Topic: School improvement can be a meaningful experience for pre-service teachers during initial teacher training, enabling them to discover that school is about more than just teaching. By school improvement or school development we mean: ‘a systematic, sustained effort aimed at change in learning conditions and other related internal conditions in one or more schools, with the ultimate aim of accomplishing educational goals more effectively’ (van Velzen et al. 1985, p. 48). Educational policies in Germany have in recent years been targeted at improving teacher training by teaching pre-service teachers to change their professional view of schooling to see school in a sharper focus of governing and managing an organisation, and of uncovering, assessing and preventing pedagogical antagonisms (Spiess 2019). However, little or no significance is currently attached to school development processes in the curriculum of teacher education in special needs education, leading us to pose the question as to when and how pre-service teachers receive professional training in this area.

Objectives: We believe, the way in which the teaching profession and the roles of teachers are viewed has changed over time and teachers’ responsibilities have broadened (Lamote and Engels 2010; Bautista 2015). Student teachers need to be prepared for school improvement tasks as ‘extended professional tasks’ (Hoyle 1980). This professional orientation refers to what teachers believe is important in their work as a teacher. Teachers in special needs education in particular need to engage in extended professional tasks because they still have to ‘fight’ for inclusion, establish and create positive learning environments for children with different needs, detect learning barriers, and cooperate and network with other professionals (O’Gorman and Drudy 2011). Pre-service teachers should have the chance during their studies to develop reflective, development-driven and research-based attitudes towards such extended professional tasks such as school development (Strathdee 2007).

Research questions: The research team conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews with pre-service teachers in special needs education in the last semester of their studies in order to answer the research question posed: What understanding of school development as a professional task do German pre-service teachers in special needs education have? How well-prepared do pre-service-teachers feel with regard to their participation in school development processes in their later professional lives as teachers?

The study applied a qualitative approach to school development processes from the perspective of pre-service teachers. We recruited participants for our study at the University of Koblenz-Landau in Rheinland-Pfalz, a Federal State with five universities, of which only three offer teacher education programmes, and only the University of Koblenz-Landau focuses specifically on special needs education. The sampling procedure was conducted by means of criteria and convenience sampling. The inclusion criteria for the study were: pre-service teachers at the end of their studies (final semester), writing their master thesis, and enrolment in special needs education. This ensured that the students in the sample had already gone through the whole curriculum and were in a good position to assess its contents with regard to school development. Ethical approval for the study had previously been sought and obtained from regional regulatory authority (ADD). N=12 pre-service teachers took part in the study. They had been studying at the university between 7 and 14 semesters and were at the end of their study programme, writing their master theses. Students were between the ages of 23 and 28 years. Four pre-service teachers were male and eight were female. The interviews were conducted in the period from June to August 2021. The semi-structured interview guides contained eight open-ended questions about their perception of having been prepared for school improvement tasks during their initial teacher training (e.g. ‘When looking back at different modules and courses you took during your studies, which of them contributed to knowledge or skills development in the area of school development?’, ‘How would you assess the relevance of school development in comparison to other subjects taught in the curriculum for you as a teacher?’). The interviews were transcribed and then analysed using qualitative content analysis and Maxqda data analysis software.

The study found three main themes: (1) situatedness of school development in the curriculum and lessons learned, (2) pre-service teachers’ understanding of school development, and (3) assessment of the relevance of school development. (1) Pre-service teachers reported to learn about school development in the Master curriculum, which focuses in greater depth on this content than the Bachelor degree programme. Most of the study participants name one of the fundamental modules in special needs education as the module in which contents about school development are situated, however, learning about school development is short and would need more depth and practice. (2) There were several understandings of school development among the study participants: school development as further development of the institution, as work on the mission statement of the school, as adaptation to the societal and social environment of the school, as networking, or an incomplete understanding of school development. (3) Regarding the relevance of school development, the findings show a rather low relevance of school development compared to other subjects in special needs education but a rather high relevance of school development for later professional life. This study’s findings show that pre-service teachers in special needs education follow a task orientation more than a potential professional orientation, in which they do not identify as ‘extended professionals’ with tasks outside the teaching arena. Pre-service teachers in our study mainly did not assess school development as being an extended task of their teacher profile compared to other subjects or other responsibilities. They assigned lower priority to school development compared to other subjects or content addressed in their initial teacher training. Correspondingly, this may explain, why inclusion is still a main objective of this educational setting, although it has been proclaimed as an educational goal for many years (Pit-ten Cate et al. 2019).

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