Inclusive education policy: what the leadership of Canadian teacher associations has to say about it

† A version of this paper was presented at International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual Disability (July 2012), Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Abstract

In inclusive education research, rarely are teacher associations a topic of investigation despite their critical role in its implementation and efficacy. A study was conducted as part of the Canadian Disability Policy Alliance using a learning collaborative methodology that explored the extent to which Canadian provincial/territorial teacher association leadership personnel were aware of inclusive education legislation and policy. Using a semi-structured protocol, 14 participants were interviewed, representing 12 Canadian jurisdictions. Results indicated a complex theme with three linked issues: leadership participants stated that their teacher membership was well aware of inclusive education policy, that their membership generally endorsed it, contingent upon adequate resourcing. The particularities of this theme, awareness-endorsement-resources, are contextualised throughout the results, and the implications are raised in the discussion.

Keywords:

• inclusive education policy
• teacher associations
• federations
• societies and unions

Notes on contributors

Dr S. Anthony Thompson teaches in the Faculty of Education at the University of Regina in Regina Saskatchewan, Canada. His research interests include teacher education, inclusive education, Disability Studies in Education (DSE), and the autism cultures/neurodiversity. He has recently completed a three-year nationally funded SSHRC study with Dr Lynn Aylward from Acadia University in Wolfville Nova Scotia, entitled “Disabling Inclusive Education: Enabling Theory and Practice from the Ground Up”. Dr Thompson is finishing a five-year co-chair of the education research team (with Dr Timmons) of the Canadian Disability Policy Alliance (CDPA).

Dr Wanda Lyons teaches in the Faculty of Education at the University of Regina and is a teacher and registered doctoral psychologist. She has extensive administrative, consulting, and teaching experience in the field of inclusive education. Her research interests include the role of paraprofessionals in inclusive classrooms, inclusive teacher education, and pre-service education for principal leadership in inclusive schools. Dr Lyons has been part of the CDPA education team since its inception.

Dr Vianne Timmons is president and vice-chancellor of the University of Regina. She maintains a wide-ranging research program, with particular emphasis on family literacy and inclusive education. She is active in the academic community regionally, nationally, and internationally, currently serving as President of the International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. During the course of her career, Dr Timmons has authored or edited nine books, written more than a dozen book chapters, and authored more than 40 peer-reviewed articles in leading academic journals. She has been either the principal investigator or a co-investigator on more than 30 funded research projects, and has also presented close to 200 invited lectures about her work. Drs. Lyons, Timmons, and Thompson are currently conducting a provincial research project on successful inclusive education practices in Saskatchewan.

Notes

† A version of this paper was presented at International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual Disability (July 2012), Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

1 PALS has since been discontinued by Statistics Canada.

2 There were several kinds of official names used to describe these teacher organisations; in descending order of frequency, they were: association, federation, society, and union. For the sake of brevity within the text of the article, we will use the term ‘association' as a generic term meant to be understood as including all these organisations.

3 We attribute leadership interviewees’ quotes to their jurisdiction and/or association only; (e.g. an interviewee from Saskatchewan or a participant from the Nunavut Teachers’ Association). Though all participants agreed to allow their affiliation and association named, some participants asked pseudonyms to be used. We interviewed some presidents, elected members with the associations usually with a limited term and a close connection to the field (i.e. many were practising teachers). We also interviewed general secretaries and executive directors, paid staff positions within some associations, usually with somewhat less of a connection to the field. Within some associations we interviewed both, and in one instance we interviewed an incoming and an outgoing president. Qualitative analysis demands rigour, not the least of which is a basic understanding of participants’ positionality as it may enter into the interpretation and presentation of the results. We had a quandary, on the one hand, we had a highly visible and identifiable group of participants, some of whom did not want to be easily discerned; on the other, we needed to be as transparently and analytically rigorous as we could be. It is for these reasons, as indicated, that we have chosen to attribute quotes to the association, and not a specific person or title.