Towards inclusive schools: a study of how a teacher facilitate differentiated instruction
Annlaug Flem, Torill Moen and Sigrun Gudmundsdottir
Department of Education, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, N-7491 Trondheim, Norway
Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, Edinburgh, 20-23 September 2000
Introduction
In the last few decades, the view of special education has gradually changed in Western societies. Instead of segregating students with special needs in special classes and schools, the ideology of inclusive education is about fitting schools to meet the needs of all pupils. The educational system is responsible for including a large diversity of pupils and to provide for a differentiated and appropriate education for all. Yet, the ideology of inclusion seems to be a major challenge in many countries (Clark, Dyson, Millward & Skidmore 1997, Flem & Keller 2000, Haug 1999, Hughes, Schumm & Vaughn 1996). The purpose of the study reported in this article is to arrive at a deeper understanding of how to include students with special needs in ordinary classrooms.
Special education has been influenced by various ideologies, which, needless to say, means that there are many ways of understanding how the teaching could be realised. To understand the changes taking place it is important to look at special education as a social and cultural phenomenon. The educational system is influenced by the knowledge traditions, values and attitudes in society. Traditionally, special education has focused more on the individual, functional disorders of pupils with special needs. The trend is now towards a more comprehensive, contextual and ecological approach.
There have been three dominant paradigms in special education: the psycho-medical, the sociological and the organisational paradigms (Skidmore 1996). Each paradigm draws on a distinct theoretical framework and tends to explain complex phenomena as an outcome of a single, unidirectional model of causation. The psycho-medical paradigm emphasises that special needs arise from deficits in the individual, while the sociological paradigm emphasises that special needs arise from the reproduction of structural inequalities in society through sorting and tracking, and the organisational paradigm is based on the belief that special needs arise from deficiencies in the ways in which schools are organised. As an alternative approach, Skidmore suggests an integrated theoretical framework for research in special education which focuses on all three levels: the individual, the societal and the institutional. At the individual level it is important to focus attention on the interactive process of learning, at the societal level on the dilemmas of schooling and the social construction of special educational categories, and at the institutional level on the dialectical analysis of organisations and organisational ambiguity. Other researchers have called the emergence of a new holistic paradigm a holistic/constuctivist approach (Lewis 1998) or transactional approach (Stangvik 1998).
If the inclusive school is to succeed, we thus need re-education, reorganisation and value change (Stangvik 1998). In Norway, there has been a development from segregation to integration and inclusion. Students with special needs now have the right to be educated in their own local school. In keeping with the Norwegian school tradition, the aim of compulsory school is to provide an "adapted" education, which means that all students have a right to an education in accordance with their aptitudes and abilities. However, the discussion in Norway has focused more on the policy of inclusion than on the realisation of this policy. The literature in this field rarely addresses specific classroom situations nor does it examine appropriate methods and teaching materials and how teachers organise their teaching. Hence research on how the teachers and schools cope with the diversity of students is needed. Our aim is to focus on a positive learning context and an engaged and experienced teacher who has children with special needs in her classroom. We found "Ruth" to be such a teacher, and we describe what she does to achieve positive academic and social outcomes for all students in the classroom, and especially how she handles a boy with impulsive and uncontrolled behaviour.
Theoretical framework
To understand what Ruth does to provide an appropriate and inclusive education for her pupils, we need relevant theories. In accordance with a holistic and transactional approach, we have chosen the theoretical framework based on the works of Vygotsky and Bakhtin. The traditions of Vygotsky and his successors is often referred to as the sociocultural approach because it emphasises how social and cultural influences affect children's learning and development. The focus is thus on the relationship between cognition and culture. According to this view, our knowledge of the world and the development of higher mental functions are mediated by our interaction with the material world and other human beings. Our actions, including our mental functions, are therefore a fundamental theoretical concept in this theory (Wertsch 1998). Higher forms of behaviour or higher mental functions are not only biological factors, they are also profound social and historical phenomena. The terms socio-historical and cultural-historical are therefore used interchangeably with sociocultural theory. Social interaction is thus important for understanding the development of the higher mental functions. All higher mental functions, such as thinking, reflecting, reasoning and problem solving are originally social processes, and the development of these functions first occurs in social contexts; on the intermental plane. Thereafter they become part of the human internal level; on the child's intramental plane. This process of internalisation is often called appropriation because it is an active process. It is not a transfer of an external activity to an internal plane, but rather a process through which the internal plane is formed (Leont'ev 1981).
