While the UN-Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities initiated a top-down reform on a policy level in Germany, school development increasingly has to deal with questions of how to adress heterogeneity on a structural level and how to build support systems within school organization, cooperation and classroom practice. In the international context, support systems and supporting roles play an eminent role in the discussion of the realization of inclusive education (cf. Booth & Ainscow 2011) and have been conceptualized (cf. Mittler 2000). However, in Germany there has not been extensive empirical research on the needs to support teachers in the context of inclusive school development and classroom practice. Questions of how support can be arranged, which spaces can be created and used and how supporting roles can be professionalized for cooperation and expertise increasingly turn into focal points. The study “Teacher support, expertise and cooperation in inclusive school development (UNIP)” empirically focuses on the practice of professional support for teachers in order to perform inclusive classroom teaching. Alongside the reconstruction of cooperative practices the mutual construction of professional expertise is adressed (cf. Reh 2014). Based on the methodological presumptions of the Grounded Theory Methodology (cf. Glaser & Strauss 2008), the study is designed with a continuous theoretical sampling using problem-centered interviews and group discussions (cf. Witzel 1999). This paper presents results of the first phase of the study, which includes interviews with regular and special education teachers working in an inclusive school in Baden-Württemberg/Germany. The expected outcomes of the study aim to reconstruct the complexity of support for teachers in inclusive schools by the statements of teachers – contrasted with the framework conditions. Based on the results, theoretical impulses for the discourse on professionalization for inclusion will be provided and practical implications for inclusive school practice, e.g. for multiprofessional cooperation and collaboration as well as inclusive classroom practice, will be derived.

Booth, T. & Ainscow, M. (2011). Index for inclusion. Developing learning and Participation in Schools. Bristol: CSIE. Glaser & Strauß (2008). Grounded Theory. Bern: Huber. Mittler, P. (2000). Working Towards Inclusive Education. Social Contexts. London: Routeledge. Reh, S. (2014). Prekarisierung der Profession. In: Kessl, Fabian/Polutta, Andreas/van Ackeren, Isabell/Dobischat, Rolf/Thole, Werner (Hrsg.): Pädagogische Prekarisierung? Weinheim/Basel: Beltz Juventa, pp. 27-42. Witzel, A. (2000). Das problemzentrierte Interview. In: FQS – Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung, online http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1132/2519 [downloaded: 15.01.2017]