The thesis is based on the study of Chinese emergent bilingual children in English mainstream classrooms. Participants in the study include three children of newly arrived families and a group of 13-14 year old Chinese students who have lived in Britain for at least 5 years. I use a variety of ethnographic methods to highlight what it means to be a newcomer in the mainstream English classroom. Three themes - isolation, misunderstandins and frustration are highlighted in the pilot study, through which I illustrate the problematic nature of inclusion in the mainstream class, with particular interest in analysing what might be the root of the problematic nature of inclusion in the mainstream class, what `equality of opportunity' really means to emergent bilingual children as they enter English schools with a limited knowledge of English and the dominant culture, how equal `the same' curriculum is for them, and how far the provision for them in the present curriculum reflects generally accepted principles for successful second language learning. I conclude that it is the loss of individualism that promotes problems in the mainstreaming of the educational provision. In the main study I investigate the key questions that have arisen from the pilot study, through an ethnographic approach to studying EAL programmes within the framework of the mainstream provision, the role of bilingual peer support in second language learning and the role of parental involvement, I want to identify `what is it that contributed to the success of those older bilingual children? ', `which features in L2 learning have been most significant in explaining some good examples of linguistic support for emergent bilingual children? ', whereby I argue that the principle of inclusion does not exclude strategies that involved some withdrawal EAL support out of the mainstream classroom; that an exaggeration of the advantages of bilingual learner diverts attention from the children's need for extra help in English; that the potential cognitive and linguistic advantages of bilingual learners can only be developed through an effective learning environment. Whether or not bilinguality is a positive asset depends on how those emergent bilinguals are treated in the mainstream class or in other words, recognition of the children's `disadvantage' could lead to a more positive recognition of their `advantage' in school. This study is of prime importance to those concerned with the education of emergent bilingual children, including local education authority (LEA) officers, inspectors, advisers, teachers, community associations, parents, teacher trainers and policy makers. I hope the proposed work will make a contribution to our knowledge of the school experience of emergent bilingual children as well as possible curriculum and policy developments that might take place in future to serve better bilingual students.

Immigration is part of the UK's history but with the expansion of the European Union (EU) over the last decade to include a number of Eastern European countries, many Eastern European families have migrated to the UK. The school in which this research was based had seen a huge rise in the number of Slovakian pupils attending, many of whom were Roma. The research focused on how to promote the inclusion of these Slovakian pupils. Through action research I worked with nine staff, four teachers, four teaching assistants (TAs) and the Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCo), and together we discussed the issues they experienced in promoting the inclusion of Slovakian pupils. I also gathered the views of five Slovakian children through a focus group and used visual methods to promote a more child-friendly design. Staff used the information gathered from their collaborative reflection and from the children to devise actions that could promote inclusion further. Thematic analysis of the children's experiences of school suggested that they enjoyed and valued coming to school because of the social and academic opportunities it brought. However, it also indicated that the children experienced vulnerability due to barriers they faced and changes they had endured, and that this vulnerability was in part displayed through the negative behaviour of fighting. Thematic analysis of staff meetings indicated that their perceptions of Slovakian culture changed, as did their self-efficacy towards promoting inclusion, through their participation in the research and system-Wide changes to the school context. Findings raised implications for school staff and Educational Psychologists (EPs) working in diverse communities and highlighted the value of action research in such contexts.

