Teaching Inclusive Education in Higher Education: Perspectives From Teacher Educators in Brazil, Germany, Japan, and Norway

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

Abstract

1. Objectives or purposes
Based on the phrase ”Teachers teach as they were taught, not as they were taught to teach” (Altmann 1983, p. 24) university teacher-educators from Brazil, Germany, Japan and Norway developed a seminar on inclusive education based on international exchange. By doing so, the pre-service teachers’ respective own school system can be viewed through the eyes of the ‘others’ and thus the familiar can be made strange.
The purpose of this contribution is to shed light on the expectations as well as the experiences of teacher-educators regarding this seminar. Their expectations have been related to their previous experiences in teaching inclusive education in Brazil, Germany, Japan and Norway, and can be compared internationally.

2. Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
At least two approaches to teaching inclusive education in higher education can be distinguished: On the one hand, individualizing perspectives on disability are implemented, i.e. providing expertise on ‚specific‘ students, their so-called special educational needs and binary groupings of students (dis/abled). On the other hand, a deconstructionist perspective on the social emergence of disabilities and educational inequalities is implemented for example by case- and problem-based learning. The international collaborative remote seminar can be assigned to the latter approach, which is theoretically grounded in symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969). This, in turn, also provides the methodological framework for the qualitative research of teacher educators' interpretations of their teaching experiences in the field of inclusive education and their expectations that they associate with the seminar.

3. Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
The expectations of teacher educators, which they associate with the international collaborative remote seminar, as well as their previous experiences in teaching inclusive education have been collected through expert interviews (Bogner, Littig & Menz, 2009; Döringer, 2021) and analyzed according to grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014).

4. Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials
The sample consists of four participating teacher educators and four colleagues recommended by and working closely with them at their respective university. These eight respondents from Brazil, Germany, Japan and Norway were interviewed after the preparation, but before the realization of the seminar. Thus, their expectations are captured as well as their previous experiences in teaching inclusive education.

5.Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view
In the interviews, challenges regarding both the topic (inclusive education) and preparing a class in English emerged as well as the high interest of teacher educators to improve their own teaching of inclusive education and to offer pre-service teachers the opportunity to reflect on their own and respective social constructions of (dis)ability through the international exchange.

6. Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work
Studies on inclusive education in higher education often focus on the competence development of pre-service teachers. This study is to be understood as complementary, insofar as it examines the expectations and experiences of teacher educators and thus indirectly sheds light on pre-service teachers' learning of inclusive education.

Author

• Lisa Rosen, University of Koblenz-Landau