Stimulating tensions in special education teachers' figured world: an approach toward inclusive education
- 18 April 2016
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis Ltd in International Journal of Inclusive Education
- Vol. 20 (12), 1326-1343
- https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2016.1168877
Abstract
I examine special educators’ professional identity emergence and tensions within a researcher-facilitated teacher learning community. I introduced tools to evoke and challenge inequities in educational systems and via which participants examined and planned general education instruction for students with dis/abilities. Initially, professional identity, or figured world, emerged as performance of pathologising and relatedly, remediating students. Over time, participants expressed tensions as they engaged tools to examine structural limitations and design more universally accessible instruction; figured worlds shifted to critical sense-making about their positioning by general education colleagues and school structural barriers, and procedural identity performance tied to investigating student assets. Findings suggest potential for purposefully designed artefacts to mediate special educators’ development as (more) inclusive educators.Keywords
Funding Information
- United States Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs; United States Department of Education Office of Elementary and Secondary Programs
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