This diploma thesis deals with problematics of inclusive education in kindergarten. This study aimed to determine kindergarden teachers's attitudes to inclusive education. The other objectives of this project are to analyze proposals and recommendations of addressed teachers concerning increasing efficiency of inclusive education. Apart from that, the present work also describes how teachers perceive the role of teacher assistant in inclusive education. This research is divided into a theoretical and practical part. First part describes theoretical resources of inclusive education in kindergarten. It defines key notions of inclusive education, charakterizes preschool child, kindergarten itself and education of children with special educational needs in kindergartens. The practical part analyzes information, which was gained during dialogues with teachers in kindergarten. The objective of this part was to determine kindergarten teacher's oppinions and attitudes to inclusive education. In a conclusion of the research achieved konwledge is compared with conformable research, which where done in described problematics.

This diploma theses is focused on problems of educational support tools for pupils of 1 st grade of The Elementary Special School. A theoretical part deals with problems of the mental handicap, mainly factors that significantly influence ability of education, and with a contemporary legislation of education of children with spetial educational needs. Furthermore it describes teaching programmes and didactic tools which are used at The Elementary Special Schools. Research target of the study is to find out a teacher's opinion about current teaching supports for given type of school and a survey of teacher's experience with use of new methods especially in relation to pupils who are usually integrated to their classes. Innovated teaching supports created on the basis of previous experience are subsequently verified in praxis and results of verification are partially documented by examples. According to research, current educational supports are convenient for pupils who cope with stipulated schoolwork easily. The other pupils have considerable difficulties to manage schoolwork therefore they need adapted teaching materials for their educational abilities. There are some examples of these materials in the attachment. KEYWORDS: mental disability, special education needs, elementary special school,...

Bullying, in its many different face-to-face and cyber manifestations, profoundly impacts involved youth, particularly those with special education needs. Schools have typically focused on policing the bullies, while teaching victims of bullying effective reactive responses. The objective of this study was to identify those students at greatest risk, the factors placing them at risk, and to understand the source of their consequently aggressive social behaviours and communication. Understanding root causes thereby enables schools to shift toward proactively preventing bullying behaviours. Evidence suggests that adolescents with Emotional and Behavioural Disorders (EBD) are overrepresented in the face-to-face bullying dynamic. Through a social-ecological lens, the current study compares bullying involvement among typically developing adolescents (n = 134) with EBD adolescents (n = 30), and considers how within-person characteristics of adolescents with EBD are influenced by and interact with bi-directional microsystem (i.e. family, friends, teachers, school) and macrosystem (i.e. social and educational patterns of programming) factors to increase or decrease face-to-face- and cyber-bullying involvement. As hypothesized, adolescents with EBD were significantly more involved in both face-to-face- and cyber-bullying and –victimization. Predictive factors were uniquely identified for on- and off-line bullying and victimization. The current findings demonstrate a need to approach bullying prevention proactively by aiming resources at the source of social aggression. / Graduate

Magister Educationis - MEd / This study provides educators with an opportunity to share their commitments and biases, their beliefs about what these learners need and what, as educators, they have to offer them. The study focuses specifically on what curriculum educators believe should be offered to the youth in these centres. It is important to note that the focus of the thesis is on the educational debates and challenges within SYCECs, and not on the overall goals and role to be played by these institutions in rehabilitating youth. This piece of work acknowledges the systemic issues that impact on learning and development of youth, but foregrounds what learners in SYCECs should be taught and why. This is its main contribution. / South Africa

