Teaching and Teacher Education 25 (2009) 533–534
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Teaching and Teacher Education
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tate
Editorial
Preparing teachers to work in ‘schools for all’
One of the many difficulties associated with ensuring educa-
tional equity in the creation of ‘schools for all’ relates to the prepa-
ration of teachers to meet the challenge of teaching in schools that
are increasingly diverse. Teachers routinely encounter a wide range
of students in classrooms where they are also expected to achieve
pre-specified high standards of academic performance, regardless
of differences in prior experience and other factors that may create
different starting points for students. While demands for higher
standards are arguably intended to equalise opportunity by
creating the conditions in schools in which all students have the
opportunity to achieve, the actual effect has put pressure on
schools to seek more and more specialisation in the form of
different kinds of provision for different kinds of learners (Grubb &
Lazerson, 2004). In many countries, this can be seen in the prolifer-
ation of different kinds of schools such as charter schools, magnet
schools and specialist schools that focus on science, technology or
the arts, and so on. It also can be seen in the range of provision
within schools.
As the range of schools and forms of provision has grown, so too,
in some countries, has the number of qualifications and types of
programmes of teacher education within higher education. While
programmes tend to be organised by sector, there are many
different types of qualifications. O’Neil, Bourke, and Kearney
(2009) report that providers in New Zealand offer 85 different qual-
ifications across sectors. In the United States, there are specialised
programmes that prepare teachers to work in urban schools, or
multicultural classrooms, and so on. In other countries where there
are fewer qualifications and specialisms in initial teacher education,
options are often available to enable teachers to undertake further
courses or higher degree study in particular areas, such as special
educational needs, as is the case in the United Kingdom. The
assumption is that different types of courses and qualifications
are needed to prepare teachers to teach different types of students.
The problem with this assumption is that it tends to limit who
teachers think they are qualified to teach (Young, 2008). As a result,
when teachers encounter students who may be experiencing diffi-
culties in learning, they often assume that they do not have the
requisite knowledge or skills to teach them. Arguably, the view
that classroom teachers are unqualified to teach certain types of
students contributes to the perpetuation of separate forms of provi-
sion for different kinds of learners. Can teacher education help
enrich what is generally available in schools by preparing teachers
to respond to the challenges of diversity without relying on
different kinds of programmes and services for different types of
pupils? Is it possible to develop more equitable ways of working
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in schools through the reform of teacher education? And if so
what might such reforms look like?
In an attempt to answer these questions, an international collab-
orative network of teacher educators who are interested in how the
principles of social and educational inclusion might be addressed as
core elements of teacher professional training and development
has begun exploring the role of teacher education in resolving
dilemmas of access and equity in education. The network was
established as part of a teacher education reform initiative based
at the University of Aberdeen. The initiative is funded by the Scot-
tish Government as part of its drive to ensure that all teachers have
a greater awareness and understanding of the educational and
social problems that can affect children’s learning and have devel-
oped strategies they can use to support and deal with such difficul-
ties. As the concept of inclusive education has gained momentum,
this includes students who have been identified as having disabil-
ities, or experience the kind of difficulties in learning that previ-
ously would have resulted in exclusion, marginalisation or
placement in specialist provision. The focus of the collaborative
network has been on teacher education for inclusive education.
1. Teacher education for inclusive education
Two issues of contemporary concern, described by Grubb and
Lazerson (2004) have important implications for teacher education.
One is assuring equity in educational opportunity for an increas-
ingly diverse student population in the context of a narrowly
focused educational reform agenda that privileges the economic
power of schooling over other purposes of education. The second
is a growing awareness of the paradoxical nature of different forms
of provision as mechanisms of equity, in part because the identifi-
cation process risks further marginalisation of vulnerable students.
In an attempt to avoid such marginalisation, while still maintaining
sensitivity to individual differences and understanding that
learners vary across many dimensions, some educators have argued
for a shift away from education systems that rely on ‘special’ educa-
tion for certain students to the development of ‘inclusive’ education
for all. Although such a shift signals tremendous implications for
teacher education, little co-ordinated national or international
attention has been paid to the type of systemic reform of teacher
education and teacher qualification requirements that might be
needed to support classroom teachers in responding effectively to
the demands of teaching diverse groups of students in schools
that are also under pressure to increase academic performance
for all learners.
534 Editorial / Teaching and Teacher Education 25 (2009) 533–534
This special issue of Teaching and Teacher Education begins to
explore how colleagues in university departments of education
are responding to some of the challenges faced by teachers in today’s
schools. Here the restructuring and reform of teacher education is
seen as integral to the preparation of teachers so that they might
feel confident, qualified and prepared to teach all students; safe in
the knowledge that they know what to do and how to get support
when students encounter difficulty in learning. The articles were
initially presented as papers at a symposium on teacher education
for inclusive education, hosted in Scotland, by the University of
Aberdeen School of Education in October 2007 in support of the
School’s own reform initiative and to inform further research and
development activities between universities. Each article addresses
a different aspect of university-based restructuring or curricular
reform within teacher education programmes that are concerned
with issues of educational equity and inclusion.
