The international trend for including students with special educational needs/disabilities (SEND) in mainstream/regular classrooms has been accompanied and facilitated by a group of paraprofessionals known variously as teaching assistants, teacher aides, paraeducators, student assistants, and special needs assistants. 

The rise of teaching assistants (TAs) in many developed countries has been rapid [1]. TAs have become so pivotal to inclusion that their employment and deployment is the dominant model of inclusion in many education systems across the world, almost to the exclusion of other approaches [2]. 

While emerging evidence suggests that the role and impact TAs have in schools varies across and within countries, far less is known about who TAs are, the nature of their work, and their working conditions. 

International comparative studies of TAs are extremely rare. The limited number of studies that exist are mainly small-scale qualitative studies comparing TAs in two or three countries [3,4]. There are also a small number of summaries that collate individual descriptions of the situation regarding TAs in a set of jurisdictions [5,6], but the presentation of this evidence lacks structure, making reliable comparisons difficult.

The OECD’s influential surveys of international education provide policymakers with valuable evidence and insight on teachers – but not TAs. The Indicators of Education Systems programme only collects data on TAs’ gender, work intensity (e.g. full/part-time) and the phase of education in which they work. And the influential Teaching and Learning International Survey does not collect any data on TAs, as they are “not considered to be teachers and, thus, not part of [its] target population” [7]. 

More information on TAs’ characteristics and the conditions under which they are employed and deployed could inform and improve decision-making, and lead to greater consistency and impact at national, regional and school level. 

One impediment to advancing the international research agenda on TAs is that there is no common framework for collecting and synthesising systematic data on TAs at scale, across a large number of jurisdictions. The International Teaching Assistant Research Network (ITARN), which was formed in response to an EERA blog [8], has developed a draft framework to address this gap.

The Comparative Framework on TAs (CoFTA) is designed to structure the collection and analysis of comparative data on TAs, their roles and their working lives.  

This symposium presents findings from an original, international collaboration between leading researchers in the field of TAs from five major education and cultural contexts. We will introduce the comparative framework and explain its rationale and development, before presenting the results of analyses using the framework, which explore the everyday role of TAs in five international contexts: England, UK; Shanghai, China; USA; Germany; and Ireland. 

Each paper explores the policies and other forces that have shaped the formal and informal role and practice of the TA role in each context; that is, what TAs should do and what they actually do as part of their everyday work. Furthermore, the papers exemplify the practical application and potential of the framework as a tool for organising and analysing comparative data on TAs.

The sixth and final paper looks across data from the different contexts to summarise key similarities and differences regarding the TA role internationally. It will also consider the strengths and limitations of the framework as an analytical tool, and assess its potential use in large-scale international comparative research.

The symposium will conclude with questions and reflections from delegates, and an invitation from the ITARN network to contribute to the next stage of the framework’s  development through critique and further piloting.

Varsik. (2022). A snapshot of equity and inclusion in OECD education systems. OECD Library. https://doi.org/10.1787/801dd29b-en Giangreco. (2021). Maslow's hammer: Teacher assistant research and inclusive practices at a crossroads. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 36(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/08856257.2021.1901377 Fritzsche & Köpfer. (2021). (Para-)professionalism in dealing with structures of uncertainty – a cultural comparative study of teaching assistants in inclusion-oriented classrooms. Disability & Society, 37(6). https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2020.1867068 Devecchi et al. (2012). Inclusive classrooms in Italy and England: The role of support teachers and teaching assistants. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 27(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/08856257.2011.645587 Masdeu Navarro. (2015). Learning support staff: A literature review. https://doi.org/10.1787/19939019 Giangreco et al. (2014). Teacher assistants in inclusive schools. In L. Florian (Ed.), The SAGE Handbook of Special Education. OECD. (2021). Technical notes for TALIS 2018. https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/baeccd55-en.pdf?expires=1729692074&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=CA6CE279778811C4E38D5F0FA158C2C3 Webster (2021). Internationalising research on teaching assistants: A call for expressions of interest in creating a research network. https://blog.eera-ecer.de/internationalising-research-on-tas/