The presentation explores the education of multilingual students with special educational needs in Norway. It questions how the teaching is characterized and organised, considering the Education Act’s requirement for individually adapted teaching. The presentation highlights the importance of culturally responsive perspectives, recognizing students’ languages and backgrounds as resources, and discuss further the challenges in identifying factors that define good special education and the need for coherence between special and regular education for positive learning outcomes (Festøy & Haug, 2017). In a complementary understanding of teaching, the quality of the regular teaching procedures greatly influences both the need for extra measures, and also the value of these same accommodations (Haug, 2017, p. 386). The theoretical perspectives are drawn from multicultural pedagogy and special education. The research question I seek to answer is: “How does the organisation of multilingual students in special education affect the inclusion process?”

Identifying factors for effective special education remains challenging, leading to exploration of its pedagogic signature. Disagreements persist in literature regarding distinctions between special and regular education. The signature comprises three levels: surface structure, deep structure, and implicit structure (Haug, 2015). A culturally responsive perspective, recognizing students’ languages and cultures as resources, is central across all levels (Remøy & Skrefsrud, 2024).

Despite some adaptations, much of the teaching lacks sufficient adjustment, particularly in regular classes where their linguistic and cultural backgrounds are often overlooked. The premises for adapted teaching are minimally fulfilled, suggesting schools may lack awareness of the potential scope for action within their organisation. There is minimal difference between the content of adapted teaching, special education, and regular provisions. Special education methods often mirror regular teaching, leading to fragmented routines and lack of cohesion for students. Segregation from regular teaching for special education and language instruction can hinder both academic and social inclusion. Students can be excluded on several levels through active exclusion from the teaching in the regular class, but also through exclusion in the teaching that is part of the education offered (Nes, 2017).

The findings show that the school leaders care about the education as a whole and wish to build on the linguistic and cultural experiences that the students bring with them. Thus they base the school’s practice on a culturally sensitive pedagogy, in which adapted teaching also involves being aware of and using the linguistic and cultural accomplishments of the pupils (Ladson-Billings, 1995; Remøy & Skrefsrud, 2024). Although, however, the pupils’ experiences are highly valued, the language does not appear to function as a tool in the teaching, but instead is reduced to a transition ritual with a compensatory value. This is reflected in the various ways of organizing the education.Even though the administrations at the case-schools were mindful of the role of the first language in their education and claimed that they were very concerned about taking into account the culture and language the pupils brought with them to school, we see the gap between good intentions and what is actually possible to do on a daily basis at school (Remøy & Skrefsrud, 2024).
The lacking realisation in practice of the intentions weakens the long-term perspective that Paris (2012) speaks of as being necessary to anchor the culturally sensitive pedagogy in the school’s systems. This implementation depends on continuity and integration in the way school is conceived (Gay, 2013; Paris, 2012). However, when these intentions are not translated into practice, and the L1 is only used sporadically, the education of these pupils becomes random and can hardly be thought of as qualifying the multilingual pupils to participate in society (Remøy & Skrefsrud, 2024).

My PhD-project is part of a research cooperation between Volda University College, Hedmark University College and the Norwegian Research Council (The Function of Special Education/ The SPEED project) . The project was conducted as a case study and focuses on four multilingual students with special needs. Data was collected through participatory observation and field conversations with key actors around the students. In this presentation I focus on interviews with the teachers and the principals. The intention is to gain further understanding about the phenomenon multilingual students in special education. The design can be defined as exploratory. The case study is both descriptive in the way that I wish to describe a phenomenon in the real world, but also explanatory by focusing on explaining how and why something happened in the special way. The case-study is an intrinsic case-study in the way that each case is important in itself (Stake, 2000). Contextual understanding of each case is crucial for interpretation. Observations include both ‘thin’ (factual) and ‘thick’ (interpretive) descriptions. An experience-near approach was used for first-order interpretation, with more experience-distant forms of analysis for second-order interpretation. At the same time the analytical generalization depends on the theoretical framework of the study to establish a logic that can be relevant also in other situations (Yin, 2012). Analysis was based on thematic network analysis, with recurring themes of teacher expertise, organisation, use of first language, and academic content. The study is registered with the Norwegian Centre for Research Data (NSD) and adheres to ethical guidelines for research on vulnerable groups.

Organisation of the students was explained on both academic and pragmatic grounds. Academically the multilingual students are continually assessed in relation to their Norwegian-language capabilities, which results in placement in various group constellations linked to different levels. At the same time, we find that it can be an untenable situation for the teachers to have the multilingual pupils in class. Those pupils who are taught outside the regular provisions thus serve a double function, whereby the teaching that is intended to accommodate these pupils, at the same time serves as a relief for the teacher. A pertinent question then is whether the level placement provides ideal circumstances for a dynamic differentiation of the adapted teaching, or whether it is more a static placement based on a snapshot of the Norwegian-language proficiency, or even a practical solution that shows more consideration for the teachers than for the multilingual pupils with special educational needs. The organisation of special education can be built around different types of pedagogical support systems, (Nordahl & Overland, 2021), the same can be said about multilingual education. The need to look at the organisation of multilingual students who are learning Norwegian, requires increased competence among all the teachers in the school about inclusion (Hanssen et al., 2024, p. 273). The organisation of the teaching has a great significance for the content and the conditions for an inclusive education. The way the teaching is organized around one of the students in this study, it is easier to create coherence than is the case with the other students. However, the study shows that the services offered to the multilingual students who receive special education are shaped by the premises for the organisation of the teaching and by the enthusiasm and expertise of each individual teacher.

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