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International Journal of Inclusive Education
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tied20
Teaching for inclusion – a review of research on
the cooperation between regular teachers and
special educators in the work with students in
need of special support
David Paulsrud & Claes Nilholm
To cite this article: David Paulsrud & Claes Nilholm (2020): Teaching for inclusion – a review
of research on the cooperation between regular teachers and special educators in the work
with students in need of special support, International Journal of Inclusive Education, DOI:
10.1080/13603116.2020.1846799
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2020.1846799
© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa
UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis
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REVIEW
Teaching for inclusion –a review of research on the
cooperation between regular teachers and special educators
in the work with students in need of special support
David Paulsrud and Claes Nilholm
Department of education, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
ABSTRACT
This article presents a review of qualitative research on
interprofessional cooperation between regular teachers and
special educators published from 2005 to 2019. The aim of the
review was to gain knowledge about how different forms of
cooperation take shape and about factors at multiple levels that
facilitate or constrain cooperation as a means of achieving
inclusion. In total, 25 studies were selected. The results are
discussed in relation to Thomas Skrtic’s theory of bureaucracies
within the school organisation in order to compare and analyse
different forms of interprofessional cooperation and schools’
organisations of special educational work. Cooperative teaching,
special educational consultations and mixed forms of cooperation
were found to entail different benefits and challenges related to
communication and the cooperating actors’roles. Facilitating
factors included personal chemistry, an equal distribution of
power and responsibilities and support from the school
management through provision of professional development and
adequate planning time. In several studies, a flexible cooperation
was argued to be hindered by curricular constraints and
standardised testing. Education policy is therefore emphasised in
this review as important for understanding the conditions under
which school staffare responsible for inclusion.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 7 January 2020
Accepted 30 October 2020
KEYWORDS
Inclusive education; special
needs; cooperation;
collaboration; research
review
Introduction
Inclusive education seems to be difficult both to define and to achieve. Not least, it is
unclear how teachers and special needs staffshould cooperate in order to create more
inclusive classrooms. In a critical research review, Göransson and Nilholm (2014) ident-
ified empirical shortcomings in research about inclusive education, arguing that there is a
lack of studies about how more inclusive environments are to be constructed in schools if
we understand inclusion as involving all pupils. Thus it is of extreme importance to sys-
tematically review the knowledge pertaining to this issue in order to be able to create
more inclusive learning environments and to understand obstacles to such a
© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited.
CONTACT David Paulsrud david.paulsrud@edu.uu.se
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2020.1846799
development. The purpose of this review is to further our knowledge about opportunities
and barriers to the development towards a more inclusive classroom by reviewing
research that examines different aspects of the cooperation between regular teachers
and special educators. Several influential scholars within the field of special education,
such as Ainscow (1998) and Skrtic (1991), have clearly emphasised interprofessional
cooperation, joint decision-making and the involvement of all school personnel as organ-
isational prerequisites for success in a school’s transformation towards becoming truly
inclusive. Moreover, there are reasons to believe that factors at multiple levels might
affect the work of schools and cooperating professionals in this area (Skrtic 1991).
In parallel with the influence of the Salamanca Statement in 1994, when the idea of
inclusive education had its international breakthrough, neoliberal ideas of efficiency and
accountability in education have grown stronger. Globally, standardised tests such as the
OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have been claimed to
play a vital role in narrowing the goals of education in countries competing over placements
on ranking lists (Kamens 2013; Niemann, Martens, and Teltemann 2017). Locally, the
emergence of New Public Management has entailed an increased focus on school compe-
tition, customer service, and teachers’individual performances (Evetts 2011;Ball2016).
This development has been criticised by scholars who claim that teachers are pushed
towards standardisation and ‘teaching for the test’at the expense of their instructional flexi-
bility (e.g. Au 2007;Hopmann2007) or towards neglecting the work with children in need
of special support, since the rewards in terms of improved student performance might be
limited in this area (Ball 2003). Given the importance of policy to the daily work of school
staff, we strive to incorporate empirical studies of teachers and special educators’
cooperation in a wider analysis where multiple levels are taken into account.
Previous research
Idol (2006) approaches interprofessional cooperation in the field of special education as
different forms of special education service delivery. In her discussion, Idol distinguishes
four different kinds of support that are used in schools to provide assistance to regular
teachers in their teaching of students in need of special support. These are:
(1) Cooperative teaching, where special education- and regular teachers collaborate and
teach together within the classroom.
