Symposium: Marginalization and social inclusion in the field of education

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Interprofessional collaboration around children's well-being in education.

Charlotte Riis Jensen, Ph.D. & Assistant professor

Abstract

According to research, collaboration between different professions is vital regarding establishing an inclusive learning environment where all children thrive. The paper is based on interviews and observations with professionals working with children aged 0-16 year from two qualitative research projects (Hansen et al. 2020; Hansen et. al, 2021). We argue that collaboration does not solve the challenges of developing inclusive environments to support children with special needs and that there is no necessary correlation between forms of organization of collaboration and initiatives for children not thriving. Analysis also show that despite the professionals different positions and understandings of inclusion, problems are still understood as individual problems and strategies to special needs still focus mainly on treatment and compensation and not on developing practices.

Purpose

The purpose of the research has been to explore the work and collaboration of teachers, internal and external resource persons, and its significance for the development of a more inclusive school.

In general, the tendency in Denmark has been to build extensive support systems around teachers´ practices, such as internal and external resource persons and employment of, for instance, educational consultants, inclusion consultants, reading educators, etc. A practice that presupposes collaboration between professionals to develop inclusive environments to meet all children’s needs (Jensen, 2017). Although consultants with specialized knowledge of inclusion, diagnoses or different kind of difficulties and special needs are involved in education, there are indications that the collaboration does not contribute sufficient to develop inclusive learning environments (Hansen et al., 2020b).

Theory

The ontological starting point of the project is an understanding of the school as a social practice that is constituted through both inclusion and exclusion processes (Laclau 1996; Hansen 2012;

2016). The development of a more inclusive school is therefore not only a question of new ways of organizing teaching and integrating general and special education. It is first and foremost a

question of how to handle both inclusion and exclusion processes in the school's practice. This refers to an understanding of inclusion as a sociological concept that connects to the constitution of the social. This means that inclusion and exclusion are understood as interrelated processes that are constitutive of the social and the result of the social constitution. In our exploration of the work and collaboration of professionals and its importance for the development of a more

inclusive school, we understand collaboration in the context of our understanding of the school as a social practice.

2 With inspiration from Feldman’s (2003) concept of sub-routines, we assume that school practice consists of several sub-practices, which are interrelated and interdependent. In cross-professional collaborative processes, the professionals represent different sub-practices, perspectives, and positions. These sub-practices contain different roles, functions, and main goals, which the professionals focus on in their specific and different sub-practices (Feldman, 2003). The various sub-practices contain a variety of roles, functions, and sub-goals that the professionals are loyal to in their specific and assorted sub-practices (Feldman, 2003).

Dataconstruction

The empirical data of the Approaching Inclusion project regards fieldwork at 6 schools in four municipalities. At each of the 6 schools, with a primary focus on teachers' work and collaboration in and around the class. We were in each class for an entire week, following the schedule the students had in order to gain insight into the work of the collaboration between teachers and different kind of resource persons. Furthermore, we observed 72 meetings of different types between teachers, internal and external resource persons.

Metode

Our approach to our fieldwork and analysis are mainly influenced by ethnomethodology

(Goffmann, 2014), grounded theory (Clarke, 2003; 2005) and Actor-Network Theory (ANT) (Latour, 2005). In the process of analysis, we used Situational Analysis (Clarke, 2005), which supports a data driven and exploratory approach through mappings of the central themes with an emphasis on social practice, complexity, variations, and silences in data.

We have worked through inductive processes to more abductive processes, starting with

constructing data to investigate how collaboration takes place. Based on our analysis of data the project offers a complex sensitive understanding of cross-professional collaboration, influenced by many different mechanisms and factors, which interact and affect the professionals.

Findings Missing Link

3 In our study we find several barriers for theses collaborative processes that have not been

highlighted yet. Our model seeks to show how the process around a problem is sought to be solved (Hansen et. al 2020). These processes normally starts with a teacher’s worries of a student, and then the support team takes over the responsibility for defining and identifying the problem or situation.

The intention of collaborative processes is most of all to support teachers’ teaching practice to be more inclusive, by counselling activities, observations in the classroom or by different kind of training activities for one or more students outside the classroom. But as this model shows the teacher is often not part of the discussion of strategies but are expected to implement the strategies.

Sub-practices

All the school's professionals represent a sub-practice in which routines, norms, rules, and meaning are attached (Molbæk et. al, 2020). The different sub-practices form the basis for different views on the problem solution. An important knowledge is created by uncovering and examining the differences in the organization based on the professionals' different perspectives In our study we find that there is a great deal of loyalty within the individual sub-practices between the professionals, which means that they often do not challenge each other's

professional perspectives but quickly turn to a consensus perspective. We find that the consensus perspective has an impact on how the professionals understand problem solving and how they relate to it. So the negotiations between the goal, the focus and the skills are not in play that often. It has an impact on the inclusion and exclusion processes that take place in the social and

4 thus an impact on how the professionals relates to the challenges in practice and thus whether the professionals change practice in a more inclusive direction.

Problem understandings and solutions

Our observations at the 72 meetings between different kind of resource persons we made a count of focus on the meetings where the professionals collaborate on inclusion. We find that the consensus perspective has an impact on how the professionals understand the problem and how they relate to it (Schmidt et. al, 2021). As you can see in this model it was extremely rare (1%) for the professionals at the meetings to express their concern as having a relation to the way the school was organized or to the school's management practice. In 80 % it was the student who was pointed out as being the problem-bearer. Like that the student lacked empathy, was restless, was not ready to learn, was immature, had impaired vision, was dyslexic, was poorly gifted, was contact-seeking, etc.

5 We also listed the possible solutions that the professionals offered in the negotiations at the meetings. In 28% of the cases, there is talk of interventions in which the student's family is involved. It can be anything from the family should receive a treatment offer to the school-home collaboration must be intensified. In 35% of cases, the solution points to some individual actions or compensatory measures. It could be various special agreements, eg that a student is allowed to run a walk in the yard, a tangle twister is allowed to dampen his urge to 'gadget', or it can be the student gets a massage, a ball vest, etc. We did not find any examples of the organization or management being discussed at the meetings, although in 1% of the cases it was seen as a

problem. So these findings show that it is still the individual student who is designated as problem- bearing and thus also part of the solution

6 What to do

Overall, our analyzes have shown a need to develop a new understanding of collaboration that does not focus on common goals and language, trust and consensus. Collaboration must be understood as an expression of the actions and negotiations that take place between the professionals and the sub-practices in which the professionals are involved. We therefore see collaboration as the action and negotiation processes that take place continuously between the professionals and between the various sub-practices and positions.

Overall, our analyzes have shown a need to develop a new understanding of collaboration that does not focus on common goals and language, trust and consensus. Collaboration must be understood as an expression of the actions and negotiations that take place between the professionals and the sub-practices in which the professionals are involved

We therefore see collaboration as the action and negotiation processes that take place

continuously between the professionals and between the various sub-practices and positions.

Based on analysis of our fieldwork of how collaboration takes place in a school context we offer an understanding of collaboration as a negotiation between different and conflicting perspectives, practices and understandings, which contribute to transform the social structure and the underlying assumptions (Hansen et al., 2020; Latour, 2005).

Based on this, we suggest an understanding and practice of collaboration as: “a practice where professionals handle and negotiate different understandings of problems and solutions and thereby transform the existing social order” (Hansen et al, 2020b, p. 33)

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17. https://dpt.dk/temanumre/2021-1/du-kan-ikke-goere-en-gris-til-vaeddeloebshest/