A critical aspect of the development of higher mental functions is mediation by tools and signs, called mediated action (Wertsch 1998). The more general concept of "artefact" is now often used instead of referring to mediating through tools and signs. Artefacts are simultaneously ideal and material, and they are products of the social and cultural history of human beings (Cole 1996). Sign systems, especially language, are considered to be the most important means of mediating and regulating human behaviour. Vygotsky (1987) argued for the inherent interconnection between the communicative and intellectual functions of speech. The purpose of speech is thus both to communicate and to regulate one's own thoughts and behaviours. The relationship between thinking and speech is also based on the development of concepts. Word meanings or concepts represent a continuous development from "unorganised heaps" to "complexes" and then to "concepts". Genuine or "scientific" concepts are learned as a result of schooling and they are important for the development of higher mental processes.
Schooling is therefore an essential aspect in the understanding of children's learning and development. In this connection Vygotsky (1978) emphasised that it was important to understand the relationship between learning and development which are neither separate nor identical processes, rather they are combined in a complex way. According to Vygotsky, teaching/learning processes play a major role in development, because learning leads to development. He was interested in collaboration between adults and children and how this interaction can explain children's learning and development. To study how children's social interaction with more experienced members of their culture influence their development, Vygotsky introduced the notion of the "zone of proximal development" (ZPD). The ZPD is defined as the distance between the "actual development level as determined by independent problem solving and potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers" (Vygotsky, 1978, p.86). This concept makes a distinction between a child's performance in autonomous activities and its developmental capacities. The ZPD is thus a dynamic region of sensitivity in which the child's mental functions develop in a joint problem solving process with more skilled members of their culture.
To understand learning in the ZPD, three concepts are used to describe the learning situation and teaching within the child's ZPD: situation definition, intersubjectivity, and semiotic mediation. Situation definition refers to the way in which the participants represent or define the context or setting. Intersubjectivity occurs when the participants are aware that they share the same situation definition. This creates a common ground for communication. However, intersubjectivity can exist at different levels. The participants have to negotiate to create an intersubjective situation definition. This negotiation is mediated by tools and signs, especially language, and is called semiotic mediation (Wertsch 1984).
As a child's cognitive development occurs through participation in activities slightly beyond its competence, the task of the more skilled person is to structure and model the learning situation. Contemporary interpretations of Vygotskian theory use the concepts of "scaffolding" (Wood, Bruner & Ross, 1976) and "guided participation" (Rogoff, 1990) when referring to how a child learns in the ZPD. Tharp and Gallimore (1988) suggest six ways of assisting learners through the ZPDs: (1) modelling the performance of the task, (2) contingency management by focusing on positive rewards, (3) providing feeding-back by giving information on performance, (4) instructing in a way that assists the learner's performance, (5) questioning by using both assessment and assistance questions, and (6) cognitive structuring by submitting information and suggesting strategies for how to solve the problem. Both adult and child are active and responsible in the learning activities, the child participating at a comfortable but slightly challenging level. As the child's expertise grows, it takes on more and more responsibility for managing the tasks and gradually comes to perform the task alone. The development in the ZPD is thus from other-regulation to self-regulation.
Self-regulation is seen as an important aspect in both children's cognitive and social development. Metacognition is a concept that is used to describe children's capacity to use self-regulation in planning, guiding and monitoring their activities (from within and) in a flexible way according to changing circumstances. The affective, motivational and volitional side of learning and problem solving are also important when considering the metacognitive aspect (Brown 1987, Schunk & Zimmerman 1994). Through the active use of signs, and especially language, children also gain mastery over their own external behaviour and social interactions. By using speech, the children's actions become less impulsive and allow for a growing mastery of their own behaviour (Díaz, Neal & Amaya-Williams 1990, Vygotsky 1978).
As self-regulation also refers to how children master social situations, this theory has focused on children with behavioural problems, especially children who show inattention and impulsiveness (Berk & Winsler 1995, Meichenbaum 1977). Berk and Winsler contend that it is the quality of social interactions and adults scaffolding that is important when children learn to gain mastery over their behaviour. Because the behaviour of impulsive children is less self-regulated and organised than their peers without behavioural problems, most of them require external control and limit-setting. However, what is needed is scaffolded assistance within the zone of proximal development. To help a child to overcome his or her self-regulatory difficulties we need a gradual transfer of responsibility from the adult to the child. Praise, encouragement and positive feedback also improve behaviour.
Another aspect with respect to how children master their behaviour and social interactions is connected to the concepts of schemata and scripts. Schemata are said to constitute a knowledge structure used to store our knowledge about the world in an abstract form. A script is one type of schemata representing our knowledge about social activities (Schank & Abelson 1977). According to Nelson (1981), young children's scripts develop in interaction with adults. Initially the children participate in social events that are highly structured for them by adults. They are thus operating in the adults' scripts and subordinated to the control of others. Children learn from recurrent events how to behave within different social contexts, for instance at school or at a restaurant. Gradually it is expected that the children increase their responsibility and learn to regulate their own behaviour in different social situations.