(2) Consulting teaching, where a special educator helps the regular teacher with plan-
ning, assessment, developing material, and adapting instruction, rather than
working directly with students.
(3) Supportive resource programs, where special education- and regular teacher collabor-
ate in designing students’individualised instructional programs for the resource
room.
(4) Instructional assistants, where paraprofessional aides accompany students in need of
special support in the regular classroom.
In this paper, the main focus in on cooperation between regular teachers and special
educators as a means to achieve inclusive classrooms. Thus, the first two cooperation
models, here referred to as co-teaching and special educational consultations will be
2D. PAULSRUD AND C. NILHOLM
further described below through a summary of previous reviews and selected previous
research that have not been included in the sample of literature analysed in this review.
Co-teaching
In Scruggs, Mastropieri, and McDuffie(2007) review of 32 qualitative studies on co-
teaching, five models are described, drawing on the work of Lynne Cook and Marilyn
Friend (e.g. Cook and Friend 1995; Friend et al. 2010):
(1) One teach, one assist, where one teacher takes the leading role in the classroom, and the
other teacher observes students or assists them while circulating around the room.
(2) Station teaching, where the two teachers divide the instructional content between
them and provide instruction at different learning stations.
(3) Parallel teaching, where the two teachers divide the class into two heterogeneous
groups and teach the same content in different parts of the classroom.
(4) Alternative teaching, where one teacher temporarily pulls a small group to the side
for specialised instruction.
(5) Team teaching, where the two teachers share instructional responsibilities equally, for
example in the form of role-play, modelling or turn-taking in instructional delivery.
Among the studies reviewed by Scruggs, Mastropieri, and McDuffie(2007), the ‘one
teach, one assist’approach was by far the most common. In these cases, regular teachers
generally took the greatest responsibility for whole-class instruction, while special edu-
cation teachers had a subordinate role, giving individual support or managing classroom
behaviour –a type of role distribution that Scruggs et al. argue is hardly a sign of true and
innovative collaboration. In their review, a number of factors were highlighted as impor-
tant for establishing successful co-teaching. These included voluntary participation,
administrative support through the provision of adequate planning time and training,
and the compatibility of the co-teachers on both professional and personal levels.
Despite the unbalanced distribution of power in the different cases of cooperation, the
overall result of the reviewed studies showed that regular teachers and special education
teachers perceived co-teaching as beneficial for all actors involved. Students were
believed to receive more attention and support, and teachers were considered to gain
opportunities for mutual learning. However, as Friend et al. (2010) conclude, most
research on co-teaching has focused on co-teachers’roles and relationships or pro-
gramme logistics, and there is little evidence found in research that co-teaching contrib-
utes to more inclusive classrooms or increased academic performance among students.
Special educational consultations
Different models of cooperation have also been identified in research focusing on special
educational consultations. Sundqvist (2018/2019) points out that research in this field
often has discussed consultations in terms of being either expert-driven and client-
centred or process-driven and consultee centred. In other words, the question is
whether special educators should function as experts giving advice to regular teachers
on how to teach students in need of special support, or if they should be discussion part-
ners who help regular teachers reflect upon their practice in order to move in a more
inclusive direction.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION 3
In Sundqvist’s dissertation (2012), she discusses three categories of consultative meet-
ings: In counselling conversations, the special education teacher gives instrumental advice
related to specific students based on special educational knowledge. In reflective conversa-
tions, the special education teacher tries to make the regular teacher engage in self-reflec-
tion and thereby shift the focus from the student to the teacher. Cooperative conversations
are characterised by professional exchange. The special education teacher contributes
knowledge of students with disabilities or learning difficulties, while the regular teacher
shares knowledge about subject matter or the group of students. Reflection takes place
also in these kinds of conversations, but both teachers are reflecting together in dialogue.
Similar kinds of collaborative consultations have also been described by, for example,
Cook and Friend (2010), and has often been regarded as the foundation for co-teaching
(Idol 2006). As in the case of co-teaching, previous research has identified different
forms of cooperation, but we have not been able to find adequate research investigating
the outcome of special educational consultations with regard to inclusive education.
Theoretical points of departure
Inspired by Max Weber, Skrtic constructs ideal types for theorising about two different
kinds of bureaucracies within the school organisation, one inside of the other. The
machine bureaucracy involves standardisation of work processes and direct control of
labour by managers, an organisational idea that spread from the industrial sector to
social organisations in the beginning of the twentieth century. According to Skrtic,
managing schools like machines reduces teachers’discretion and flexibility, which they
need in order to personalise instruction to meet the needs of all their students. In contrast
to the machine bureaucracy, Skrtic considers schools, in line with other scholars (e.g.
