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Special education practice allows for the educational principles of parental involvement, pointing to a common dialogue on health issues and general well-being. Special education professionals primarily empower the families of children with atypical development by relying on the organizational factors of individual support and services. The decision-making/partnering factors of the educational and general health processes, on the other hand, receive less attention. The present study aims to explore the place of the parent–school relationship within the framework of a special educational institution in Romania. Involving Hungarian special education teachers (N = 12) from Romania, we analyze the school involvement of the parents of students with special educational needs in Bihor County, Romania, concerning their children’s academic achievement and well-being. The qualitative research data were recorded through semistructured interviews and were organized through deductive categorization, as well as being analyzed thematically using Atlas.ti. The results highlighted the essential elements of the parent–school relationship, e.g., communication practices, active inclusion programs, support services, and peer acceptance plans. We believe it is important to emphasize that, in the study, families frequently better understood their child’s situation and health-related issues and advocated more effectively for the recognition of their rights. However, as an active player in everyday education, the teacher can better organize development activities for the child’s specific needs and plan complex habilitation/rehabilitation. To sum up, a parent–educator team approach can result in more successful educational and health outcomes, as well as a more accepting social image in the cognitive, emotional, and social development fields.

Il presente contributo propone un rapido excursus sul percorso normativo che ha portato all’istituzione della figura dell’insegnante di sostegno, e sugli sviluppi, nel tempo, dell’iter formativo. La formazione dell’insegnante di sostegno, un tempo affidata a scuole o centri individuati dal Ministero, negli anni Novanta è stata definitivamente assegnata alle università. In questo studio si analizzano le caratteristiche principali dei candidati al corso di specializzazione per il sostegno per la scuola secondaria di primo e di secondo grado all’Università Roma Tre nell’a.a. 2021/2022 e i risultati conseguiti alle prove preselettive, agli scritti e agli orali. Si tratta di uno studio esplorativo volto a raccogliere elementi conoscitivi utili a comprendere i diversi tracciati formativi, professionali, identitari dei candidati aspiranti a diventare insegnanti di sostegno nella scuola secondaria. Ne emerge un quadro piuttosto variegato in termini di età, formazione, esperienze pregresse. La ricerca, di natura esplorativa, costituisce la prima fase di un più ampio studio longitudinale, che avrà l’obiettivo di evidenziare le caratteristiche degli aspiranti docenti di sostegno in serie storica, dall’avvio del corso di specializzazione per il sostegno a oggi. This contribution offers an overview of the regulatory path that led to the establishment of the special needs teacher, and on the development, over time, of the training process. The training of the special needs teacher, once entrusted to schools or centres identified by the Ministry of Education, in the Nineties was definitively assigned to universities. This study illustrates the main characteristics of the candidates who applied for the specialization course for middle and secondary school at the University of Roma Tre in the academic year 2021/2022; and the results they achieved in pre-selective, written and oral tests. The educational, professional and identity information collected so far on would-be special needs teachers in secondary school shows a heterogeneous group in terms of age, education, previous experiences. This exploratory research represents the first phase of a broader longitudinal study, which will aim to highlight the characteristics of would-be special needs teachers in historical series, from the launch of the specialization course to today.

Based on street-level bureaucracy, this study investigates the paraprofessional role and assignments in self-contained classrooms for students with intellectual disabilities in Sweden. The research design contains a mixed method approach using a digital questionnaire for paraprofessionals (N = 60) and semi-structured interviews with four special teachers and five paraprofessionals. The results demonstrate that paraprofessionals cooperate with special needs teachers and have a supportive role working with students throughout the day. A lack of support for paraprofessionals’ professional development and few opportunities for them to co-plan, co-teach and co-assess with special needs teachers is said to hinder this advancement. The complexity of being both an educator in the classroom and a caregiver taking the responsibility for students’ wellbeing, peer-to-peer relations and care orientated work tasks are discussed.

