"We Need Structures in Place”: Exploring Special Education Within Policyscaped International Schools Overseas

• In Event: Inclusive Education: Canada’s Connection to the World

Abstract

The purpose of this presentation is to consider challenges of practice, policy, and leadership for providing inclusive education at international schools, focusing on students with known or probable disabilities.

The international school is conceptualized as a policyscape because of transnational/transcultural actors who influence policymaking. Many terms in this study are contested ones. For this presentation, an international school is a private for- or non-profit K-12 school that is externally accredited, follows an externally-developed curriculum, with 50%+ of the instruction carried out in English. A policyscape is a metaphorical landscape involving the pooling of policies from diverse orientations and origins within an organization that reflect diverse cultures, ideologies, and politics. The policyscape leads to positive, negative, and nuanced manifestations that may bring benefits and challenges to the organization. Special education is a term encompassing programs, practices, and policies that are put in place to support students with known and/or probable special needs. The term has been critiqued for its deficit orientation, yet it was used most prevalently at the eleven international schools in this study. International schools are both producers of and products of globalization, thus justifying exploring ideoscapes (Appadurai, 2013) including theorizing about policyscapes (Mettler, 2016). The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal #4 calls for quality education to be accessible to all by 2030 (UN, 2023). Contrasting with this, Bradley (2000) noted over two decades ago that inclusion at international schools is faced with the widespread exception of inclusion based on student ability. Findings from this study indicate that this is still an issue. I question whether examining the policyscape of special education at international schools may provide helpful insights for leaders to approach inclusive education in a way that affirms the positionality of the students, who are generally quite diverse at international schools. Thus, culturally responsive leadership to deal with the policyscape is called for.

A modified narrative inquiry (Clandinin, 2013) for this 3-phase study was developed to explore participants’ experiences. Instruments included two sets of interviews, school visits, reflex journals, photovoice, and memorybox. Seventeen expatriate educators who were living and working in Macau, mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, joined the study. Participants fulfilled roles as teachers, counselors, and leaders. Data were coded using Tracy’s (2020) phronetic approach and narrated as seven thematic stories.

Three policyscapes formed one of the seven stories. The policyscape of special education was the one the most discussed by participants at all 11 international schools. Tensions faced included providing supports to students with known or probable special education needs. Participants cited cultural clashes between policies and parental expectations with leaders experiencing more agency to provide students with individual supports as needed, even if this meant acting beyond the policies. Teachers feared reprisal. Counselors reported high stress, observing closely the impact upon students.

Educational institutions continue exploring glocal policymaking (including both global and local priorities), conversations and further research about how policyscapes impact policy actors, stakeholders, and how these implicate school leadership and professional practice are needed. Learnings about this topic stand to benefit students and also educators, leaders, researchers, and policymakers.

Author

• Rebecca Stroud, Wilfrid Laurier University