The Role Of The Curriculum In Inclusion: A Mixed-Method Research

Author(s):

Eleni Damianidou(presenting / submitting)Helen Phtiaka

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

04. Inclusive Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

04 SES 06 C, Schooling for All (Including 'Gifted' Children)

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-24

15:30-17:00

Room:

OB-H1.12

Chair:

Richard Rose

Contribution

As evident in international treaties such as the Salamanca Statement, attempts to realize inclusive education have intensified during the last decades (Armstrong, 2005). Inclusion is about social justice, equity and citizenship; it is about the right of all children to full participation in education, and equal provision of opportunities, to help them reach their full potential (Symeonidou & Phtiaka, 2009; United Nations, 2007; Vlachou, 2004). Despite the existing legislation however, shifting students around on the educational chessboard does not necessarily imply inclusion (Graham & Slee, 2008). Thus, effective inclusive practice at school seems to be impeded by discriminatory barriers related to current ideologies and everyday practice towards disabled children, which justify and perpetuate oppression (Abberley, 1987; Barton & Armstrong, 2001).

Hence, even though following a fixed curriculum provides an accessible framework for an educational course and an end goal for teachers, curricula may have negative implications, too, because of the imposed restrictions (Westbury, 2008). Thus, restrictive and monolithic curricula may raise barriers to inclusion, because they discourage change and quell innovation and flexibility (Erevelles, 2005). Inclusive teaching is about adapting instruction to the disabled children’s needs (Graham & Slee, 2008). Exclusion is related to the political character of curricula, which perpetuate dominant ideologies and power relations through pre-determined official knowledge (Apple, 2000). In this way, curricula propound selected aspects of social life which reproduce the social hierarchy and keep less powerful groups marginalized (Giroux, 2010).

Teachers become accomplices in this process of exclusion by remaining pathetic performers that always abide by the curriculum, even when the truth about the social construction of disability is sidestepped (Erevelles, 2005; Terwell, 2005). Thus teachers get trapped in the paradox of postulating commitment to promote learning, while at the same time they believe that they have no control on the presumed principal learning factor, i.e. learning ability, as an allegedly innate and unchangeable personal trait (Hart, Dickson, Drummond & McIntyre, 2008; Tuval & Orr, 2009). This assumption is confirmed through a curriculum that does not consider prior experience and learning opportunities, as well as individual differences; in contrast, an unfair assessment is proposed, that is based on a snapshot in time (Erevelles, 2005). As a result, children with disabilities get labelled as able or not able to learn. In this framework, teachers prefer to think in terms of the norm and then categorise their students according to abstract notions of intelligence, in a purely comparative and selective manner, underpinned by the curriculum (Graham & Slee, 2008; Tuval & Orr, 2009).

Given that, , Cyprus teachers tend to think on the basis of a medical and charity model, while they favour special schooling for specific groups of children, which result to marginalization and exclusion (Angelides, Stylianou & Gibbs, 2006; Symeonidou & Phtiaka, 2009), the objective of our study was to understand the effects of the Cyprus curriculum on everyday teaching practice and the consequent implications regarding the inclusion of children with disabilities. Our research questions were:

To what extend are equal opportunities in education confirmed by the official curriculum in Cyprus?
To what extend do teachers abide by the given curriculum and what are the implications on inclusion?

Method

In order to answer the above research questions, we conducted a mixed method piece of research, based on the two-phase model. According to this, the researcher starts off with a quantitative approach and proceeds with a qualitative one. In this way, it is possible to gather information regarding the general trends and attitudes, which are then explored and explained further through qualitative data (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007). In this way we can draw a comprehensive picture regarding the effects of the curriculum on everyday teaching practice and the relationships with inclusion would have been drawn. Based on the above model, we delivered questionnaires to a representative sample of 536 secondary education teachers in order to gather information regarding their general attitudes and trends, their commitment to abide by the curriculum and the extent to which their teaching practice was inclusive. Most of the participants were familiar with disability: the majority (71.1%) had taught disabled children in their classes sometime during their career; half of them (50.2%) had offered support lessons to disabled children, while a larger percentage (66.2%) had worked in a school with a special unit. Following the data analysis, we proceeded to the second phase of our research. We interviewed 21 Greek Philology teachers so as to further explore and explain our findings from the first phase. The participants were selected through a combination of typical and snowball sampling methods (Robson, 2002). Our sample comprised only Greek Language teachers, because they usually spend more time w the same class than other teachers do; hence they are more familiar with the students’ needs and personalities. In addition, they teach literature as well as language. This gives them the freedom to discuss and share ideas with the students, and circumvent the official knowledge if they wish to. Quantitative data was analyzed with SPSS, while qualitative information was analyzed with thematic analysis (Robson, 2002). Our research was compliant with research ethics. Thus we kept confidentiality and anonymity during the presentation of the results.

