Action Research for Inclusive Education

Participation and Democracy in Teaching and Learning

Felicity Armstrong, Diana Tsokova, Felicity Armstrong, Diana Tsokova

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781138485709
• eBook ISBN: 9781351048347
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Exploring practitioner research and the possibilities it creates for increasing student participation and developing inclusive practices in educational contexts, this insightful text presents a range of original and innovative approaches to Action Research, and highlights the critical relationship between educational theory, research and practice in transformative action.

Focussing on social constructivist approaches to teaching and learning, Action Research for Inclusive Education offers first-hand insights from researcher-practitioners from international settings including Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Granada, Greece, Singapore and England. Chapters explore diverse participatory and collaborative research practices which draw on the strengths and contributions of teachers and support staff, pupils, and families to foster inclusive practices across the school community and strengthen the participation and independence of all students. Topics considered include collaboration in Participatory Action Research, friendships and the development of students' social skills, student voice and the role of pupils as co-researchers and peer mentors.

Making an important contribution to debates on inclusive education and the role of practitioners and students in bringing about change, this text will be key reading for students, teachers and educational researchers.

Chapter 1

Social Constructivism and Action Research

Transforming teaching and learning through collaborative practice

Felicity Armstrong

This chapter explores ways in which Action Research and Social Constructivism can be harmonised to provide a theoretical framework and ways forward for developing inclusive education through practitioner research. The main focus of the chapter, and of this book, is on bringing about change in support of developing inclusive practices through collaborative and participatory Action Research. Drawing on ideas related to Social Constructivism which inform the research design and process, Action Research is presented as a powerful approach to transformation in teaching and learning. Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) (Vygotsky, 1962) and ‘scaffolding’ (Wood, 2003) are key concepts in the approaches discussed later in this chapter, and in some of the other chapters in the book.

Three key ideas for thinking about participation in learning and in developing positive relationships in schools provide the framework for this chapter: Inclusive Education, Social Constructivism and Participatory Action Research. These frameworks overlap and there are a number of themes which run through them all – participation, observation, reflection, voice, collaboration, community, democracy, exploration and learning in its widest sense (Constantinou & Ainscow, 2019).

Inclusive education

One of the fundamental understandings of inclusive education is that diversity and differences are to be celebrated as natural and as contributing to the richness of communities. Inclusion is interpreted in very diverse ways and is the subject of critical debate reflecting different perspectives, values and contexts.

Differences in understanding are deeply rooted in experience, meaning that interpretations we make as individuals reflect our own life experiences, cultural context and values. They also reflect differences in the way we approach problems: to what extent do we approach them pragmatically and focus primarily on what we consider will ‘work’ or is ‘possible’ realistically within the constraints of existing policies, conditions and resources? And to what extent do we believe that constraints and barriers to inclusion can and should be explored and challenges removed through critical engagement and struggle? In the context of this chapter the fundamental principles of inclusive education are that it should be “driven by equality, social justice and human rights, involving children’s learning” (Goodall, 2018: 2). These principles relate to school cultures and the kinds of social relationships which they foster. But how are they understood and interpreted through practice in different contexts? The chapters in this book provide some examples of the way different interpretations of these principles can be explored by teachers through small research projects, reflecting the particularities of their unique local environments and the people they work with.

Underpinning the interpretation of inclusive education above is the belief that all children and young people should have the right to equal participation in an education which is of value and engaging and relates to their individual interests, as well as those of the wider learning community. Inclusion is not about competing against others. Being ‘successful’ in education cannot be measured only against narrow criteria such as achievement in standardised tests designed to assess performance in a narrow and coercive curriculum. Inclusion is as much about the culture and relationships fostered in a school community as it is about the experience of learning and the opportunities provided to explore and create knowledge. Working to support the development of inclusive education involves critical examination of values and practices and ways of seeing in the wider context of school and society. It requires an understanding of the means and pathways through which children and young people learn and the many ways in which they may experience exclusion and marginalisation in education. Understanding must involve listening to the voices of, and responding to, those involved – teachers, teaching assistants, parents, the wider community and – most importantly – the voices of children and young people themselves (Carney, 2018; Flutter, 2007; Fielding, 2004).

A further theme of this chapter is the belief that inclusive education must involve the development of collaborative and reflective practices between teachers and learners, and collaboration appears in its many guises, in different contexts, throughout the book as a fundamental component of inclusion. ‘Teachers’ and ‘learners’ are concepts which are interpreted fluidly, with all members of the teaching and learning community moving between these roles in different situations – regardless of the ‘official’ role – teacher, teaching assistant, student – assigned to them in the hierarchy of the school culture and organisation. In many of the projects discussed in the chapters in this book, teachers found themselves in the position of learners during the research process – learning from their colleagues or from their students. This is particularly evident in their critical reflections on their own practice and on their observations made in their role as teachers and researchers during the Action Research process. In other projects, children supported each other in their learning and social development. Students and teachers are learners, ‘instructors’, mentors and ‘builders’ and ‘scaffolders’ in the interplay of collaborative relationships involved in democratic and creative learning communities.

