, it is possible to determine some common traits out of the nine different descriptions:

·     The preschool teachers often mention leadership restrictions in their description of     surrounding factors.

·     The child’s individual capacity restrictions are more often mentioned in    descriptions concerning participation and gender.

·     The results of this study show that every separate part of the play has its own                restrictions. According to the preschool teachers, these restrictions have a higher             degree of influence on children with visual impairment.

·     Preschool teachers describe restrictions in ways that are more or less conscious.       They don’t consider themselves as being able to exert any great amount of                influence, since, in their opinion; restrictions are primarily created by surrounding   factors.

The model below illustrates how the different factors are related to one another, but also how they are each other’s prerequisites for forming an overall picture. The significance of the factors’ restrictions for each other is shown, as well as how a restriction can influence any or all of the different factors.

The preschool teachers mention several different restrictions which decide in what way a child with visual impairment is able to participate in playing. The restrictions are described both in terms of each child’s individual capacity limitations, as well as in terms of the group’s capacity limitations in their comprehensive and empathic capabilities.

      The results of the study show that a child with visual impairment is subject to more extensive restrictions than other children, not only because it is the adults who create the conditions for participation, but also because the need for adult support is greater.

      The preschool teachers describe the existence of a traditional gender perspective in both the child-driven and adult-driven play, where traditional play patterns are primarily stimulated by the selection of activities and play materials.

Conclusions

Since this is a limited survey, it is not possible to generalise its results. The results do however arouse several interesting questions which need to be further developed in the future, in order to attain a better understanding. I have chosen to point to some issues stemming from the results, issues which are of importance to how the future counselling activities of the Swedish Institute for Special Needs Education need to be shaped.

·     How important are the preschool teacher’s own attitudes and values towards children with disabilities?

·     How important are the preschool teacher’s own attitudes and values concerning play, participation and gender?

·     Can the pedagogical development of preschools be explained in terms of just changes in the surrounding world?

Gertrud Ek

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