It was decided to carry out an exploratory study aimed at investigating the opinions of 100 teachers specializing in special educational needs at the University of Naples “Suor Orsola Benincasa”, in relation to the aspect of corporeality and motor education as an essential dimension in the inclusive process to be implemented in the school context. 100 semi-structured on-line interviews were held. It was decided to carry out an analysis of the content of the interviews (Krippendorff, 2013) adopting the Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) as the theoretical and methodological substrate, with specifc reference to the constructivist-epistemological paradigm (Charmaz, 2005). The qualitative analysis was supported by the use of Nvivo software (Richards, 1999). The corpus of the interviews was subjected to content analysis (Krippendorff, 2013). The qualitative analysis of the corpus of the interviews highlights the need for providing postgraduate teachers with more specifc training in the feld of physical education, particularly in its inclusive purpose. While recognizing the importance of physical education in the integral formation of the person, the teachers declared themselves not very competent and, above all, that they would not put into practice actions concerning the motor dimension in their teaching activity.

The purpose of the study was to investigate teachers’ use of visual aid within the subject Swedish in schools and with a specific focus on their work with pupils in language vulnerability. We conducted a questionnaire study with 39 teachers who teach Swedish in primary school. Our questions were how and to what extent teachers in primary school describe that they use visual aid and in which teaching situations teachers describe that they use visual aid to make teaching accessible to pupils in language vulnerability. We have also investigated how teachers describe that visual aid has an impact on making teaching accessible to pupils in language vulnerability. Our last question was whether teachers had received training in using visual aid and whether they described a need for further training. Our results show that teachers use visual aid to a large extent, but in very varied ways. The most frequently used aid is structural aid, while strategy aid and communication aid are used to a lesser extent. Moreover, the teachers report that the visual support facilitates learning for pupils in language vulnerability. Most of them also state that they received training in the subject, but that they would need further training to support pupils to a higher degree. In conclusion, this study shows that although Swedish teachers are aware of the fact that visual aid helps pupils in language vulnerability to reach higher goal fulfilment, their use of visual aids is highly diverse.

International audience; This paper aims at understanding the way specialised teachers working within school units set up to function inclusively (Unités localisées pour l’inclusion scolaire or ULIS ) conceive of autism. It also aims to understand their way of thinking about the type of pedagogy adapted to these students and how they consider collaboration with other professionals in the context of inclusive schools. Our theoretical framework is that of Jack Mezirow’s transformative learning, particularly the concepts of meaning perspectives and schemes. Grounded in interviews with five ULIS co-ordinators, our analysis depends on the principles of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Strauss and Corbin, 1998). Our results show that the most experienced teachers have built for themselves a mixed pedagogy, which crosses the style they had with “ordinary” students and methods specific to autism. ULIS coordinators spend a lot of energy getting the teacher in ordinary classes to take pupils with autism.; Notre recherche a pour objectif de comprendre les conceptions de l’autisme d’enseignants spécialisés travaillant dans des unités localisées pour l’inclusion scolaire (ULIS). Elle vise également à cerner leur manière d’envisager la pédagogie adéquate avec ces élèves ainsi que leur conception du travail collaboratif avec d’autres professionnels dans le cadre de l’école inclusive. Pour ce faire, nous nous référons au cadre théorique de l’apprentissage transformateur de Jack Mezirow, et notamment aux concepts de schèmes de sens et perspectives de sens. À partir d’entretiens enregistrés avec cinq coordonnateurs d’ULIS, notre analyse a été menée selon les principes de la théorie ancrée (Glaser, Strauss, 1967 ; Strauss, Corbin, 1998). Notre recherche montre que les enseignants les plus expérimentés se sont construit une pédagogie métissée, entre un style pédagogique qu’ils avaient auparavant avec leurs élèves « ordinaires » et des approches spécifiques à l’autisme. Les coordonnateurs d’ULIS dépensent beaucoup d’énergie à faire en sorte que les professeurs des classes ordinaires accueillent les élèves avec autisme.

This study is based on the critical pragmatism, which means that there is a conflict between at least two parts, in this case, the decision-makers and special needs teachers. The starting point of conflict is the implementation work of goal-oriented assessment, where the decision-makers has taken the decision that the Danish school shall implement goal-oriented assessment. The purpose of this study is to examine the six special teachers and school leaders experience and what motivates those in the implementation of goal oriented education. In order to examine the respondents' perception four individual interviews and a group interview was made. The interviews have been based on an open interview guide. Based on the critical pragmatism, the study focused on the concepts of power and deliberative communication. Power concepts is based on how decision makers used the power to decide that the goal-oriented assessment concept should be implemented. The deliberative communication based on this study examines respondents' experience gives the decision-makers the opportunity to take part of the response and use it in the development of goal-oriented assessment. The result of the study's empirical study, analysis, and discussion indicates that the majority of respondents are in favour of goal-oriented assessment, but that the implementation work has not focused on the special school. Teachers in special school needs time to implement and to break down goals in order to be able to create a customized targeted instruction for students with disabilities. Teachers in special school need education that focus on the special school’s development. One solution would be to create forums where special schools meet to develop the individual schools, classes and students. In order to justify teachers with postgraduate diploma in special needs training, it is important to begin in their practical work, by listening to and developing the change process together, which I interpret as deliberative communication. This study is important for decision makers so that they continue to work for changes and a positive development for goal-oriented assessment in the Danish special schools.

