Affordances and limitations of a special school practicum as a means to prepare pre-service teachers for inclusive education

Abstract

As education systems worldwide embrace inclusive education in some form, pre-service teachers need to be prepared to be pedagogically responsive to diverse students and learning needs. While much learning for inclusion takes place in course work in higher education institutions, field experiences, including practicum placements, can complement this learning. Using Loreman's [2010a. “Essential Inclusive Education-Related Outcomes for Alberta Preservice Teachers.” The Alberta Journal of Educational Research 56 (2): 124–142] seven areas of essential learning for inclusion, with the addition of Waitoller and Kozleski's [2010. “Inclusive Professional Learning Schools.” In Teacher Education for Inclusion, edited by C. Forlin, 65–73. London: Routledge] idea of ‘critical sensibilities’, this article considers the extent to which a practicum experience in a special school might contribute to learning for inclusion. The main findings of a small-scale qualitative study with 15 South African pre-service teachers suggest that the practicum placement exposes them to children with disabilities and learning difficulties, resulting in a growth of understanding of their learning needs. It also enhances pre-service teachers' ability to plan lessons and draw on a range of instructional strategies to enable learning for all. For some pre-service teachers, however, the practicum convinced them of the benefits of separate special education and the unfeasibility of inclusion. We conclude that a special school practicum has value for pre-service teachers, provided that opportunities are made available for critical engagement with the potential for both inclusion and exclusion of students with special educational needs in different types of school.

Keywords:

• inclusive education
• pre-service teacher education
• practicum
• special education

Acknowledgements

The research reported here was supported by a Practice-Based Research in Teacher Education Grant from the Wits School of Education.

Notes on contributors

Dr Elizabeth Walton is senior lecturer and forum member of the UNESCO chair in Teacher Education for Diversity and Development, at the Wits School of Education. Her research interests include teacher education for inclusion, listening to voices of in/exclusion and the language of inclusive education.

Dr Lee Rusznyak is senior lecturer and forum member of the UNESCO chair in Teacher Education for Diversity and Development, at the Wits School of Education. Her research engages with learning to teach with a particular focus on teacher knowledge and the role of the practicum.

Notes

1. We have used inclusion and inclusive education interchangeably in this article, reflecting the tendency in much of the literature to use ‘inclusion’ as shorthand for ‘inclusive education’. We acknowledge that there is merit in distinguishing between the two terms, but discussing the nuances of such a distinction is beyond the scope of this article.

2. Terminology is fraught, and the nuances of various identifiers have led to their rejection and revision. We signal our distinct unease with terminology that signifies individual deficit and suggests unproblematic classification or categorisation of students. This issue is, however, beyond the scope of this article, and we find ourselves corralled by the selection of the research topic into a discourse of ‘special educational needs’ in the context of ‘special education’.

3. In South Africa, the word ‘ordinary’ is used in official documents to signify schools that are not special schools. We have used the term ‘mainstream’ in this article as it is the term with popular currency and is reflected in our data. Other contexts may refer to these schools as regular schools, or to the general classroom.

4. For details of our findings from students' responses during and immediately after the practicum in the special school, see Walton and Rusznyak (2013).