As school systems strive to support students with special education needs in inclusive schools, there has been a persistent lack of scholarly literature that addresses the ways in which school principals are engaged in this process. This article is a response to this gap and aims to examine the question: What types of experiences do school principals identify as formational in their support of students with special education needs and fostering inclusive schools? Based on the analysis of data collected from 285 school principals from six provinces in Canada, four key themes are identified including: relationships, modelling behaviours, communication and principal isolation and lack of preparation. These themes are examined with consideration for how to support principals' professional leadership in fostering inclusive schools. As a result, this article's significance is in its examination of the experiences of principals and how these influence their leadership practice for supporting students with special education needs and fostering inclusive schools.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

This article illuminates the significance of exploring intersectionalities within inclusive leadership practices through case inquiry as a critical praxis. Five educational institutions engaged in a partnership focused on exploring the lived practices and professional knowledge of school leaders as they worked towards supporting a vision of inclusive education within their individual school communities. These lived experiences were represented in written cases that have been captured in a provincial resource, Exploring Inclusive Leadership Practices through Case Inquiry (Sider, Maich, Morvan, Specht, & Smith, 2018). Mobilizing the knowledge and practices within this resource and supporting exploration of this knowledge and associated practices through a lens of critical praxis has been one of the key knowledge mobilization components of the June 1, 2019 conference, Exploring Intersectionalities for Leadership and School Inclusion, held at the University of British Columbia. This knowledge mobilization event, along with other initiatives, such as the case resource, helped to foster critical dialogue and interrogation related to leadership practices that can support or hinder a vision and enactment of inclusive education within school communities.

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Gaps between research and practice exist in the field of inclusive and special education, especially around school-based leadership (e.g., principals). Research-based case studies are a way to teach and learn about disability, especially stigmatized issues such invisible disability (e.g,. intellectual disability), which may be complex with multiple stakeholders, yet difficult to access. This article reviews the collaborative process of developing and disseminating authentic case studies built on lived experiences of school principals as an example of bridging the gap between research and practice with multiple, engaging knowledge mobilization activities. Future knowledge mobilization activities, such as the development of interactive, online case-based based learning around inclusive classrooms and schools, are discussed.

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