In Norway, The Educational Psychological Service (EPS) is a significant partner to guide and support the development of learning environments for inclusive education (IE) in kindergartens and schools.

The EPS offices are localized at the municipal and county level. The Services' duties are twofold:  to assist the kindergartens' and schools' work on competence enhancement and organizational development in order to improve the adaptation of education for children with special needs and ensure that expert assessments are prepared when required. The Norwegian Education Act (1998) and the Curriculum Framework (2018) emphasise adapted and inclusive education (IE) as the gateway to high-quality education for all, striving for fellowship, participation, democratization and benefit, promoting learning and well-being for all children (Booth, 2011; Haug, 2003, 2010; Fasting & Breilid in press). These values provide a direction for the EPS counsellors to be dialogic partners in helping kindergartens and schools convert inclusive values into everyday practices.

However, research on the EPS' practice shows that limited emphasis has been placed on developing inclusive practices in kindergartens and schools (Moen, Risberg, Samuelsen & Sølvberg, 2018), largely due to the extensive requests for individual expert assessments (Hustad, Strøm & Strømsvik, 2013; Andrews, Lødding, Fylling & Hustad, 2018). Based on the reports and the criticism of Norwegian special education practice and the criticism of the EPS' role regarding the education of pupils with special needs (Haug, 2014; The children's Ombudsman, 2017), it is of interest to explore how inclusion as a concept, strategy, and practice are emphasized in collaborative efforts between kindergartens, schools and the EPS.

Given the challenges of implementing inclusive education, it may be of international interest to gain insight into how Norwegian EPS counsellors try to realize inclusive values when organizational development is on the agenda. Such knowledge may give information on how external parties may be proactive in promoting inclusive practices.

Research question
The aim of the study is to explore how IE, as a concept, strategy and practice, is used as the basis for organizational learning, aiming to improve the quality of education for pupils at risk and with special needs. To our knowledge, there are no such Norwegian studies (Moen, Risberg, Samuelsen & Sølvberg, 2018), and the issue is sparsely focused internationally.

Hence, the research question we want to investigate is: How is IE facilitated, and which properties of IE are emphasized when EPS counsellors collaborate with kindergartens and schools to improve the education for pupils at risk and with special needs?

Accordingly, the aim of this study is to explore how and in what ways the EPS counsellors facilitate organizational learning to strengthen the idea of IE in classrooms and schools for pupils at risk and pupils with special needs.

Project reports from sixty-five EPS-counsellor participating in an in-service program on Organisational Change in Kindergartens and Schools, SEVU-PPT 2013 – 2018, is the empirical basis for the study. The research design uses content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005; Krippendorff, 2004) to extract the initiatives described in the EPS-counsellor reports and to identify to what extent and how the signature characteristics of inclusive education, i.e. fellowship, participation, democratization and benefit of education, were called attention to. The design is based on two intertwining approaches, a) summative content analysis (SC-analysis), and b) directed content analysis (DC-analysis), exploring the reports' use of concepts that promote inclusive values and extract illustrate samples on the initiatives and measures taken. The analysis intends to outline how the project reports describe the strategies and initiatives taken to develop more inclusive school cultures and practices.

We expect that the project reports explicitly will use strategies promoting fellowship, participation, democratization and benefit of education as the basis for competence enhancement and organizational development to enhance early intervention and education for pupils with special educational needs. Furthermore, we expect to find a coherent set of indicators describing the actions taken to promote and safeguard the pupils in question's participation, involvement and benefit of education at different organisational levels (municipality and school). In addition, we expect that the findings will reveal and describe the role of a collaborative change agent aiming to develop more inclusive cultures and practices. The strategies and initiatives involved may serve as a frame of reference, nationally and internationally, on some of the challenges to face when developing kindergartens and schools into inclusive learning communities. The study accentuates the need for a thorough understanding of the ideals of IE to improve the quality of education for children at risk and children with special educational needs.

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