Weick 1976), to be typical examples of loosely coupled systems, where the complex
nature of the work that takes place is not easily bureaucratised. Thus Skrtic (1991)
argues, schools are informally organised as professional bureaucracies on the inside,
based on the professional and normative values of teachers. In the professional bureauc-
racy, standardisation is created and maintained through teachers’standard programmes,
rooted in institutional and cultural norms.
Since neither machine bureaucracy nor professional bureaucracy is especially adapt-
able, Skrtic proposes adhocracy as a third way. This approach is based on innovation
and problem solving and can be found in very dynamic and uncertain environments.
Workers in an organisation structured as an adhocracy need to cooperate, communicate,
and be open towards re-evaluating and reconsidering basic theories and values strongly
connected to their own professional roles. In the case of special education, it is not poss-
ible to accomplish this by handing the power of decision-making to either teachers or
special educators. Rather, Skrtic claims, adhocracy is only achievable when power is
handed to groups of professionals in the form of interdisciplinary teams who cooperate
based on their expertise.
The ideal types developed by Skrtic make it possible to compare and analyse schools’
organisations of special educational work. In the present review, the ideal types will be
used to discuss the distribution of roles and opportunities for interprofessional sharing
of expertise in the empirical studies and how the forms of cooperation and their conse-
quences relate to organisational and policy-related factors. It should also be pointed out
4D. PAULSRUD AND C. NILHOLM
that we share the pragmatic view of Skrtic (1991) that educational research should strive
to help schools develop more inclusive and democratic practices.
Aim and research questions
The overarching aim of this review is to gain a deeper understanding of the cooperation
between regular teachers and special educators in schools’work with students in need of
special support in order to analyse beneficial factors and hindrances in the development
towards more inclusive classrooms. In this effort, we want to examine and compare
different types of cooperation and the different benefits and challenges they bring to
the classroom. Further, we are interested in how factors at multiple levels facilitate or
constrain such cooperation as a way of achieving inclusion. The aim leads to the follow-
ing research questions: (1) How does the cooperative work of regular teachers and special
educators take shape within different forms of cooperation? (2) How do benefits and
challenges in the cooperation between regular teachers and special educators relate to
facilitating and constraining factors at multiple levels?
Materials and methods
In order to gain a rich understanding of how cooperative work related to the complex act
of teaching can take shape, we have focused on qualitative research and especially on
observational studies. When exploring the actual work done, we considered observations
to be a crucial component, since merely asking teachers about their practices might lead
to descriptions of the practices they consider the most appropriate (Hofer 2002). Since
many observation studies combine different types of qualitative data, interviews have
also been an important source of data in this review.
Literature search
The literature was collected by searching the databases ERIC, Scopus, Web of Science,
Google Scholar and Swepub. Searches were made in the abstracts of articles and disser-
tations, and the search words used were teacher* AND (observ* OR ethnograph*) AND
(inclusi* OR mainstreaming OR special education*) AND (collaborat* OR cooperat* OR
consult* OR supervis* OR interact* OR role*). Only English-language sources of literature
that were available online and published in 2005–2019were included in the search results.
Predetermined selection criteria were applied in order to assess the relevance of the col-
lected studies. To begin with, the studies had to address the teaching of students in need
of special support and include issues of the joint work of regular teachers and special edu-
cators. As described above, the studies were also required to use observational data, at least
partially. Finally, we only included studies conducted in mainstream schools in grades 1–12.
Studies focusing on special schools, preschools, or higher education were thus eliminated.
The first selection was made by eliminating titles that were obviously irrelevant. The rel-
evance of the remaining studies was then assessed by reading their abstracts. After
reading more carefully we dropped even more studies because they were not considered
to meet all criteria. In total, 25 titles were selected: 19 journal articles and 6 dissertations.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION 5
Sample characteristics
In order to aid the identification of patterns among the selected studies, a table was
created where they were coded with regard to the form of cooperation investigated as
well as the topic, geographical region, sample, methods and theories used, and major
findings (Arai et al. 2007). (The table can be obtained from the main author upon
request.) As many as 18 of the 25 studies originated in the USA, and no studies were con-
ducted outside of the USA and Europe. Another striking feature was the many studies
examining co-teaching. Common topics were the cooperating teachers’roles and the
implementation of inclusion programmes in schools. Two of the selected studies inves-
tigated consultations between regular teachers and occupational groups outside of the
pedagogical sphere. Although these two studies did not meet all the selection criteria,
they were included due to the lack of studies found that examined consultations
between regular teachers and special educators.
