The symposium takes into account different stakeholders’ views on various aspects of inclusive education, e.g. attitudes, teacher agency, professionalization, teacher support and handling difference in inclusive schools. Although every country has its cultural, social, political variety, leading to different structures and practices of inclusive education (Kozleski/Artiles/Waitoller 2011), the legal obligation of the UN-Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability sets a common normative framework of expectations to the successful implementation of inclusive education in schools.

Therefore, the presentations consider the school systems and culture of different countries (Austria, Germany, Italy, Norway, Switzerland) regarding the implementation of inclusive school practice.

As there are papers containing teacher and teacher-students´ views on inclusive education, the symposium offers an overview on actors in training and professional life. While the projects share common thematic focal points, the methodological frameworks differ. This allows taking into account different aspects and perspectives.

The first paper deals with the question of handling differences in inclusive school and focuses on a county comparison between Germany and Norway.

The presentation refers to results of large scale and qualitative studies which led to the question how teachers in inclusive schools handle and construct students’ differences and how this is influenced by the school’s structures and policies (Sturm 2015). Based on the theoretical framework of the sociology of knowledge, there is a distinction between explicit and implicit knowledge. Therefore, the presenter focuses on a reconstructional method, the documentary method, to work out the tacit forms of knowledge of the teachers.

The second part of this symposium also refers to the teacher´s perspective on inclusive education and concentrates on teacher support (Köpfer 2016), including professional support as well as cooperative support systems in inclusive school development. The study “Teacher support, expertise and cooperation in inclusive school development” (UNIP) aims to establish a connection between professional teacher support and the discourse of professionalization for inclusion. Problem-centered interviews and group discussions are analysed by using the Grounded Theory research style. In this paper, the results of the first part of the study which includes interviews with regular and special education teachers in inclusive school contexts in Germany are presented.

The third paper also presents a country comparison between Italy and Austria referring to the attitudes and perceptions of efficacy of student-teachers. Additionally, the influence of educational system and culture of those two countries is considered in the study. For data collection, a questionnaire of three main sections was used. The paper focuses on the link between factors like attitudes and efficacy as antecedents of teacher agency which are essential for the success of inclusion (Hecht/Niedermaier/Feyerer 2016; Aiello/Sharma/Dimitrov et al. 2016).

The fourth study concentrates on a students´ perspective concerning attitudes towards inclusive education and uses a different methodological approach (Junge 2017; Lindmeier & Schomaker 2014). Based on the assumption that especially students in the field of special education support the idea of inclusive education on the surface, the study tries to work out the implicit structures of attitudes towards inclusive learning. Therefore, in-depth single interviews with students of special education are being used and analysed by the reconstructional method “objective hermeneutics”.

First results show that students have strong concerns about implementing inclusive education themselves. They show different perceptions on learners with disabilities. Nonetheless, changes appear if they are offered inclusive learning experience themselves.

Eventually, a summarizing discussion will be conducted in order to find impulses for the inclusive education discourse from the different methodological approaches as well as stakeholder’s and country’s perspectives on inclusive education.

Aiello, P., Sharma, U., Dimitrov, D.M., Di Gennaro, D.C., Pace, E.M., Zollo, I., Sibilio, M. (2016). Indagine sulle percezioni del livello di efficacia dei docenti e sui loro atteggiamenti nei confronti dell’inclusione. L’Integrazione Scolastica e Sociale, 15(1),64-87. Hecht, P., Niedermair, C., Feyerer, E. (2016). Einstellungen und inklusionsbezogene Selbstwirksamkeitsüberzeugungen von Lehramtsstudierenden und Lehrpersonen im Berufseinstieg – Messverfahren und Befunde aus einem Mixed-Methods-Design. In Empirische Sonderpädagogik (1), pp. 86-102. Junge, A. (2017). Die Bedeutung eigener Erfahrungen in heterogenen Lerngruppen und ihre Auswirkungen auf die Entwicklung einer inklusionspädagogischen Haltung. Wissenschaftliches Poster. Köpfer, A. (2016). Unterstützung. In: Ziemen, K. (Hrsg.). Lexikon Inklusion. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp. 239-241. Kozleski, E.B., Artiles, A.J., Waitoller, F.R. (2011). Equity in Inclusive Education. Historical Trajectories and Theoretical Commitments. In: Artiles, A.J., Kozleski, E.B., Waitoller, F.R. (eds.). Inclusive Education. Examining Equity in Five Continents. Cambridge: Harvard Education Press, pp. 1-14. Lindmeier, B., Schomaker, C. (2014): Inklusive historische Bildung zum Thema der ´NS-Euthanasie´-Verbrechen. In: Sonderpädagogische Förderung heute, Heft 1. Weinheim: Beltz, pp. 73-91. Sturm, T. (2015). Herstellung und Bearbeitung von Differenz im inklusiven Unterricht. Rekonstruktionen mithilfe der dokumentarischen Videointerpretation. In: Bohnsack, R., Fritzsche, B., Wagner-Willi, M. (Eds.), Dokumentarische Video- und Filminterpretation (2. ed., pp. 153-178). Opladen: Barbara Budrich.