Primary school teachers’ perspectives on the quality of inclusive education

ABSTRACT

Instructional quality is a central element in the context of teaching and learning. However, there is still a lack of clarity on what is meant by good inclusive education. In the present study, N = 24 primary school teachers from Germany were interviewed about their understanding of good inclusive teaching. The results of the qualitative study reveal that there are several factors, which are seen as essential for the quality of inclusive education. The features of good inclusive teaching mentioned by the primary school teachers especially refer to differentiation and individualisation. Furthermore, the interviewed teachers emphasise the support of community and a positive learning climate as important characteristics of good inclusive teaching. The findings of this study also reveal that for some of the teachers, there seems to be no difference between good inclusive teaching and good regular teaching. Other mentioned features for the quality of inclusive education refer to team teaching and the availability of specific framework conditions such as personnel or spatial resources.

KEYWORDS:

• Teachers
• primary school
• inclusive education
• instructional quality

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gamze Görel

Gamze Görel is research assistant in the Institute of Educational Research at Paderborn University (Germany). In her PhD thesis, she focused on inclusive instruction from the perspective of primary school teachers and the significance of their personal resources. Her research interests are related to the implementation of inclusive instruction and education at primary schools and the role of teachers’ personal resources such as their attitudes towards inclusion.

Katja Franzen

Katja Franzen is research assistant in the Department of Physics, Didactics of Science Teaching at Paderborn University (Germany). In her PhD thesis, she investigated predictors of primary school teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs concerning inclusive education. Katja’s research interests focus on the development of training programmes to foster (pre-service) teachers’ competencies for inclusive education.

Frank Hellmich

Frank Hellmich is a Professor for Primary School Education in the Institute of Educational Research at Paderborn University (Germany). Frank’s areas of expertise are inclusive education, especially the development and evaluation of pre-service teachers’ training programmes for inclusive education and prerequisites for primary school students’ social participation in the inclusive classroom.