Research synthesis
This review applies a narrative method for synthesising research, where information
from many different studies is interpreted and organised in themes, and major agree-
ments and disagreements are discussed in order to draw new conclusions (Green,
Johnson, and Adams 2006). Following the creation of the table, a closer reading of
each study guided an extraction of textual units, which were sorted into themes based
on our two research questions. Thus, all studies were themed twice. This process resulted
in the construction of five themes:
1. cooperative teaching;
2. special educational consultations;
3. mixed forms of cooperation;
4. organisational prerequisites; and
5. standardisation and curricular constraints.
Results
In this section, the five themes will be presented as subthemes relating to the research ques-
tions, as follows: (1) How does the cooperative work of regular teachers and special edu-
cators take shape within different forms of cooperation? (themes 1, 2 and 3) and (2) How
do benefits and challenges in the cooperation between regular teachers and special educa-
tors relate to facilitating and constraining factors at multiple levels? (themes 4 and 5).
Forms of cooperation
Cooperative teaching
Seventeen of the 25 studies selected focused on various aspects of co-teaching. Although
it was argued that this form of instructional arrangement promotes inclusion compared
with the provision of support to students in a specific resource room (Buli-Holmberg and
Jeyaprathaban 2016; Sanahuja-Gavaldà, Olmos-Rueda, and Morón-Velasco 2016), many
6D. PAULSRUD AND C. NILHOLM
studies found that co-teachers did not seem to take advantage of the potential of co-
teaching. Instead they tended to rely on models that required fewer instructional modifi-
cations, such as parallel teaching or one teach, one assist (e.g. Ashton 2010; Brendle, Lock,
and Piazza 2017; Casale-Giannola 2012; Klein 2009; Shankland 2011; Strogilos and Avra-
midis 2016; Volonino 2009; Wexler et al. 2018). The frequent use of the one teach, one
assist model in co-teaching was often discussed in terms of an unequal distribution of
responsibilities and authority. For example, instructional decisions in the co-taught class-
room investigated by Ashton (2010) were generally made by the regular teacher in
accordance with general education standards, and the instruction of students with
IEPs took the shape of a side activity rather than being a part of individualised teaching.
In Klein’s (2009) case study on the classroom implementation of an inclusion pro-
gramme, the regular teachers’views and practices were more or less adopted by all co-
teacher pairs. These power relations seemed to be established early on in the co-teaching
partnership and were then difficult to change. Some researchers reported about practices
in which the co-teachers’roles were harder to categorise. The three co-teaching pairs in
Terranova’s(2010) study tended to share the responsibilities in the classroom rather
equally, although the regular teachers were often the most dominant in the cooperative
planning process. In the study by King-Sears et al. (2014), the co-teachers did use
different models, and their students believed both teachers to be equally responsible
for instruction, although the regular teacher was found to present new content three
times as often as the special educator did and also to interact twice as often with the
large group of students.
Co-teacher respondents in some of the studies (Lava 2012; Leatherman 2009;van
Hover, Hicks, and Sayeski 2012) highlighted the professional relationship and relational
factors such as chemistry and matching teaching styles as important. Vadala (2014)
found great variation in the depth of cooperation between regular teachers and special
educators and argues that co-teaching can evolve over time in parallel with the forming
of a professional relationship. Such progress is described by Lava (2012), who studied
the development of a co-teaching partnership over time and found that, as the co-teachers’
relationship deepened, they started using a wider variety of co-teaching models adapted to
the student group and the educational content. Another example is van Hover, Hicks, and
Sayeski’s(2012) study, where the co-teachers avoided the one teach, one assist model by
clarifying their roles and structuring the instructional activities together in such a way
that they were equally responsible for instructional delivery, although they were in
charge of different lesson segments based on their areas of expertise. In their study on
inclusion programmes in schools, Smith and Leonard (2005) show how unclear roles
among co-teachers can be reflected in conflicting attitudes and different opinions of
who should do what. The regular teachers in the study did not perceive themselves to
have the main responsibility for the work with students in need of special support and
declared that the inclusion programmes increased their workload. The special educators,
on the other hand, described the inclusion programmes as successful but expressed that
regular teachers often expected them to perform the tasks of an assistant.