In the articles that follow, colleagues from Canada, New Zealand,
Cyprus, England, Scotland and the United States consider different
aspects of teacher education for inclusive education, beginning
with the implications for teacher education that arise from a pro-
gramme of research focused on the study of practicing teachers
committed to inclusive education. Here Jordan, Schwartz and
McGhie-Richmond explore how teachers’ beliefs about their
responsibility for teaching students with special educational needs
are reflected in their practice. They suggest that there is a relation-
ship between what teachers think about the nature of the ability to
learn and inclusive practice, but point out that little is known about
how changes in teachers’ beliefs about ability and disability are
brought about.
To this end, Symeonidou and Phtiaka describe a research project
in Cyprus that is using national survey data to develop in-service
courses to build on teachers’ prior knowledge, attitudes and beliefs
about inclusion. Peters and Reid describe the possibilities for
change in beliefs about disabled people by describing how work
in the areas of resistance and discursive practice can be used in
teacher preparation programmes. Pearson explores how prospec-
tive teachers’ use of language is related to their assumptions about
human differences. Nevin, Thousand and Villa focus on collabora-
tive teaching in teacher education as a mechanism for developing
new ways of working in support of more inclusive school practices.
They note the resistance to change inherent in college and univer-
sity structures that prepare teachers for different types of learners,
but argue that teacher educators must model the practices they
expect prospective teachers to adopt.
While the structure of university-based programmes of teacher
education are historical and political insofar as they are linked to
national standards and qualifications, Pugach and Blanton have ana-
lysed the work of colleagues within institutions of higher education
in the United States who have attempted to combine or integrate
previously separate programmes. They identify three models of
teacher education according to the degree of collaboration that has
been achieved. They also identify dimensions of collaborative prac-
tice and propose a framework that establishes an important research
agenda for future work in this area.
Four papers report on reforms of initial teacher education at
universities in different countries. Using Pugach and Blanton’s
common language, Hardman describes a new integrated teacher
education programme at the University of Utah. O’Neill, Bourke,
and Kearney describe the reforms underway at Massey University
in New Zealand. Using the metaphor of a ‘number eight wire knot’
to symbolise the creative inventiveness of the New Zealander, they
present a study design to explore, ‘how teaching staff with opposing
views on inclusive education engage in the preparation of beginning
teachers who will work with disabled pupils’. Florian and Rouse
describe how initial teacher education at the University of Aberdeen
is being reformed to ensure that all teachers are able to support
students when they encounter difficulties in learning. Finally, and
perhaps most importantly, McIntyre reminds teacher educators and
those who carry-out research in teacher education of the need to
work in more open and exploratory ways; and to develop partner-
ships between schools and universities that are based on a deep
and abiding respect for the daily work of teachers in schools. He
argues that newly qualified teachers cannot be the ‘change agents’
that those who prepare them may wish them to be, but with the right
kind of partnerships, they can be prepared to enter a profession that is
changing in response to a 21st century world.
The themes discussed in these papers are important manifesta-
tions of a reform agenda that acknowledge the many challenges
associated with preparing teachers to embrace diversity and
respond to differences without marginalising students who experi-
ence difficulties in learning. The judgements teachers make about
students’ ability to learn, clearly limits what is possible for students
to achieve (Hart, Dixon, Drummond, & McIntyre, 2004). As these
judgements are often directly informed by their professional prep-
aration, it is important for teacher educators to articulate and
reflect on the assumptions that inform beliefs about human abili-
ties and diversity as well as how they are communicated in initial
teacher education. This is an important and complex task that
begins with an exploration of the extent to which separate teacher
education courses (and qualifications) for different kinds of
learners reinforce the implicit assumptions about what teachers
need to know to teach different groups of students. Teacher educa-
tors have an important role to play in ensuring that the structure
and content of teacher education programmes leads to the develop-
ment of teachers’ practical wisdom in ensuring equity when
responding to diversity.
References
Grubb, W. N., & Lazerson, M. (2004). The education gospel: The economic power of
schooling. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Hart, S., Dixon, A., Drummond, M. J., & McIntyre, D. (2004). Learning without limits.
Maidenhead: Open University Press.
O’Neill, J., Bourke, R., & Kearney, A. (2009). Discourses of inclusion in initial teacher
education: Unravelling a New Zealand ‘number eight wire’ knot. Teaching and
Teaching Education, 25(4), 588–593.
Young, K. (2008). ‘I don’t think I’m the right person for that’: theoretical and insti-
tutional questions about a combined credential program. Disability Studies
Quarterly, 28(4), 1–16. http://dsq-sds.org/. Accessed 29.11.08.
Lani Florian
School of Education, University of Aberdeen, MacRobert Building,
King’s College, Aberdeen AB24 5UA, Scotland UK
E-mail address: l.florian@abdn.ac.uk
3 February 2009