Becoming a special educator – Finnish and Swedish students’ views on their future professions

Abstract

In this article, we discuss the views of 117 special education student teachers related to their oncoming profession in the framework of ecological theory. Together, 68 students from Sweden (26 special teachers and 41 SENCo students) and 49 from Finland responded to a questionnaire. We compared the respondents’ thoughts about their future work content, the focus areas of special education and inclusion. According to the expectations, the main task for these future special educators is to work with pupils and adults at school. The focus areas of their future work included co-operation and consultation, more so in Sweden. In addition, excellent interaction skills were central. The Swedish respondents supported full inclusion to a greater extent than the Finnish respondents. Finally, no critical aspects of resource allocation or conditions to ensure the child's right to adequate support within the existing school systems were emphasised by the respondents. The results and the differences among the various respondents are discussed.

• special education
• expectations
• special teacher
• SENCO
• ecological model

Notes

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Marjatta Takala, University of Oulu, Faculty of Education, Special Education Section, Yliopistonkatu 9, Snelmania, 90140, Email: [email protected]

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marjatta Takala

Agneta Lundström, Senior Lecturer, Department of Applied Educational Science, University of Umeå, Sweden. Teaching about conflict-management, counselling and educational work with socio-emotional difficulties. Her research interests are conflict-management and gender.

Kim Wickman

Marjatta Takala, PhD, Visiting Professor at Umeå University, Institute of Pedagogy, Sweden; Adjunct Professor at the University of Helsinki in the Department of Special Education, Finland. Her research interests include comparative special education, hearing-impairment and communication.

Lotta Uusitalo-Malmivaara

Kim Wickman, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer and Researcher, Department of Education, Umeå University, Sweden. Teaching in courses related to gender, diversity and sport mainly in the Special Needs, Sport Science and Physical Education and Health Programmes. Her research interests include sport, gender and disability.

Agneta Lundström

Lotta Uusitalo-Malmivaara, PhD, is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Helsinki in the Department of Special Education, Finland. Her research interests include learning disabilities and positive psychology, especially school-related happiness, character strengths and mindfulness.