How Online Collaborative Learning Experiences Impact German and Japanese Preservice Teachers' Perceptions About Inclusion

• In Event: International Collaborative Remote Teaching of Inclusive Education to Preservice Teachers: Challenges and Possibilities

Abstract

1.Objectives or purposes
The objective of this paper is to identify the key elements of learning that German and Japanese pre-service teachers gained from an online learning class about inclusion. We highlight the learning process of how pre-service teachers’ perceptions and ideas about inclusion and barriers to achieve inclusion changed by encountering different ideas and practices.
2.Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
Symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969) focuses on the meanings that individuals create, exchange, and interpret through human communication as symbolic interactions where individuals co-construct and attach meanings to concepts and events through social interactions. From this perspective, how we understand and practice inclusion is our way of constructing meanings. We therefore attach meaning to the idea of inclusion. By interacting with others and going to schools as pupils, we learn what are the right and/or normal ways of how education is done. We also interpret the social meanings attached to all people, and any sub-groups we decide to adopt. German pre-service teachers’ are trained in four different programs corresponding to the type of school they are going to teach in (high, middle, low or special ed), while Japanese students are taught in one teacher training program only. The German students’ ideas about how inclusion should be practiced corresponds more to the school type they are studying to be teachers for, while their Japanese counterparts take inclusive education as a task for every teacher.
3.Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
An exploratory case study was used to capture the participating pre-service teachers’ perceptions and reactions to inclusion; this was necessary since the ideas are so fluid and contemporary that the researchers do not have control (Yin, 2009).
4.Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials
We interviewed 3 focus groups who have taken the collaboratively developed online global learning class about inclusion. The two primary questions we asked were 1) the students’ perceptions and understanding of inclusive education and 2) how their perceptions changed by interacting with their international counterparts.
5.Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view
Both German and Japanese students shared the idea that inclusion is about including everyone to “regular” or “normal” tracks of education programs. However, the individual differences were found in their interpretations of what regular or normal should mean. German students tended to compartmentalize the places within the school system where pupils can access their education. On the other hand, Japanese students tend to idealize the situation where all individuals are in the same places regardless of their diverse needs.
6.Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work
This encounter with the different ideas about inclusion and example practices provided the pre-service teachers with learning opportunities to capture the idea of inclusion at a deeper level. They understood how some barriers to social and academic participation are shared internationally, while other barriers are intertwined with local issues. More than anything, they now have international friends with whom they can continue discussing these issues.

Authors

• Naomi Kagawa, Shimane University

• Tanja Sturm, Martin Luther University Halle Wittenberg