All around the world, teachers face the challenge of addressing diversity in their classrooms and supporting and guiding their students' learning processes by providing suitable learning opportunities that cater to all students. Not only since the Salamanca Statement (1994), the formulation and ratification of the UN-CRPD (United Nations, 2006), or the publication of the Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations, 2015), diversity has been recognized as a key concept in education. However, inclusive education remains one of the main challenges for teachers (forsa, 2020), as they are tasked to adapt their pedagogical approaches, materials, and interventions to accommodate the variety of learning styles, prior knowledge, and overall student diversity. Although this can be highly demanding, many educators succeed in developing very intriguing, creative, innovative, and diverse solutions to support their students’ learning and development (Florian & Black-Hawkins, 2011).

Following the premise that educators in school contexts all around the globe encounter similar, albeit contextually embedded, challenges with inclusive education, a transcultural research study that is engaged in the analysis of mutual phenomena across diverse fields (Dinkelaker et al., 2011, p. 259) appears promising. Especially, as  “[w]e live in an increasingly globalised world” (The Maastricht Global Education Declaration, 2002, p. 3) due to technological advancements, migration, and the blurring of (national) borders, this research perspective is of great contemporary relevance. Instead of comparing fields along their differences, as it is often done in international comparative research, this study aims to explore diverse interpretations of inclusion and their incorporation in teachers' practices across various contexts. Artiles and Dyson (2005, p. 42) in this regard state that learning “in one country from practices and forms of provision developed elsewhere may be enormously positive in a world situation where millions of learners are unable to participate fully in current educational arrangements”. Educators who encounter challenges of inclusive education that seem insurmountable in one context, thus might profit from the experiences of educators elsewhere, who have been facing similar situations and found promising solutions. Given the influence of divergent political, cultural, economic, and social backgrounds on the perception and handling of diversity (Hummrich & Rademacher, 2013; Sturm, 2013), a wide range of compelling, creative, and purposeful inclusive teaching strategies has emerged internationally.

The paper provides insights into the results of a transcultural study that succeeded in collecting qualitative interview data from over 70 educators across 14 countries around the world, focusing on their understandings and approaches to handling diversity in school. Building up on the data analysis and exemplary data excerpts, the presentation illustrates outcomes of the Grounded Theory based research study. This way, the following research questions will be briefly answered and discussed:

1. What contextual (e.g., spatial accessibility) and personal (e.g., visual impairment) teaching challenges do educators from diverse global contexts perceive?
2. Which strategies and interventions do teachers in different contexts use to address these subjectively perceived challenges and to support their students?
3. How can these inclusive teaching approaches be transculturally systemized and linked to meaningful inclusive assessment?

By addressing these questions, the study contributes to a broader understanding of how inclusive education practices can be shared and systematized across different cultural contexts. Simultaneously, the paper presentation stimulates discussion on the relevance of context analysis and international exchange on the global goal of inclusive education.

Based on these research questions, the study pursues a bottom-up approach building up on an adaption of Grounded Theory Methodology (short: GTM) for transcultural research (e.g., Charmaz, 2006; Nayar & Wright-St Clair, 2020). Given the global scope of the research study, an innovative and, so far, rarely used method of online data collection was employed. Through a data-secure and easily accessible online platform, teachers worldwide were invited to share their experiences with inclusive education. The survey was made available in English, German, and Japanese and educators could participate anonymously, asynchronously, and flexibly. Using Asynchronous Narrative Audio-messages (Kleinlein, 2023) or brief written explanations, participants were invited to elaborate on one specific case or situation in the context of diversity and inclusion in their practice that they subjectively navigated successfully. Subsequently, a semi-open online questionnaire was in place to collect additional information on the participants’ contexts and professional backgrounds. While some of the data obtained was very comprehensive and insightful, other responses were less detailed or more limited in their informative value. To validate and enrich the digitally collected data set, multiple school visits as well as about ten guideline based in-person interviews with educators from diverse contexts were conducted. This way, deeper insights into specific local contexts in Europe and Asia was gained and methodological considerations regarding contextualization, transferability, comparison, and ethics could be explored in more detail. Instead of conducting a comparative analysis of supposedly clearly delineated fields (D'Alessio & Watkins, 2009), this study perceives inclusive teaching as a global challenge teachers face (Ainscow, 2021). Accordingly, by building up on the research questions of how diversity is perceived by the participants (1) and what practical consequences are drawn from it (2), the data analysis led to the development of a transcultural systematization of inclusive teaching practices (3). The final output thus systematizes perceived challenges and respective inclusive teaching approaches and, consequently, suggests possible strategies to promote inclusive education globally. In light of current migration and globalization movements, the pluralization of fields, the increasing diversity of society, and the general necessity and responsibility to provide education for all, this research study and the respective findings thus are timely and significant.

The final result of the study is, as mentioned earlier, a transcultural grounded theory on educators’ inclusive teaching practices. While this emerging theory can self-evidently not claim to be complete or globally applicable without adaption and careful reflection, it nevertheless constitutes a valuable contribution to capture the global aim of inclusive education from practitioners’ individual perspectives. The research findings show how different dimensions of diversity – such as religion, gender, culture, language, and abilities – become relevant across diverse contexts. Moreover, the results show that although different solutions and educational approaches are pursued by teachers around the world, there are also some great parallels and similarities that teachers globally share – such as practices of differentiation and the appreciation of the individual learner. By jointly examining educators’ perceived challenges in the context of inclusive education and the subjectively successful solutions they found to address these challenges, insights into the complex field of inclusive teaching are gained. As schools, teachers, and students are highly diverse and do not only differ across cultures and countries but also within smaller contexts, a great variety of complex educational practices is in place (Amor et al., 2018). Therefore, exchanging internationally and particularly also on the level of practitioners appears as a valuable approach that can enrich the further development of theory and practice in inclusive education. Especially due to current political developments and the unfortunate observation that learners globally are still excluded from education, engagement in and promotion of the issue is now particularly essential.

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