Background: Inclusive Education (‘Support for Learning’ in the UK) is now a mandatory educational policy across the European Union. And yet, we understand remarkably little about its psychosocial impact on students. Scant research has been conducted in this area, particularly with respect to typically-developing students. Findings from existing studies are difficult to extrapolate from, due to methodological flaws and/or contradictory results. Method: A Systematic Review was carried out of international qualitative research in this area, to summarise and critique findings. An empirical study was also conducted with typically-developing Scottish adolescents, to explore their views of Support for Learning using a robust qualitative methodology. Results: Findings from the Systematic Review showed that existing qualitative studies are mostly of poor to medium methodological quality; that typically-developing students tend not to understand Inclusive Education; and that the majority regard it with fearful wariness. The empirical study mirrored these themes, and provided new insights into how students perceive the benefits and dangers of Inclusive Education, as well as barriers to understanding it. Conclusion: Schools urgently need to inform students about the principles and practices of Inclusive Education, and professionals working with adolescents should be mindful of its perceived psychosocial dangers, in order to challenge prejudicial attitudes.

A qualitative and quantitative study was undertaken to understand the support for learning provided by African parents in the education of their children. In this study we investigated the extent, level, form and content of the support of parents in the learning of their children during the Foundation Phase with special reference to a Tsonga community. Parents’ support is regarded as an essential factor in children’s learning, but more information is needed about the practices of such support for African children in the Foundation Phase. There are some parents (educated or not) who do not provide effective support. In some instances, parents do not stay with their children because of migratory labour practices and siblings have to carry the responsibility. Some of the parents leave early for work and return home late while children are asleep, which makes it difficult for them to provide optimal support. It was found in this research that the amount and nature of literacy materials did not differ much between the working families and those who were not working. It was again found during the work sessions with both the literate and illiterate parents that there was extremely little variation in support methods in as far as numeracy and language were concerned. / Thesis (PhD (Orthopedagogics))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

The study's purpose is to describe students' experiences of help and support in mathematics. To investigate this, I adopted the questions: What does it mean, according to the students, to get "help and support in mathematics?" Are there differences in the description of help and support depending on the age of the students? What different kinds of help and support do students feel that they get from their math teachers? What different kinds of help and support would they like to have? The study is based on a qualitative method, group interviews, with three groups of students, one from each stage of primary school in one municipality in Sweden. The students were at the time of the interview in grade 3, 5 and 8. The interviews were analysed from a sociocultural perspective.   The results show that what the students primarily consider as the meaning of help and support it is to get individual support from their teacher. Students feel that other forms of help and support also are provided by teachers; such as the opportunity to work in a group with peers, and that the teachers motivate students in different ways. An example of support the students say they want to have a larger extent of is the opportunity to use a tool for understanding. Here the older students emphasize various ICT tools. / Studiens syfte är att beskriva elevers upplevelser av stöd och hjälp i matematik. För att undersöka detta har jag utgått från frågeställningarna: Vad innebär det, enligt eleverna, att få ”stöd och hjälp i matematikämnet”? Finns det skillnader i beskrivningen av ”stöd och hjälp” beroende av elevernas ålder? Vilka olika sorters stöd och hjälp upplever eleverna att de får av sina matematiklärare? Vilka olika sorters stöd och hjälp skulle de vilja ha?   Studien bygger på en kvalitativ metod, gruppintervjuer, med tre elevgrupper, en från varje stadium inom grundskolan i en kommun i Sverige. Eleverna gick vid intervjutillfället i klass 3, 5 och 8. Intervjuerna har analyserats utifrån ett sociokulturellt perspektiv. Resultatet visar att det eleverna främst upplever som innebörden i stöd och hjälp det är att få individuellt stöd av sin lärare. Eleverna upplever att även andra former av stöd och hjälp ges av lärarna; t ex möjligheten att få arbeta i grupp tillsammans med kamrater, och att läraren motivera eleverna på olika sätt. Stöd och hjälp som eleverna säger sig vilja ha i större utsträckning är t ex att få möjlighet att ta hjälp av redskap för att förstå. Här lyfts olika IKT verktyg fram av de äldre eleverna.