Becoming a special educator: Finnish and Swedish students' views of their future profession
2015 (English)In: Education Inquiry, E-ISSN 2000-4508, Vol. 6, no 1, p. 25-51
Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
In this article, we discuss the views of 117 special education student teachers related to their oncoming profession in the framework of ecological theory. Together, 68 students from Sweden (26 special teachers and 41 SENCo students) and 49 from Finland responded to a questionnaire. We compared the respondents’ thoughts about their future work content, the focus areas of special education and inclusion. According to the expectations, the main task for these future special educators is to work with pupils and adults at school. The focus areas of their future work included co-operation and consultation, more so in Sweden. In addition, excellent interaction skills were central. The Swedish respondents supported full inclusion to a greater extent than the Finnish respondents. Finally, no critical aspects of resource allocation or conditions to ensure the child’s right to adequate support within the existing school systems were emphasised by the respondents. The results and the differences among the various respondents are discussed.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Co-Action Publishing , 2015. Vol. 6, no 1, p. 25-51
Keywords [en]
special education, expectations, special teacher, SENCO, ecological model
National Category
Pedagogy
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-128750DOI: 10.3402/edui.v6.24329Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-84988553921OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-128750DiVA, id: diva2:1056172
2016-12-142016-12-142023-03-23Bibliographically approved