‘Yes it’s good, but … ’ – student teachers’ inclusion narratives

ABSTRACT

Finland is committed to inclusive education as many other countries too. In this study, we examined Finnish student teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion using an electronic questionnaire. In total, 277 students participated. The open responses were studied as various teacher students’, class, subject or special education students’ narratives of inclusion. The results showed that student teachers’ attitudes, except special education student teachers, were quite negative. The most common narratives told about lack of resources, about pupils and/or teachers suffering in inclusive settings, about good parts of segregation and about a positive attitude, followed by a but, like: yes it’s good, but. Full inclusion was not supported, but other forms, like partial inclusion, were more seconded. We conclude that future teachers need more knowledge about and a better understanding of inclusion and diversity.

KEYWORDS:

• Inclusion
• teacher student
• narratives
• views
• Finland

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture through the project Right to Learn – Skills to Teach (OKM/38/592/2018) and by the Finnish Hohto-project is financed by Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture (OKM/90/523/2020).