E-inclusion: online special education in Italy during the Covid-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

Italian legislation requires that all pupils with special needs be integrated in regular classes through cooperation between the class and special education teachers. After school closure in February 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, teachers had to work together to arrange online inclusive activities for all the pupils in their classes. The Department of Education at the University of Genoa (Italy) designed a qualitative study aimed at investigating the factors affecting e-inclusion through a questionnaire composed of six open-ended questions. A total of 785 teachers filled out the instrument in April 2020. The responses were analysed by combining qualitative content analysis with statistical textual analysis. The findings indicate that effective e-inclusion depends on technologies, relationships with families, collaboration among teachers and online teaching strategies; in particular, teachers had to create personalised activities through asynchronous and synchronous interactive ways for students to engage in, preferably in small groups and individually.

KEYWORDS:

• E-inclusion
• special needs
• special education
• inclusive online strategies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was not supported by any public or private funds.

Notes on contributors

Davide Parmigiani

Davide Parmigiani is currently an associate professor of education at the University of Genoa (Italy). He is president of the Association for Teacher Education in Europe (https://atee.education) and member of the board of directors of the World Federation of Associations of Teacher Education (https://www.worldfate.org). His main research interests are focused on teacher education, intercultural and international education, learning assessment, curriculum development and educational technology.

Vincenza Benigno

Vincenza Benigno is a researcher and has been working at the Institute for Educational Technology, part of the Italian National Research Council, since 1995. She is a psychologist and cognitive psychotherapist. Currently, she is teaching ‘Relationship of Psychology in Educational Contexts’ at the University of Genoa (Italy). She has been involved in several projects dealing with the adoption of ICT in an inclusion perspective in situations with learning difficulties, children with special needs and long-term hospitalised children.

Marta Giusto

Marta Giusto graduated with an MEd at the University of Genoa (Italy) and is now a primary school teacher. She had international teaching experience in Denmark, and her main research interests are focused on teacher education and educational technology.

Chiara Silvaggio

Chiara Silvaggio graduated with an MEd at the University of Genoa (Italy) and is now a primary school teacher. She had international teaching experience in the Netherlands, Finland and Norway. She is now following a Master’s course in language teaching at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

Sara Sperandio

Sara Sperandio graduated with an MEd at the University of Genoa (Italy) with a thesis on online inclusion strategies. She is working as a substitute teacher in primary schools.