Each context has its own norms and rules of behaviour, and in the context of school, the children must know what is expected of them in different situations and places in the classroom and during breaks and recess. The pupils must be able to relate to these rules and norms if their schooling is to function in a satisfactory way (Doyle 1986). In the interaction with others, the use of language and the understanding of the discourse are therefore important aspects when it comes to creating good conditions for learning in the school and the classroom. In the same way as Vygotsky, Bakhtin was concerned with the relationship between language and human development, and they shared many of the fundamental views. An important question for Bakhtin was how meaning and understanding are created. Bakhtin claimed that self-consciousness is only achieved in interaction and communication with other people, hence "dialogue" is a central concept in his work. The transfer of information does not lead to understanding. There has to be a dialogic exchange, and the response from the other creates the basis for understanding. Understanding and response are dialectically merged and are mutually dependent on each other. Meaning is constructed between the dialogue partners. Understanding is thus an active and responsive process which never ends, and it is in the meeting and negotiation between the communication partners that meaning is created, a meaning that might be different from what they had before (Bakhtin 1981).
In his analysis of language, Bakhtin (1986) considered the utterance as a basic form of verbal communication. The length of the utterance varies from a single word or a short phrase to a long text, and it is the exchange between the speakers that determines the boundaries of an utterance. Utterances may be oral or written, and Bakhtin also considered inner speech or thoughts to be dialogic in nature. An utterance is always directed at someone, but a vital point is that any utterance is always a response to both previous and to coming utterances and is thus a link in a communication chain. Thus it is said that any utterance is filled with what is called "dialogic overtones". An utterance is therefore connected to the concept of voice, or the "talking personality, the speaking consciousness" (Holquist & Emerson 1981, p. 434). In addition to the voice producing an utterance, it is formed by the person it is directed at, and it also carries the voices of anyone previously involved. Each utterance thus comprises at least two voices.
Bakhtin did not ignore the individual aspect of the utterance, but he focused more on the social and the interactive aspects. Voices always exist in a social environment, never in isolation. Because of this, Bakhtin was concerned with the concepts of "social language" and "speech genres". Social language is related to the social stratum of the speakers. Speech genres are characterised by the typical situations and contexts of the speech communication, such as everyday genres of greetings, farewell and congratulation; conversations about different topics in different situations; intimate conversations among friends; and military commands. However, social language and speech genres are often thoroughly intertwined. According to Bakhtin (1986), our utterances always entail the use of speech genres, and bearing this in mind it is very important to master different speech genres. Hence, in a school situation it is important that the pupils learn to master the different speech genres which arise in different situations in life.
Speech genres also include an expressive intonation and not only a topic or theme. Each utterance is also characterised by "the speaker's subjective emotional evaluation of the referentially semantic content" (Bakhtin 1986, p. 84). A neutral utterance is impossible. For instance, when the teacher says "Good for you!" this may express praise or criticism. The meaning or intention is interpreted in the context of the particularly utterance. Bakhtin (1986) was also concerned with intimate genres which are based on internal proximity between persons in communication. These genres create an atmosphere of deep trust and sympathy. Bakhtin's view on how we communicate and how we understand ourselves through the voices of other people is, needless to say, relevant in the relationship between students and teachers in a school setting. In a dialogic interaction, having trust and respect for other people is essential. A good and positive communication situation can lead to trust in ourselves as well as trust in others.
Even if Bakhtin defined an utterance as dialogic in nature, he was also addressed the issue of monologues. In his analysis of the differences between monologue and dialogue, he distinguished between the "authoritative" and the "internally persuasive" discourse. The meaning of an utterance in an authoritative discourse is fixed and transferred, and it is impossible to come in contact with other voices and social languages. Authoritative discourses may aquire their authority from official authorities, or people endowed with authority, such as a teacher. In contrast to the authoritative discourse, the internally-persuasive discourse is dialogic in nature.
Methodology
Data collection and research context. We started our project by observing five different classrooms in a Norwegian town. The teachers we observed were recommended by several people. They all had children with special needs in their classrooms. After some reflections, we decided to invite Ruth to be our collaborator. She had twenty years experience as a teacher. Ruth was teaching a class of 23 seventh-grade students, among whom were three students with special needs who were her biggest challenge. In this paper we will focus on one of these students, "Jon". We joined Ruth and her class from the beginning of November to early March. Data collection was by means of observations, video recordings and interviews. The data base comprises 39 pages of observation notes. The interviews with Ruth were audiotaped to ensure that we had the teacher's exact words, and this comprises 71 pages. Part of the video recordings were also transcribed verbatime. Furthermore, the material includes the year plan for the two seventh-grades and the weekly plans for the two classes. When observing, we focused on Ruth's interactions and communication with her pupils, but also on Jon's behaviour.