Due to the UN-CRPD (UN 2006) and due to normative concepts of inclusive education a reform agenda to foster participation and to reduce barriers to education was initiated throughout European regular schools. Inclusive Education developed as a ‘buzzword’ within educational sciences and research to accompany and implement strategies and concepts was launched. However, as the research on inclusive education – mainly understood as the facilitation of students with assigned Special Educational Needs in regular schools – increased, also the risk of stigmatizing the vulnerable increased by exceeding the focus towards particular/special groups instead of focusing on all students (Messiou 2016). Hence, the question can be raised as to who is asked and who can answer to what. While inclusive education in schools is seen as an approach to sustain the participation of all students, it’s the students who seldomly get asked within educational research on inclusive education. Therefore, the symposium “Comparative Perspectives on Students’ views on Assistance in Schools – Spatial and Power Relations“ aims at taking into account the perspective of students on their educational processes in schools and reconstructing spatial and power relations under which they learn and develop.  

During the reform agenda on inclusive education roles and responsibilities in schools are contested. Oftentimes the rising heterogeneity of in class is answered by a differentiation of staff roles and by the implementation of a multi-professional team. Before this backdrop, collaboration plays a fundamental role within inclusive schools and the reflection on responsibility and (spatial) positions of teachers, special ed teachers, teacher assistants etc. become vital. Within this symposium paraprofessional support and assistant roles will serves as a focal point for the analysis. Assistance can be considered a highly important issue for Inclusive Education, but at the same time ambivalent within the roles that facilitate learners in inclusive schools (Sharma & Salend 2016. In this symposium different research perspectives are gathered which put their research focus on student perspectives on assistance within inclusive schools (Broer et al. 2005). Using international comparison as a coherent approach for this symposium, the papers will present joint findings e.g. from Austria, Germany and the United Kingdom and compare the results at the end of the symposium.

Space and power will serve as theoretic and analytical references to reveal barriers/opportunities of participation or separation that may be produced situationally, hidden, communicationally etc. (Hemingway & Armstrong 2012; Machold 2013). The methodological framework of this symposium’s papers focus on qualitative studies as they contain the possibility to approximate to the students’ orientation on a narrative basis. Within the papers a variety of qualitative approaches are used, ranging from ethnography till the documentary method (Bohnsack 2014). The overall aim of these research approaches are the reconstruction of social processes in order make visible the implicit orientations for their practice as well as the spatial and power relations they fulfill their practice in. Using problem- and child-centered interviews practice-oriented narrations by the interviewees can be evoked.

The outcomes will sustain the discussion on (a) methodical approaches in inclusive education research and b) will give insight into the joint realms of experience of students in relation to space and power which are embedded into the school’s educational framework in different European Countries. 

Bohnsack, R. (2014). Rekonstruktive Sozialforschung. Eine Einführung in qualitative Methode (9th Ed.). Opladen u.a.: Verlag Barbara Budrich. Broer, S. M.; Doyle, M. B. & Giangreco, M. F. (2005). Perspectives of Students with Intellectual Disabilities about Their Experiences with Paraprofessional Support. Exceptional Children 71(4), 415–430. Hemingway, J. & Armstrong, F. (2012). Space, place and inclusive learning. In: International Journal of Inclusive Education, 16(5-6), 479-483. Machold, C. (2013). Kinder und Differenz. Eine ethnografische Studie im elementarpädagogischen Kontext. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Messiou, K. (2017). Research in the field of inclusive education: time for a rethink? International Journal of Inclusive Education 21(2), 146–159. Sharma, U. & Salend, S. J. (2016). Teaching Assistants in Inclusive Classrooms: A Systematic Analysis of the International Research. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 41 (8). 117–134.