Doctor Educationis / The aim of this research was to establish how successfully schools in the foundation phase (Grades 1 and 2), where training and implementation of OBE has been completed, were able to reach the goals of OBE. As part of the broader goal, this investigation attempted to clarify whether the inclusionary approach of OBE was working in primary schools in the foundation phase based on its central premise that all students can learn and succeed, but not on the same day and in the same way. More specifically, this investigation attempted to establish: (i) How successfully had the 66 specific outcomes been implemented in Grade 1 and Grade 2? (ii) What was the level of success of implementation in the different learning areas? (iii) What was the level of success in the implementation of mastery learning? (iv) How many learners had been moved from special education sites to regular education sites? (v) Did schools have the resources to deal with diversity? (vi) Had there been sufficient human resource development to ensure teachers had been trained to deal with diversity? And (vii) Did teachers feel they could teach all learners? In order to arrive at the above-mentioned aim, this study included a survey in a sample of primary schools in the Western Cape. A survey was conducted in 108 primary schools which constitutes 10% of the primary schools in the Western Cape Province. The 108 schools were chosen based on socio-economic and rural/urban considerations. Schools were identified on the following basis: 25% of the poorly resourced schools in urban areas, 25% of the well resourced schools in urban areas, 25% of the poorly resourced schools in the rural areas and 25% of the well resourced schools in the rural areas. Regarding the results of the study concerning the specific outcomes and learning areas, in grade one and grade two results relating to the specific outcomes and learning areas revealed that the majority of teachers rated the level of success at average and below. For example, the range of those teachers who indicated average and below in grade 1 was from 41.03% to 81.96% and in grade 2 from 43.56% to 79.50%. In most learning areas, the number of teachers who In Grades one and two, both language, literacy and communication and indicated average and below was substantial, for example, in grade 1; Natural Sciences, 81.96%, Technology, 78.43%, Economics and Management Sciences, 72.87%. Similar results have been found in Grade 2, for example; Natural Sciences, 79,50%, indicated average and below was substantial, for example, in grade 1 levels across geographical and socio-economic contexts. For example, the urban poor had the lowest results in Grade two and the urban rich experienced the lowest results in Grade one. This suggests that the implementation of OBE was generally poor. The poor results of the urban rich in relation to the other categories suggest that the implementation of OBE has failed in affluent urban schools yet it is normally expected that affluent schools would perform well in relation to the other categories. This is another indication that the implementation of OBE has generally been poor.

The diploma thesis deals in detail with inclusive education in the Step by Step programme, especially with the intention to find out what means and arrangements the Step by Step programme uses to promote inclusive education. The theoretical background is focused on defining the key features of inclusive education, describing developments abroad and in the Czech Republic and showing the Finish education system as a good example of practice. Furthermore, the thesis deals with the brief characteristics of the Step by Step programme and compares its main principles with inclusive principles. For a deeper insight into inclusive education much of the work is devoted to analyse the main aspects of current legislation to support inclusive education, which includes evaluation of support arrangements based on literature. In connection with this, the support arrangements became the focus of the research section. For this reason a research was conducted in the practical part with the aim of mapping a system of support arrangements at a selected primary school with the Step by Step programme and to set out some recommendations for introducing functional inclusive education to other schools. For this research, semi-structured interviews and student case studies were chosen as concrete examples of successful...

The overall aim of this licentiate thesis is to increase knowledge of the special educators’ professional role and work in relation to special educational support for recently arrived immigrant pupils. The need for the study is motivated by the immigrant pupils’ low achievement of goals and schools responsibility to adapt education to each pupil’s needs in a school for all. The first study examines special educators’ role and work in relation to special educational support for recently arrived immigrant pupils and the professional group's view of the reasons for special educational support for these pupils. The results are based on responses in a questionnaire directed to 483 special educators. The results show that the special educators state that the reasons why recently arrived immigrant pupils are in need of special educational support are that the knowledge requirements are too difficult for the pupils to achieve or that the pupils have individual shortcomings. The occupational group's tasks consist of administrative work and the development of learning environments. According to the special educators, most often class and subject teachers and mother tongue tutors provide special educational support. The special educators collaborate to the greatest extent with class and subject teachers and with the pupils, while they want more collaboration with mother tongue tutors. The results of the study are interpreted and discussed based on Abbott's theory (1988) reasoning about professional groups’ claims of jurisdiction, Persson's (1998) categorical and relational perspectives and Hughes' (1958) concept of dirty work. In the second study, free text answers (n = 451) from the questionnaire are examined, where the special educators describe how they and their schools have developed learning environments for recently arrived immigrant pupils in need of special educational support. The free text answers are analyzed using a qualitative content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). This analysis is then theorized based on Skrtics´ (1991; 2005) concepts of the school system to interpret obstacles and opportunities in the development of the learning environments. The results show that the development have mainly taken place through general adaptations (one size fits all solutions), language-adapted solutions and special solutions. The analysis based on Skrtics’ concepts shows how the machine and professional bureaucracy can act as an obstacle to the development of learning environments for recently arrived immigrant pupils in need of special educational support. The thesis helps to bring together the results from the two studies. A developed contextualization is made, and the results from the two studies are discussed in relation to previous research and theoretical points of departure. Abbott's (1988) reasoning on claims of jurisdiction and Skrtics’ conceptions of the school system (1991; 2005) are combined to get a deeper understanding of the deadlocks that may exist in the bureaucratic system.