Inclusion and the problem of language

Terms such as ‘inclusion’ and labels such as ‘special educational needs’ and its abbreviation ‘SEN’ are adopted uncritically across many contexts and can hide fundamental differences in policies, cultures, beliefs and practices. As Armstrong, A. C. et al. (2010: 4–5) observe,

The meaning of ‘inclusion’ is by no means clear and perhaps conveniently blurs the edges of social policy with a feel-good rhetoric that no one could be opposed to. What does it really mean to have an education system which is ‘inclusive’? Who is thought to be in need of inclusion and why? If education should be inclusive, then what practices is it contesting, what common values is it advocating, and by what criteria should its successes be judged?

Clearly, the idea that terminology related to inclusion – or any other terminology informed by values and culturally informed interpretations – can be universally applied in any education system, policy document, community, school, or region has to be challenged. Labelling, too, is a contentious and complex issue. What’s wrong with labels such as ‘SEN’ (‘Special Educational Needs’), ‘EBD’ (‘Emotional and Behavioural Disorder/Difficulties’) and ‘PMLD’ (‘Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties’)? Routine use of these labels both creates and confirms public identities and assumptions about people’s abilities, and informs expectations about what they can and can’t do. A label of this kind is an ‘alias’ which hides a person’s unique identity. Unlike the usual form of alias, in which a person chooses to hide their real identity and selects their own alias, labels are imposed on people by others. In this sense, labelling people raises questions of power in which professionals assess and diagnose others who have, in general, a passive role in the processes involved. In social systems, labels serve to signal difference and contribute to organisational mechanisms for sorting people into groups for many purposes including responding to particular needs or requirements, providing resources and support, as well as allocation to different types of schools offering different opportunities. Labelling is a very knotty problem because of the close relationship between identification and labelling and the release of resources and support. The argument is not that ‘professionals’ set out to construct particular identities of the people they work with, but that they, and very many of us, are part of a much wider and deeply embedded system in which resources, ‘support’ and ‘placements’ are harnessed to processes of diagnosis and labelling. While medicalised labels may be necessary and helpful in clinical contexts, casual and endemic use in the context of education settings can serve as a blanket thrown over groups of children and young people, beneath which there are unique individuals with their own particular characteristics, interests and aspirations which may go unrecognised. The uncritical use of labels such as ‘SEN’ encourages the creation of stereotypes relating to difference and dependency, and assumptions about who people are, what they can do and what can be expected from them (Barton, 1996; Corker and French, 1999). While we have tried to avoid the casual use of ‘labels’ in the chapters in this book, in doing so we have sometimes come up against the real difficulties involved as they are deeply rooted in the systems, habits of thinking, cultures, and practices of education.

The following sections in this chapter focus on the role of practitioners in bringing about change by working collaboratively with others and through collective reflection. In particular, the discussion explores the relationship between Action Research and Social Constructivist approaches to teaching and learning.

Action Research

Action Research (AR) is one of many kinds of practitioner research. A key feature is that it is concerned with bringing about change of some kind, very often in the researcher’s own context. It often involves others besides the lead researcher(s) and these ‘others’ (e.g., other teachers, parents, students, teaching assistants, etc.) may take on the roles of co-researchers. Action Research may involve outsiders such as professional researchers or academics working with teachers or others, particularly in an advisory capacity. It may be initiated from ‘the top’ in order to implement a new policy or strategy, for example, emanating from government or the senior management of a school. An example of this model can be found in Chapter 10, where Sarah Wakefield writes about an Action Research project which was imposed on teachers in her school by the head teacher with the purpose of improving academic performance as measured by test results. Crucially, he also required teachers to work collaboratively in small groups and it was during the process of collaborative planning and critical reflection that one group of teachers re-interpreted the notion of ‘academic performance’ to mean something rather different, subverting – at least in part – the original aims of the project which they had been required to fulfil. Not everything goes ‘according to plan’ in Action Research!

A fundamental purpose of Action Research is to explore an area or set of issues relating to existing practices in order to develop and implement strategies for change (Armstrong & Moore, 2004). In the process of designing, carrying out and critically evaluating processes and outcomes prevailing assumptions and ideas are examined and fresh insights and interpretations emerge. Winter and Munn-Giddings (2001: 5) describe Action Research as referring to

a process which alternates continuously between inquiry and action, between practice and ‘innovative thinking’ (Hart, 2000) – a developmental spiral of practical decision-making and evaluative reflection. It is both reflective practice and practice-based research.

