Browsing by Subject "kaksoiskoulujärjestelmä"

The research aim was to find out how the reality of the inclusive classroom presents itself from the teacher's perspective. Two research questions were formulated. Firstly: Is inclusion being achieved in the classroom? Secondly: What are the enablers and the obstacles of inclusion in this particular class? For the purpose of this study, the following themes were defined: the support needed to get to inclusion, the evolution of the teachers to be teaching in an inclusive class and the actualization of inclusion. The history of special education gives an insight to understand better how the education system in Finland has been formed and why is it that the values of inclusion have not been accepted yet in mainstream schools. According to the philosophy of inclusion, all of us should have equal rights and everyone should be treated with fairness. Schools and educators should support and educate the students so that positive attitudes are being built and everyone is supported to be socially active. Everyone should also have the right to be supported individually as well as to be accepted in a group as a member of society. This paper aims at providing results of research based on these main points of inclusion philosophy. Co-teaching proved to be an important part of the inclusive class and it was covered as a part of the research. The nature of this research is a qualitative case study and the focus group included a principle and two teachers. According to the tradition of fenomenographic research, the focus is on understanding an individual's perception of life and how its reality is understood and experienced. The content was analyzed by using the fenomenographical methods and more precisely those of content analysis. The material was gathered by asking the participants first to write a guided essay and then take part in a semi-structured interview. The results show that inclusion can have both positive and negative effects. Amongst the positive ones we noticed that being different was accepted in the class and everyone really belongs to the group. All the students also benefited from having more adults in the class while tasks were individualized for the students with special needs. The teachers involved claimed that without these resources, they could no longer continue teaching like they have done. However, the teacher's opinions also diverged from the inclusive teaching doctrine in two well-defined matters: All students cannot be taught in the same group, exceptions should be taken into account and the students should have the right to go to a school in their proximity.