Breaking down the barriers to inclusion in primary schools
Fri, 13 May 2011 11:17:00 BST
Jonathan Glazzard, Course Leader for the Primary teacher training course is working on some research which is already being used to inform practice in primary schools.
The article, entitled ‘Perceptions of the barriers to effective inclusion in one primary school: Voices of teachers and teaching assistants’, explores the challenges associated with the day-to-day realities of inclusion in the primary school classroom. Jonathan is specialising in this area for his doctorate.
He collected qualitative data from teachers and teaching assistants. The evidence pointed towards a range of approaches to inclusion within one school, and identified key barriers to inclusion, such as lack of resources and training. He also identifies some ways in which schools can advance their practice in the subject.
The research findings are useful as the subject is of increasing interest in primary teaching, and fits well into his teaching of a Diversity and Inclusion module. He has also used his experiences to help final year students conduct data analysis for their dissertations. As he says, ‘The students said it was really helpful because they could see how I analysed my own data and they are able to apply the principles to their own research – good research-informed teaching!’.
This article can be viewed in the University repository at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/9940/
