Centre for Special Educational Needs, Disability and Inclusive Education (SENDIN)

Welcome back to the spring term and the first Centre meeting which will be in person in BC06 and on teams online on 30 Jan 1-2.15pm. – see link below.

A paper has been suggested as one that we might read and discuss in a centre meeting, it is TEACHERS’ DISEMPOWERMENT AND INCLUSIVE EDUCATION: A critical realist view by Areti Stylianou and Michalinos Zembylas. Below is a summary of what they are trying to do in this paper:

In this chapter, we put forward a different explanation about teachers’ negative attitudes, beliefs, and values towards inclusive education and teachers’ ‘failure’ to teach inclusively. We argue that the futility teachers feel about inclusive classrooms comes because they are disempowered by the impossible task claimed by inclusivity itself. This chapter suggests that a critical realist framework (Bhaskar, 1998, 2008, 2016) – in contrast to empiricist or constructivist perspectives underpinning mainstream explanations – can help explain the futility that teachers feel about inclusive classroom as reality.

It would be good to have a mix of people in person and online at the meeting.  Copy of paper attached below. 

Brahm Norwich, Centre Convenor