Fragmentation Management from Policy to Practice. Special Educational Needs Teachers (SEN Teachers) in Mainstream Schools in Germany

Abstract

Inclusive education is one of the most far-reaching reform projects in school policy since decades in Germany. In the perspective of educational governance the chapter examines how and by which stakeholders the job profile and role clarification of special educational needs teachers (SEN teachers) in primary schools in Germany is steered. The analysis is based on data from the project FOLIS, which used a mixed-methods design to interview school administration experts, school principals, and SEN teachers from 4 out of 16 federal states. The results show a “fragmentary form” of steering, which is in essence limited to measures of input control and largely excludes elements of output control. Within the single schools, several ways of negotiation on tasks and task distributions of the SEN teachers were found. The responsibility for daily inclusive education is shifted to the responsibility of each individual school, and within the individual school largely to the SEN teachers themselves. Written agreements to clarify the SEN teachers’ areas of responsibility are rarely used and SEN-teachers are pushed into the role of a “fragmentation-manager”. The results of the study show that inclusive education is a very fruitful field of research in the policy-practice nexus.