Expanding Mind-Sets, Transforming Practices: Teachers as Architects of Inclusive Practices

• In Event: Poster Session 16
  In Poster Session: Trends and Issues in Professional Development

Abstract

To develop, implement, and study classroom instructional practices that promote the inclusion of the widest range of students requires that educators move beyond leveling and ability labeling. Such labels and levels serve as justifications for the segregation and systematic exclusion of students from marginalized populations. Moving towards this non-normative stance often creates discomfort in educators as schools have been dominated by a medical model of deficit and disability. Through a year-long, school district-supported professional development project, teachers began to question these normative discourses and some developed their own counter-hegemonic practices and stances. This paper documents the structure and experience of the professional development as well as the emergent counter-hegemonic discourses evident in participants’ inclusive practices.

Authors

• Sarah L. Schlessinger, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Celia J. Oyler, Teachers College, Columbia University