Research on how schools become inclusive of all learners irrespective of their diversity has not yet clearly answered the question about how do schools become inclusive. The research has shown that many variables contribute towards creating highly inclusive schools and it ranges from leaders who are highly inclusive (DeMathews et.al, 2020; Woodcock & Woolfson, 2019); school staff who have positive attitudes towards inclusion; staff with high levels of teaching efficacy for inclusion (Wray, Sharma, Subban, 2022); and, availability of necessary resources (Finkelstein, 2021). While all these variables are important and do make a significant impact in influencing a school's inclusive practices, there is a lack of research that could explain how do these different variables influence each other and contribute cumulatively towards building a school's overall commitment to inclusion. We argue that one key variable that has not yet been researched enough and could perhaps be most significant in explaining how a school builds its overall commitment towards inclusion is the school staff's collective efficacy beliefs about inclusion (Subban et al, 2022).

The overall study was guided by the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 2005). Applying this theory to the field of inclusive education it is hypothesised that in a school, a teacher's actual behaviour (or the use of effective inclusive practices) could be determined if we know the teacher's intentions to teach in inclusive classrooms. The intention to teach in inclusive classrooms in turn is influenced by three interrelated variables of their attitudes towards inclusion, their competence to teach in an inclusive classroom (i.e. teaching efficacy to teach in inclusive classrooms), and the subjective norm or how the rest of the school community perceives the action of inclusion. The subjective norm for the purpose of this study was defined as collective efficacy beliefs.  It is the first time we are making an attempt to measure collective efficacy beliefs and determine how it interacts with attitudes and efficacy and influences the intentions of the individual teacher in a school.

We established an international group bringing researchers from six countries (Australia, Canada, Greece, Italy, Switzerland and Germany) to undertake a series of projects in examining the role of collective efficacy beliefs in influencing a school's overall commitment towards inclusion. In this symposium, we will present findings from three interrelated projects.

The first paper of this symposium would focus on how we collaborated across different country contexts to conceptualise collective efficacy and commitments towards inclusion. The paper essentially argues that it takes a village (or everyone in the school community) to make collective efforts to make the school inclusive. The second paper of the symposium will discuss qualitative data from four countries where we interviewed principals of highly successful inclusive schools to understand how they build collective commitment to inclusion and how they support the implementation of inclusive practices. In the last paper of this symposium, we will present an analysis of quantitative data from five countries that examined the relationship between three variables of attitudes, individual teaching efficacy beliefs and teachers' intentions to teach in inclusive classrooms. An examination of this relationship is necessary as ultimately, it is school staff intention that actually is the best predictor of their teaching behaviour. 

We hope the symposium will not be of value to researchers and policymakers, it will also be of value to educators. We will share new knowledge related to measuring collective efficacy beliefs and how it interacts with other variables. We will also share the key lessons learnt so far from different countries about how to build collective commitment to inclusion.  

DeMatthews, D., Billingsley, B., McLeskey, J., & Sharma, U. (2020). Principal leadership for students with disabilities in effective inclusive schools. Journal of Educational Administration, 58(5), 539-554. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-10-2019-0177 Finkelstein, S., Sharma, U., & Furlonger, B. (2021). The inclusive practices of classroom teachers: a scoping review and thematic analysis. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 25(6), 735-762. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2019.1572232 Subban, P. Bradford, B., Sharma, U., Loreman, T. Avramidis, E., Kullmann, H., Lozano, C.S., Romano, A., & Woodcock, S. (2022): Does it really take a village to raise a child? Reflections on the need for collective responsibility in inclusive education, European Journal of Special Needs Education, DOI: 10.1080/08856257.2022.2059632 Woodcock, S., and L. M. Woolfson. 2019. “Are Leaders Leading the Way with Inclusion? Teachers’ Perceptions of Systemic Support and Barriers Towards Inclusion.” International Journal of Educational Research 93: 232–242. doi:10.1016/j.ijer.2018.11.004. Wray, E., Sharma, U., & Subban, P. (2022). Factors influencing teacher self-efficacy for inclusive education: a systematic literature review. Teaching and Teacher Education, 117, [103800]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2022.103800