At least since the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (United Nations 2007), inclusive education is a well-acknowledged and strongly forced educational approach within the scope of teaching and learning. Due to the trends of countries all over the world towards the inclusive concept of including students with special educational needs (SEN) into regular mainstream schools and building inclusive classrooms, the number of diversity factors among students is increasing (Prast et al. 2018, Schwab et al. 2018). In addition to having a disability, individual educational needs can be traced back to different barriers of learning. The approach of gathering children with different needs in one classroom in order to provide a productive and diverse educational setting is not fully ensured by just acknowledging the variety of requirements of students. Therefore, heterogeneity in education can be seen as existing reality in education (Coubergs et al. 2017). The respond to that new challenge could be the teachers’ adaption of implemented teaching and learning approaches to the specific needs of their students is necessary. The present symposium will give insights in different perspectives on diversity in educational settings with different methodological approaches.

The first presentation will deal with the following questions: What characterizes teaching in inclusive classrooms? What classroom behavior of teachers can be observed in inclusive primary schools? The presentation aims to answer these questions within the scope of a systematic literature review with a special focus on research from Germany.

Presentation 2 is about the organisation of inclusive educational provision for students with disabilities and special educational needs in mainstream schools. With organisational psychology as meeting point, the exploration of ideological strains between special education and inclusive education as well as the dealing with the challenges of the definition of inclusive education will be a subject of discussion. This presentation will combine action research and case study methodology and shows results of four second-level schools in the Republic of Ireland.   

The third presentation deals with the question whether teachers’ impression of their self-efficacy overlaps with students’ perception of the teaching quality according to four aspects: engagement, instruction, behavior management and emotional support. Therefore, around 500 secondary grade students from North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) and their teachers took part in a paper-pencil survey. The theoretical starting point of the fourth presentation is a law that was  established in Cyprus in 1999, which promoted the integration of students with disabilities in mainstream schools and mainstream classes. The presentation will arise the questions, if inclusion in Cyprus is actual practice or vision and will provide insight into challenges and issues regarding integration in mainstream schools.

In conclusion, the symposium will provide critical insights into diverse dimensions of teaching and learning in inclusive educational settings and opens four different national perspectives, as there are presenters from Austria, Cyprus, Germany and Ireland.

Coubergs, C., Stryven, K, Vanthournout, G., and Engels, N. (2017). Measuring teachers’ perceptions about differentiated instruction: The DI-Quest instrument and model. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 53, 41-54. Prast, E. J., Van de Weijer-Bergsma, E., Koresbergen, E. H., and Van Luit, J. E. H. (2018). Differentiated instruction in primary mathematics: Effects of teacher professional development on student achievement. Learning and Instruction, 54, 22-34. Schwab, S., Sharma, U., and Loreman, T. (2018). Are we included? Secondary students’ perception of inclusive climate in their schools. Teaching and Teacher Education, 75, 31-39. United Nations (2007). Convention on the rights or persons with disabilities and optional protocol. New York, NY: UN.