The twist towards having narrative and story telling methods in social sciences is yielding rich harvest of research conclusions. This method is a way of vitaii2ing the relationship between policy and practice. It is a technique that provides a more meaningful and creative practitioner- service-user relationship and a better understanding of professional sound practices. Being an ocular-centred community, we need to analyse what is happening and to read stores that are close to the reality we are succumbed to. These are stories that transcend from the people to the people, rather than from the researchers/academics to researchers/ academics. Narratives are often intersected by multiple allegiances ranging from a historical context to political conformity, from grass-root struggles to social constructions and cultural hegemonisation, from researcher consent to economic agendas. Maybe the most complex of all issues is not the presentation of stories but to figure out and recognise what constitutes a story, defining story limits, recognising the usefulness of narration and finally reflecting whether the morale of narrations is context-bound. This work is based on the power of stories. This research becomes the process of not only identifying the complex dynamics and snags surrounding the "inclusion" agenda I am engrossed in, but also maps out a way to get back on track and to come up with answers. The core of my research lies in my semi-fictitious stories that I have written and relocated back to the varied contexts I am involved in using focus groups as my modus operandi. Conversely, this scenario is complemented by autobiographies I assembled from disabled persons, a parent activist and a 'labelled' student. In other words, it is an enmeshment of auto-ethnographic and narrative enquiry. This work has contributed towards an understanding of the ways the stories of children at the margins can be used to promote critical debates about "inclusion". The different perspectives of parent and disabled activists, university students, labelled students, teachers, and social workers - all contexts I am closely involved with, are drawn upon to inform a transformative agenda and to outline practices that enable "inclusion". The work is split into three main portions. The first part includes the Preamble, Introduction and Literature Review and provides us with the main ingredients that have fashioned my thinking. The second part of my Thesis includes the Methods and Methodological issues in depth and the narratives, autobiographies and auto-ethnographic findings that have made up my research base. Finally, part three of this study will take account of the data analysis and the mapping out of a transformative agenda, the conclusions and commitments.

An overview of current research and literature has established that there is little information about the views and perceptions of those young people who have had a statement ceased. The views of how these particular pupils were involved in the process of the statutory assessment, the issuing of their statement, the benefits of the support allocated to them and the subsequent ceasing of their statement were obtained using a semi-structured interview. In order to construct a shared understanding of the SEN culture experienced by them, their perceptions of this culture was obtained through the use of a business management tool called the 'cultural web' (Johnson and Scholes, 1999). Based on the young people's combined descriptors and characteristics of current SEN culture, the cultural web framework enabled the design of two cultural webs, the SEN culture experienced by them and the SEN culture to 'aspire' to. This research fundamentally supports current legislation and policy, in particular the recent Education and Inspections Act (2006) that states that Local Authorities are now required to ascertain young people's views on activities, facilities and provision, and to ensure that these are taken into account. The key findings of the research suggest that the majority of the young people interviewed were effective in identifying factors and practical solutions that could contribute to improving the SEN culture that they had experienced. Their knowledge and experiences need to be incorporated into various SEN processes, and the recommendations made in this thesis are very much based on these. It also highlighted that, contrary to legislation and policy, these young people were not generally provided with an opportunity to have their voice heard within the SEN culture, and as a result felt themselves passive participants within the education and SEN systems.

This thesis is the story of one teacher's practice in the field of special educational needs. It examines the purpose and themes of her published work. The purpose of this writing has been to challenge perspectives of children, and of learning and teaching, in the context of inclusion. This has been undertaken by exploring hidden aspects of teacher-learner relationships, developed and demonstrated in classroom interaction. These include attitudes and assumptions that may limit learning, and involve the themes of identity, agency and voice. Research, writing and teaching has been used to challenge perspectives of teachers, and teacher educators, in relation to what we know about learners with special educational needs and how we come to know about them. It argues for an ontological focus in relation to understanding the learner and an epistemology based on imagination and empathy. The contribution to knowledge claimed in this thesis involves the development of a pedagogical approach that enables teachers to identify and challenge underlying assumptions in the field of special educational needs. The process has the potential to empower teachers to change their perspectives and to act in relation to these new understandings in inclusive classrooms.

