Browsing by Author "Raudasoja, Ida-Maria"

Aims. The goal of my thesis is to find out how teachers teaching in vocational education and training (VET) understand inclusion in their own practices and how, according to their under- standing, inclusion is realized in different learning environments. For a long time, efforts have been made to introduce the principle of inclusivity into the education system, which is used to try to dismantle the paradigm of special education. However, inclusion is most often studied in the context of basic education, and the discussion about inclusion in the context of VET is not as lively. However, the same international and national obligations also apply to VET, so research would be equally needed in this context as well. Methods. The research data is part of the Governance for Inclusive Vocational Excellence (GIVE) project. The target group of this partial study consisted of 13 teachers from VET, whose thematic interviews formed the data. The themes of the interviews included the definition of inclusion, its appearance in practices and as an object of evaluation, as well as in documents and strategies. The data was analysed using phenomenography and abductive analysis. Results and Conclusions. Teachers understood inclusion through the ideals presented in official documents and through the implementation of laws and degree structures. However, many inclusive practices were found in the teachers' descriptions, especially through the preparation of personal competence development plan (PCDP) and the provision of support. For the most part, the teachers did not know how to verbalize these practices as part of inclusion. This could possibly be because there is not enough discussion about inclusion in VET, or that inclusion is spoken of under some other name, such as personalisation, participation, accessibility or support and guidance. The teachers hoped for a joint time to develop and unify various inclusive practices in both educational institutions and workplaces in order to create a common operating culture and develop inclusive structures. This is also strongly related to the development of the teachers' own competence, for which more support and sharing of competence was hoped for, as well as a stronger link to practical work.