Teaching for all? Measuring the quality of inclusive practices across eight countries

ABSTRACT

While consensus exists on the importance of inclusive education, there is limited evidence on the use and quality of inclusive teaching practices and the extent to which these are related to effective teaching more generally. This article uses the Universal Design for Learning Framework and Teach observation tool to examine use of inclusive teaching practices across eight countries and their relationship to other teaching quality behaviours. Through analysis of data from 5348 classroom observations, findings revealed that while teachers spent over 87% of class-time on task, most did not implement high-quality inclusive practices. Teachers also demonstrate similar strengths and weaknesses in inclusive teaching across countries. Additionally, teachers who demonstrate quality inclusive teaching practices are more likely to demonstrate better teaching in other areas. Finally, this study provides evidence that while inclusive teaching is related to effective teaching more generally, distinctions exist between these constructs which warrant separate consideration amongst educators.

KEYWORDS:

• Inclusive education
• teaching practices
• teacher performance
• teacher training
• education policy and planning
• public service delivery

Acknowledgments

This study was made possible by the Inclusive Education Initiative, which provided funding for the analytical work. We are grateful to the many researchers, survey experts, and observers who supported the data collection effort and to all of the participating schools. We are also grateful to Ana del Toro Mijares and Estefanía Avendaño, who provided superb research assistance during this project and Omar Arias and Hanna Alasuutari, who provided feedback on previous versions of this article. Moreover, we would like to thank the Teach Inclusion Advisory Panel, composed of Jo Westbrook, Rabea Malik, and Joshua Josa and for providing feedback on how best to capture inclusion using Teach. We would also like to thank Anne Hayes, Brent Elder, Elena Soukakou, Jennae Bulat, Rebecca Rhodes, Deepti Samant Raja, Ruchi Singh, Amer Hasan, Huma Kidwai, Charlotte Vuyiswa McClain-Nhlapo, Ruchi Kulbir Singh, Elaine Ding, and Tracy Wilichowski, who provided useful comments and feedback at earlier stages of this project. Lastly, and most importantly, the team members would like to thank all the teachers who welcomed us into their classroom as part of this study. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this article are entirely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), its affiliate organisations, the Executive Directors of the World Bank, or the governments they represent.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2024.2304293

Notes

1. The countries are Afghanistan, Jordan, Mongolia, Peru, Pakistan (Punjab province), Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uruguay.

2. In Pakistan, the survey only covers Punjab, not the whole country. For more information, see Appendix A.

3. To understand the data generating process before mapping Teach behaviours to the UDL framework, descriptive statistics were obtained for the overall Teach score and each of the areas, elements, and behaviours to identify potential problems with the underlying data. Results can be provided upon request.

4. It is important to note that this analysis does not enable us to determine whether a teacher’s attainment in the Quality of Inclusive Teaching Practices score results in their attainment in the Teach score. Rather, it allows us to understand if there is a relationship between these measures.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Inclusive Education Initiative at The World Bank.