Teacher Identity in Inclusive Teacher Preparation: A Literature Review

• In Event: 52.083 - Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: 52.083-15 - Dis/Ability Identities

Abstract

As integration of students with disabilities in general education has increased, so too have teacher education programs intensified efforts to bring together the separate worlds of special education and general education. In this review of the literature on inclusive teacher preparation, I examine the ways that inclusivity is conceptualized in curricula and programmatic design for inclusive teachers. Critical discourse analysis reveals the framing and enactment of a particular and recognizable identity of the inclusive teacher largely determined by students’ ability classifications that are founded on the teaching of non-normative students within general education settings. Efforts to prepare inclusion teachers in the tradition of combining general and special education practice continue to perpetuate normalized paradigms of ability.

Author

• Francesca Ciotoli, Montclair State University