The reference to a ‘developmental spiral’ here captures a defining characteristic of Action Research – its potential for continuous development, with revisions made along the way in the light of on-going critical evaluation. The accounts of small projects found in later chapters capture a particular stage in this dialectical process of reflection – planning–action–observation–reflection – described by Carr and Kemmis (1986: 33) as praxis: ‘Praxis (. . .) is informed action which, by reflection on its character and consequences, reflexively changes the “knowledge base” which informs it’. Thus, change emerges at the levels of both theory and practice.

In the context of the small projects discussed in this book, praxis can be understood as the reciprocity between action and reflection and the bringing about of change through interventions guided by democratic collaboration and critical reflection. The role of ‘theory’ in Action Research is discussed later in the chapter.

Participatory Action Research and Collaborative Action Research

Participatory Action Research (PAR) is an important branch of Action Research but is distinctive in a number of ways. In its purest form:

• PAR always involves those who are themselves part of the research context. It is these participants who are likely to be most affected by the situation as it is, and by any changes which are brought about.

• PAR is based on democratic principles in which all those involved have the right to be consulted and listened to and their views respected. Dialogue and debate are, therefore, key elements in PAR.

• Participants are key contributors in terms of identifying issues and areas which need intervention, and in planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluating change and reflecting on outcomes.

• PAR requires all those involved to think critically and reflexively.

• PAR is, therefore, political in that it reconfigures the traditional power relationship between the researcher and the researched.

Collaborative Action Research (CAR) is closely related to Participatory Action Research in that both emphasise the collaborative role of those involved in the research context. However, unlike PAR, Collaborative Action Research does not require all those affected by and involved in the research context to have a role in democratic decision making about all aspects of the project such as identification of the issues to be addressed, designing the methodology, including monitoring and evaluation, and the planning of future interventions. In the CAR approach, collaboration plays a core role, and this may take place between teachers, students, teaching assistants, parents and anyone involved with the school community. But in CAR in education contexts, there is usually one, sometimes more than one, lead researcher who consults with others and draws others into the research project as ‘co-researchers’ or observers or contributors in some aspects of the project, but, although their perspectives may influence the research, they do not share responsibility for overall decision making regarding different aspects of the project. In reality the terms ‘collaboration’ and ‘participation’ become merged, and projects which respect the PAR model in all its democratic features are relatively rare because they are hard to put into practice in the busy daily life of schools. In the context of the chapters in this book, the terms ‘Participatory Action Research’ and ‘Collaborative Action Research’ have been used to refer to projects in which collaboration, participation, listening to the voices of others and critical reflection have been fundamental aspects of the research (Wood, L. et al., 2019).

Action Research and theory making

Through the processes involved in planning, carrying out and reflecting involved in Action Research projects, earlier theories and practices held by participants may be critically evaluated and new observations and theoretical ideas emerge which are the subject of scrutiny and debate. Teachers, therefore, can be described as knowledge creators as well as ‘consumers of knowledge’ (Zeichner & Noffke, 2001; Wennergren & Rönnerman, 2006). In some of the chapters later in this book there are examples of such developments and shifts in perception, leading to changes in the way issues and situations are understood and responded to. For example, in Dhana Lazarus’s work with teachers described in Chapter 2, she learns from those teachers about their lack of prior knowledge and experience in the area of visual impairment, and about the wider issues which they face in their classrooms. She also learns abou...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword By Michele Moore
• Introduction
• 1 Social Constructivism and Action Research: Transforming Teaching and Learning Through Collaborative Practice
• 2 Voices of the Unheard: Dialogues with Mainstream Primary School Teachers of Students with Visual Impairments in Grenada
• 3 Listening to Students’ Voices to Build an Inclusive School with Deaf Students in Saudi Arabia
• 4 Scaffolding Friendships and Social Relationships in a Primary School in England
• 5 Developing Positive Social Interactions Among Children in a Danish Preschool
• 6 “The Art of Making Friends”: Encouraging Dialogue and Active Participation in an Early Years Classroom in Greece
• 7 Promoting Inclusive Actions Beyond Classrooms in an Institute of Higher Learning in Singapore
• 8 A Social Constructivist Approach to Teaching Poetry with Year 8 in England
• 9 Encouraging the Inclusivity of International Students in Singapore Through the Literature Curriculum
• 10 A Collaborative Action Research Project Within a Data-Driven Culture: Improving Teaching and Learning Through Social Constructivism in England
• 11 Changing Perceptions of Teachers in Special Needs Education in Ireland Using the Mainstream Science Curriculum to Encourage Inclusive Education
• 12 ‘supporting’ Young People Identified as Having a Special Educational Need in Their Work Experience in England: Critical Reflections
• 13 From Homework to Home Learning: Creating and Implementing a Non-Traditional Homework Policy in an International School in London
• 14 Creating a Culture of Dialogue and Transparency with Parents and Teachers in a Primary School in Germany
• Index