Thesis consist of theoretical part and empirical part. In the theoretical part of the thesis the author will look into the characteristics of the ADHD syndrome and its subtypes. It will also focus on other issues related to ADHD, such as specific learning disabilities. The author will define the concept of ADHD, including its etiology. The theoretical part will also contain a part that will be devoted to diagnostics, treatment and medication of pupils with ADHD. This part will describe the specific manifestations of ADHD syndrome in each developement stage of a child. There will also be a part dedicated to special education needs and support measures that could be applied to an inclusive approach in education for pupils with ADHD. The research part will use a qualitative research method, including a case study, interview and observation. In this part of the work, the author will focus on two case studies of students with ADHD, supplemented by an interview with the mother of twins. The author intended to include an interview with teachers, but due to GDPR rules, teachers refused to provide one. For this reason, interview will be substituded with an observation.In this observation, we will focus firstly on a work of a pedagogue specialist in a pedagogical-psychological counseling center during a...

Studiens forskningsgap visas genom mångtydigheten som råder kring specialpedagogensuppdrag och arbetsuppgifter, vilket medför och ökar utbytbarheten i den specialpedagogiskayrkesprofessionen. Tidigare forskning visar att ramfaktorer såsom rektorns ledarskap ochkunskap om specialpedagogens uppdrag, påverkar vilka arbetsuppgifter och ansvarsområdensom tillfaller specialpedagoger i grundskolan. Syftet med studien är därmed att synliggöraramfaktorer som styr specialpedagogens ansvarsområden i grundskolans systematiskakvalitetsarbete och på så sätt rama in specialpedagogens profession. För detta användessemistrukturerade intervjuer som datainsamlingsmetod, innefattandes fyra rektorer och femspecialpedagoger från fyra olika grundskolor. Den teoretiska ansatsen i studiens analys utgickfrån professionsteorin. Resultat och analys visar att specialpedagog tillhör benämningsemiprofession utifrån bland annat sin tvärvetenskapliga utbildning och begränsade autonomigenom skolans styrdokument, rektors ledarskap och organisatorisk struktur i grundskolansverksamhet. Analysen visar vidare att specialpedagogens tvärvetenskapliga kunskap möjliggörflexibilitet för hur specialpedagogers kompetens kan prioriteras i det systematiskakvalitetsarbetet samt ökar möjlighet för samsyn i den tvärprofessionella samverkan i detsystematiska kvalitetsarbetet. Studiens slutsats är att de främsta ramfaktorer som styrspecialpedagogens ansvarsområden i grundskolans systematiska kvalitetsarbete ärstyrdokument, ledarskap och organisation i kvalitetsarbetet. Vidare dras slutsats att trotsspecialpedagogens flexibla och mångfacetterade kompetens, skulle professionen gynnas av ettförtydligande av specialpedagogens uppdrag som i sin tur skulle kunna minskaspecialpedagogens utbytbarhet. / This studies research gap is shown by the ambiguity revolving around the special educationneeds coordinators (SENCO) work tasks and assignments, causing, and increasing theinterchangeability of the profession. Prior research has shown that frame factors as the headteachers’ leadership and knowledge of the SENCOs tasks, affects which assignments and areaof responsibility are assigned to SENCOs in primary school. The aim of this study is to visibilizethe frame factors determining the responsibilities of SENCOs in the primary schools’ systematicquality work, and thereby frame the profession of SENCO. The data was collected though semistructuredinterviews including four head teachers and five SENCOs from four differentprimary schools. The studies theoretical approach was based on the theory of profession.Results and analysis show that SENCO belongs to the term semi-profession due to theirinterdisciplinary education and autonomy limited by the schools’ governing documents, thehead teachers’ leadership, and the organizational structure in the primary schools’ activities.The analysis also show that the SENCOs’ interdisciplinary knowledge enables flexibility tohow SENCOs’ expertise can be prioritized in the schools’ systematic quality work. Following,this increases the opportunity for consensus within the interprofessional cooperation in thesystematic quality work. The conclusion of the study is that the most outstanding frame factorsdetermining SENCOs responsibilities in the primary schools’ systematic quality work aregoverning documents, leadership, and the organization of the primary schools’ activities.Furthermore, the study concludes that even if the expertise of SENCO can be described asflexible and versatile, the profession would benefit from a clarification of the tasks which coulddecrease the interchangeability of SENCO.

Inclusion has been adopted by the South African Department of Education as the policy for special needs· learners. This study explores the role of education managers in independent Christian schools in implementing this policy. A literature review and data gathered from interviews with principals of Christian schools which practise inclusion reveal that education managers have a vital role to play by offering leadership and vision to the inclusive school. They control the human and material resources required to bring about change towards greater inclusivity. Their accepting attitudes communicate to the community that all learners can belong in a school willing to accommodate them. The Biblical values that give the Christian school its reason for existence makes reaching out to those with special needs an imperative. Practical strategies for implementing inclusion are discussed in the context of organisational development and the management of change. / Educational Leadership and Management / M. Ed. (Education Management)