This study aims to investigate how special needs teachers work with dyslexic pupils who are not reaching the goals of the subject of English. In addition, the focus is to examine dyslexic pupils’ experienced areas of difficulties and also how to structure the language teachings in order to facilitate for the pupils with dyslexia. The method of collecting data for this essay is based on a qualitative research approach through semi-structured interviews with special needs teachers. The results conclude that the informants do not support the pupils directly since their assignment is instead to coach the teachers, which mean that their main responsibility is to work primarily with school organization. Also, through this essay it became evident that dyslexia exists in every language and the specific learning disability is not equal with a failed grade in English.

Being part of a decentralized system Swedish schools have a rather large possibility to shape their own activities. In the present article we analyze the activities of different schools, working with children who are considered to have problems relating to others. Four schools represent a traditional way to work with these children. In contrast, two additional schools present challenges towards this tradition. Specifically, the work of these two latter schools is focused. The analysis is built upon interviews with three persons in each school: the headmaster, one teacher and the special educational needs coordinator (the SENCO). The two groups of schools are compared with regard to a number of themes: organizational solutions, the importance of school leadership, the role of the “small group”, the role of the SENCOs, occupational development, preventive work, and relations. The two groups of schools differ with regard to all these themes. Finally we discuss the implications of the two different approaches.

The thesis aim is to visualize and understand what happens to intentions formulated in national steering documents to be interpreted and implemented in schools to give every pupil without exception access to an equivalent education. The principal starting point is that the individual official, or “street bureaucrat”, working inside school is the key person in interpreting steering document content. A theory-based analysis model was constructed from the different levels of national school steering systems, including knowledge appropriation and knowledge transfer as theoretical concepts. In the model, state, municipality, school and pupil constitute separate institutional concepts forming four frames, with three levels, macro, meso and micro, with school and pupil on the latter level. Following the process involving national steering documents, the actual steering of schools and the interpretation and implementation of the mission at different system levels highlights these documents’ importance. The empirical material comprises five studies: Study 1, a literature study focusing on the expression A school for everyone; Study 2, a document study on the steering of schools in two systems; Studies 3 and 4, two mutually independent questionnaire studies about national steering documents involving school leaders undergoing school leadership education and special needs teachers-to-be during their education and Study 5, a document study of pupil assistants’ role as officials in the two steering systems. The conclusion of the thesis may be that the pedagogical significance of the steering documents depends on how administrative and school officials, individually and collectively, interpret and implement the mission among the pupils. Claiming that A school for everyone applies to everyone requires routines in whichever system which ensure that all steering process officials absorb the steering document content and agree on a common pedagogical foundation about who are all pupils, which ones need special support and what measures will give all pupils access to an equivalent education.

This study was focused on the comparison between special needs teachers and volunteers in contact with disabled people in relation to levels of burnout and representation of self and disabled people (students or users). The sample was composed by 106 special needs teachers serving in two Public Junior and Senior High Schools, and 70 volunteers in contact with disabled people attending Rehabilitation Centres in Catania (Sicily, Italy). Measures: We used the 22-items version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory and two Semantic Differentials referred to Self-image and disabled students/users. Results showed that teachers were more burned-out than volunteers. For teachers, the more the self-image was positively judged, the more the levels of emotional exhaustion and reduced personal accomplishment were low. Also for volunteers, the more the self-image and disabled users were positively assessed, the more the levels of emotional exhaustion and reduced personal accomplishment were low; finally, the more the self-image was positively valued by volunteers, the more the levels of depersonalization were low. Future researches could deepen the factors which affect burnout syndrome, such as self-efficacy, self-competence, self-acceptance, and other psychological dimensions of self.