Special teachers and the use of co-teaching in Swedish-speaking schools in Finland

ABSTRACT

Co-teaching has been highlighted as a possible response to classroom diversity. This study investigated the use of co-teaching by general education teachers and special teachers in Swedish-speaking schools in Finland. The data consisted of special teachers’ (N = 126) responses to a questionnaire. On average, the respondents co-taught for 13% of the time. However, nearly a fifth of respondents did not use co-teaching at all, while sixth of them used it for 30–50% of the time. Most of the respondents co-taught for less than 30% of the time. Co-teaching was more common during Swedish and mathematics lessons than during lessons for other subjects. A significantly higher number of respondents used co-teaching during Swedish lessons in primary schools than in lower secondary schools. Parallel teaching was found to be the most common method of co-teaching. Although the results indicated that co-teaching was more common among respondents who had recently received their special education certification, this difference was not statistically significant. Similarly, no significant differences were found among respondents who worked in different regions, at different school levels or in schools of different sizes. The possible reasons for the differences between the respondents with regard to their time spent co-teaching are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Co-teaching
• inclusive education
• questionnaire
• special education teachers
• teacher collaboration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The term “SETs” refers to both part-time special teachers (STs) and special class teachers (SCTs).

2. Since Finland is a bilingual country, Finnish-speaking pupils study Swedish at school, and Swedish-speaking pupils study Finnish. Students can begin to study Finnish in grade 1 or later. English is the most common language offered as the other compulsory language and is usually taught from grades 4 or 5 onwards (Finnish National Agency for Education, 2019).

3. http://www.svenskskola.fi.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Higher Education Foundation in Ostrobothnia [No number].

Notes on contributors

Christel Sundqvist

Christel Sundqvist, PhD, works as associated professor in special education at Nord University in Norway and as university teacher at Åbo Akademi University in Finland. Her research interest concerns inclusive education, teacher collaboration, consultation in special education and co-teaching.

Camilla Björk-Åman

Camilla Björk-Åman, PhD, works as university teacher in special education at Åbo Akademi University in Vasa, Finland. Her research interest concerns inclusive education on different school stages especially in vocational education and training.

Kristina Ström

Kristina Ström, PhD, works as professor in special education at Åbo Akademi University in Finland. Her research interests concern special education teacher profession, inclusive education and special education in Sub-Saharan countries.