This small-scale piece of practitioner research centres on the participation and learning experience of one group of year 7/8 pupils. My aim was to increase pupil participation in learning. I considered the pupil experience of inclusion and factors which promoted or undermined participation in learning. The investigation is in two phases. The first stage is a case study in which I investigate the school's organisational culture and how the features of school impinge on pupils' participation and inclusion. The second phase is classroom-based research, which is divided into four action cycles, each progressively focusing on an improvement in pupil participation in learning,which emerged from the previous cycle. Findings showed that the biggest barriers to pupils' learning were the school's organisational culture (which led to pupils' low self-esteem), over reliance on teacher support and lack of autonomy. Pupils' participation improved, together with their self-esteem by being given a choice and a voice, by being supported in identifying their learning styles and by teachers having high expectations of them in completing tasks which made sense and had purpose.

This research project emerged in the context of the apparent paradox between the then New Labour Government's agenda for more 'inclusive' education practices on the one hand and yet the high level of school exclusions and expansion of segregated units on the other. I sought to enquire into how these tensions were negotiated and what understandings of inclusive education emerged in the primary school context; situating these processes within wider local and national policy contexts. An ethnographic study was undertaken, located in one inner London Primary school. Fieldwork involved non-participant observation over one academic year; concluding with semi-structured interviews with both children and staff. Routine moments of every day classroom experience revealed 'rather simple technical procedures' (Rose, 1999 p.135) functioning as 'disciplinary power' that 'compares, differentiates, hierarchizes, homogenizes, excludes' (Foucault 1979). 'Dividing practices' (Foucault 1979) such as grouping by perceived ability pervaded children's daily classroom experiences as school staff worked to enact the plethora of initiatives and directives issued from central government agencies. Through the same processes that served an over-riding drive to 'fix' or repair children in order to meet the normative demands of the 'standards agenda' expressed most visibly in high stakes testing, nationally set targets and associated 'league tables', it is suggested that children as school pupils were increasingly 'fixed' as educational subjects positioned in a finely graded hierarchy. I argue that routine processes of 'good practice' in every classroom functioned as 'gentle' exclusionary practices (Bourdieu and Champagne 1999 pp. 422-423) constituting 'student identities within the terms of enduring and predictable categorisations' (Youdell 2006 p. 177). This problematises 'the interpretation of what 'inclusiveness' is and to whom it extends' (Graham 2006 p.20).

No description available.

The idea for this research emerged following previous experiences in schools in Germany and England, noting their differences and similarities, and their equally persistent problems responding to diversity inclusively. The thesis consists of an in-depth exploration of cultures, policies and practices in schools and their rationales regarding the development of inclusion in education. At the core of the thesis are responses to diversity I perceived in two primary schools, one in London and one in Berlin, focusing in particular on the active participation of staff. My experiences were systematised through an international, ethnographic case study approach, which included six months fieldwork, as a participant observer, conducting semistructured interviews and exploring school documents. I investigated the participation of children, parents and staff – the three main groups of people in the schools – looking at their roles, their interaction and the barriers they experience. I related my findings to current notions of inclusion and responses to diversity in education, both in the respective literature and in policy documents, highlighting local, national and international differences, their mismatch with educational practice and resulting discriminatory effects. I found the active participation of staff to be an essential condition for inclusion in education, which has so far been treated peripherally. The barriers they experience to their own participation limit their capacity to respond inclusively to diversity and to establish communities in which everyone, all children and all adults, are valued equally. Additionally, parents and children were found to be potential contributors to developments towards inclusion, but were often excluded from contributing to developments in educational practice, so their potential strengths as resources for inclusion were lost. Consequently, I argue that any approach to inclusion in education has to increase the participation of staff, as well as being supported through the contributions of children and parents. I suggest a model for inclusive school development: namely, a collaborative process between all concerned, to increasingly mobilise the individual strengths of adults and children to support the participation of all: children, parents and staff.

Text in Afrikaans / Presently, within the South African Educational system. there is an indinatlon towards a single indusive educational system. Since the implementation of such a system lodges with the educator within the classroom. factors that have a bearing on the role of the educator. seen from an educational psychological perspective in conjunction with a literature study as well as a quantitative research are hereby researched. Attention is also devoted to the setting of guidelines by the educational psychologist for the educator in respect of the implementation of this given concept. / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Voorligting)