Expected Outcomes

The statistical analysis revealed that half of the secondary education teachers (49.6%) believe that school does not support equal opportunities in education for all children and thereby it is not inclusive. In addition, two-thirds of the participants (68.9%) believe that schools are not adequately prepared to welcome disabled children, that the educational system in Cyprus is dysfunctional (63.2%) and that the current curriculum does not permit initiatives being restrictive, too (66.9%). However, despite the negative implications of the curriculum and schooling on disabled children, half of the teachers admit that they always abide by the curriculum (50.9%). Despite this gloomy picture, there is still hope for a better future regarding inclusive teaching practice in Cyprus, since the key-factor for change seems to be the teacher. Participants believe that teachers have the power to effect change and establish inclusion, since they are the ones who decide what they will do in their own classroom (74.5%). As stated during the interviews, even though participants do not usually differentiate their instruction, they try to find ways to respond to the disabled students’ needs through attending relevant seminars or asking advice from more experienced colleagues. In addition, since teachers have the freedom to teach texts and poems which are not included in the curriculum, the participants commented that they often choose material that fosters critical thinking and raises awareness towards discrimination, racism and injustice. It seems that inspired teaching practice can, and does, overcome the barriers imposed by the curriculum and pave the path towards the implementation of inclusive education.

References

Abberley, P. (1987). The concept of oppression and the development of a social theory of disability. Disability, Handicap and Society, 2(1), 5-19. Angelides, P., Stylianou, T. & Gibbs, P. (2006). Preparing teachers for inclusive education in Cyprus. Teaching & Teacher Education: An International Journal of Research and Studies, 22(4), 513-522. Armstrong, D. (2005). Reinventing ‘inclusion’: New Labour and the cultural politics of special education. Oxford Review of Education, 31(1), 135-151. Apple, M. (2000). Official knowledge. New York: Routledge. Barton, L. & Armstrong, F. (2001). Disability Education and Inclusion: Cross-cultural issues and dilemmas. In G. Albrect, K. Seelman and M. Bury (Eds.), International Handbook of Disability Studies (pp. 693-710). London: Sage Publications. Creswell, J. W. & Plano Clark, V. L. (2007). Designing and conducting mixed methods research. Thousands Oaks, CA: Sage. Erevelles, N. (2005). Understanding curriculum as normalizing text: disability studies meet curriculum theory. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 37(4), 421-439. Giroux, H. A. (2010). Dumbing Down Teachers: Rethinking the Crisis of Public Education and the Demise of the Social State. The Review of Education, Pedagogy and Cultural Studies, 32, 339-381. Graham, L. J. & Slee, R. (2008). An illusory interiority: interrogating the discourse/s of illusion. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 40(2), 277-293. Hart, S. D., Dickson, A., Drummond, M. & McIntyre, D. (2008). What’s wrong with ability learning? In S. D. Hart, A. Dickson, M. Drummond & D. McIntyre, Learning without limits. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Robson, C. (2002). Real World Research (2nd edn.). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Symeonidou, S. & Phtiaka, H. (2009). Using teachers’ prior knowledge, attitudes and beliefs to develop in-service teacher education courses for inclusion. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25, 543-550. Terwell, J. (2005). Curriculum differentiation: multiple perspectives and developments in education. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 37(6), 653-670. Tuval, S. & Orr, E. (2009). Social representations of inclusion and stratification: ethnographic research within two Israeli elementary schools. Disability and Society, 24(4), 503-516. United Nations (2007). Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Available at http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?navid=13&pid=150 Vlachou, A. (2004). Education and inclusive policy-making implications for research and practice. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 8(1), 3-22. Westbury, I. (2008). Making curricula: Why do states make curricula and how? In F. M. Connelly, M. F. He & J. Phillion (Eds.), The Sage handbook of curriculum and instruction (pp. 45-65). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Author Information

Eleni Damianidou (presenting / submitting)

University of Cyprus, Cyprus

Helen Phtiaka

University of Cyprus

Department of Education

Nicosia

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