Role perceptions of School Administration Team Members concerning inclusion of children with disabilities in elementary general schools in Israel

Abstract

In an ideal school, where inclusion is implemented successfully, staff members collaborate and create an inclusive environment in their schools. In order to achieve such a sustainable environment of inclusion, pedagogical, organisational and psychological restructuring should occur, and a strong inclusion-oriented leadership has to be activated. The aim of this study was to gain a better understanding of general elementary School Administrative Team Member's (SATM) role in the process of inclusion. SATM included: school principals, vice principals and school counsellors of seven schools in Israel. It was found that though all SATM were basically pro-inclusion they did not manifest a shared view of inclusion. Their views of inclusion were reactive rather than proactive. SATM associated the failure to fully implement inclusion to external factors mainly the Inclusion Act that had not fulfilled its intended goals and to the lack of governmental support. The SATM failed to see the need for collaboration and the need for personal and shared responsibility for establishing a setting of sustainable inclusion that is knowledge-based. In light of these atomistic rather than holistic views of inclusion; it is recommended that SATM dedicate time to collaboratively plan comprehensive sustainable models of inclusion where practices are based on shared beliefs and continuous learning.

Students’ voices about the extra educational support they receive in regular education

“…This means that teachers gain less experience in meeting the specific needs of students, which impacts on teacher attitude (De Boer, Pijl, and Minnaert 2011) and feelings of self-efficacy (Vaz et al 2015). Although there is an ongoing discussion about the workload of teachers in the current education system (Florian and Camedda 2020), we want to underline that it is important that teachers share the responsibility of meeting the needs of students with SEN (Shani and Koss 2015). Supporting teachers in meeting the needs of students, together with specialised support for students, seems to be a good-working model.…”

Socio-Emotional Skills in Basic Education Principals. Systematic Literature Review

“…En los países que se han implementado reformas educativas, la experiencia demuestra cómo los directivos son quienes materializan estas en las escuelas (Buttram y Farley-Ripple, 2016). La autopercepción determina las acciones del director, al concebir su liderazgo como de carácter multidimensional, mismo que se atribuye al hecho de que el director escolar debe regirse a partir de políticas de inclusión en donde cada acción sea en beneficio de docentes, alumnos y padres de familia (Pautz y Sadera, 2017;Schechter et al, 2018;Shani y Koss, 2015).…”

“…El liderazgo escolar también es abordado en sus vertientes específicas transformacionales (Vanblaere y Devos, 2016), ya que en las escuelas está en función de su capacidad de interpretar e implementar políticas públicas (Cobb, 2015) y en función de las prácticas inclusivas que pudiera implementar para el desarrollo de todos los niños (Shani y Koss, 2015). También se ha hecho uso de las metáforas para conocer cómo los directores de educación básica dan sentido a su rol como líderes en el marco de una reforma educativa nacional (Schechter et al, 2018).…”

“…XVII, N.º 1. Enero-junio, 2022 255-275, EISSN: 2215-3330, ISSN: 1659-0104 y para dilucidar los procesos de inclusión de niños con discapacidad (Shani y Koss, 2015).…”