Imagining inclusive teachers: contesting policy assumptions in relation to the development of inclusive practice in schools

In this paper we reflect on data from two research projects in which inclusive practice in schools is at issue, in the light of wider field experience (our own and others’) of school and teacher development. We question what we understand to be relatively common, implicit policy assumptions about how teachers develop, by examining the way in which teachers are portrayed and located in these projects. The examples discussed in this paper draw on experience in Lao PDR and Bangladesh, critically exploring teachers’ roles, position and agency in practice. Similarities and differences rooted in cultural, political and institutional contexts highlight in a very productive way the significance and potential dangers of policy assumptions about teachers within the process of development. In Bangladesh, a success story is presented: the case of a group of schools in which an institutional context for learning appears to sustain teachers’ commitment and motivation, with the effect of creating meaningful outcomes for young people who were previously outside the education system. These data raise questions about the significance of institutional context to teachers’ practices, and questions about approaches to teacher development which omit consideration of that context by, for example, focusing inadvertently on features of individual teachers. We then consider teachers’ responses to the movement for inclusive education in a school in the Lao PDR since 2004. Inclusion here was understood to require a significant shift in teacher identity and a movement away from authoritative pedagogy towards the facilitation of a pedagogy which aimed to encourage the active participation of all students. Through a longitudinal study of teachers in one school, the conditions for such change were identified and again cast doubt on some of the assumptions behind large-scale attempts at teacher development. Reflecting on these experiences and the evidence they provide, we suggest that teacher development programmes are more likely to be effective where teachers are considered not as individuals subject to training but as agents located in an influential institutional context. Introduction In many countries in the world, considerable resources go into teacher development. In this paper we consider the theory of change that is operating in programmes of activity designed to facilitate that development in respect of the inclusiveness of teachers’ work. Inclusion is widely understood to depend to a significant extent on teachers’ assumptions and beliefs-in-action (Howes, Davies et al. 2009), and therefore on all the influences (social, cultural, political) which shape those assumptions and beliefs. Teacher learning happens at many levels, but it seems clear that assumptions and beliefs-in-action are influenced by what might be termed deep rather than shallow learning (Marton and Säljö 1976). In pursuit of a more inclusive education system therefore, the question is how to create the conditions whereby teachers are likely to engage in deep learning in regard to their educational practice. Several questions arise from this understanding, in relation to processes of teacher development and the extent to which they lead to more inclusive practices in schools. How far do the practices and policies of teacher development projects or institutions create conditions for such a process of learning by teachers? To what extent do teachers have the space required for changing their practice? What facilitators and opportunities for inclusion are overlooked by teacher development programmes? We will explore these questions in relation to existing literature and then address them in relation to our two case studies. To what extent does the process of teachers’ learning in relation to inclusion match the assumptions embedded in the policies and practices of teacher development projects or institutions? The relationship between activities of teacher education and the teacher learning that are thereby facilitated has been studied