Positive and negative consequences of co-teaching were also discussed in some of the
studies. Teacher respondents in Leatherman’s(2009)study stressed the value of having
teachers with different types of expertise available in the classroom and perceived them-
selves to benefit from observing how special educators modify instruction. In Buli-
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION 7
Holmberg and Jeyaprathaban’s(2016) study, it was reported that varied and flexible
cooperation between regular teachers and special educators within the classroom
created better conditions for interaction between all involved actors. Strogilos and Avra-
midis (2016) discovered that students in need of special support in their study were more
frequently ‘on task’in co-taught as opposed to non-co-taught classes. However, the co-
taught students in need of special support did also display a lower degree of interaction
with their peers, which Strogilos and Avramidis suggest was a consequence of an overuse
of one-to-one instruction from special education teachers in co-taught settings.
Special educational consultations
Four studies described and analysed special educational consultations. Different models
of consultations were reported that could be classified, using Sundqvist’s(2012) categor-
isation, as both reflective conversations (Kjær and Dannesboe 2019) and cooperative
conversations (Pettersson and Ström 2017). Kjær and Dannesboe (2019) describe consul-
tations between educational psychologists and regular teachers as having a therapeutic
character, where teachers were supposed to search within themselves for alternative
instructional approaches, attitudes and behaviours. Kjær and Dannesboe (2019) argue
that consultations of this kind do not take advantage of the educational psychologists’
expertise and transform teachers into coached employees rather than autonomous pro-
fessionals. In the consultations analysed by Pettersson and Ström (2017), there was also
an emphasis on the learning environment instead of individual students’deficits.
However, Pettersson and Ström (2017) describe an even distribution of power between
regular teachers and special educators in these consultations, which they noted were
marked by professional dialogue and problem solving through mutual sharing of exper-
tise. The special educators were supporting teachers in their everyday challenges, but the
teachers were active agents in these meetings, rather than passive receivers.
The two other studies on special educational consultations both discussed challenges
related to insufficient communication. Hemmingsson, Gustavsson, and Townsend
(2007) examine teachers’cooperation with therapists working at habilitation centres
regarding participatory arrangements for students with physical disabilities. The
results showed that the cooperating actors held different views on the purpose of their
cooperation. The teachers emphasised group belonging and participation in collective
learning activities, whereas the therapists focused on independence and access to all
sorts of activities. Hemmingsson, Gustavsson, and Townsend (2007) argue that insti-
tutional barriers and lack of communication hindered the cooperating actors’ability
to understand each other’s views. On the contrary, tensions emerged, as the teachers per-
ceived the therapists as ‘controllers’, while the therapists considered themselves ‘pushers’
struggling with teachers who did not prioritise this area of their work. The interprofes-
sional cooperation in Bray and Russell’s(2018) study on regular teachers’implemen-
tation of IEPs written and monitored by special educators can also be considered an
advisory form of special educational consultations, although in written form. The
special educators in the study experienced strong institutional demands to connect the
IEPs tightly to general curriculum standards. This resulted in texts with limited guidance
for regular teachers on how to attend to individual students’needs and to mere surface
adaptions in the instructional activities.
8D. PAULSRUD AND C. NILHOLM
Mixed forms of cooperation
Four other studies examined mixed forms of cooperation between regular teachers and
special educators. Strogilos (2012) investigated a school’s implementation of an inclusion
programme that consisted of professional development for teachers, the forming of a
local inclusion team, and interprofessional cooperation through co-teaching and
monthly multidisciplinary meetings. Vernon-Dotson (2008) studied three schools that
put together teacher leadership teams –consisting of regular teachers, special educators
and administrators –which organised meetings and workshops in order to support
regular teachers in their efforts to differentiate instruction. In one of the schools, co-
teaching was also introduced. Olson, Leko, and Roberts (2016) examined how a school
that won a prestigious inclusive education award provided access to the general curricu-
lum for all students through the use of a variety of forms of interprofessional cooperation.
Each grade in the school had two teams consisting of regular teachers and a learning
strategist, which were supposed to share ideas and solve problems together. Other
forms of cooperation included joint planning, team teaching, and IEP teams that
worked together with teachers to develop curricular goals for students. Another form
of mixed cooperation was described by Eisenman et al. (2011), who investigated a colla-
borative consultation model at a high school where two special educators mixed teacher
consultations with temporary co-teaching and direct work with students through coach-
ing and additional teaching after school.
Several positive outcomes of these mixed forms of cooperation were reported. Eisen-
man et al. (2011) claim that the model in their study enhanced flexibility for special edu-
cators and supported an equal professional relationship between them and the regular
teachers. In all studies, it was argued that the cooperation model in focus increased
the number of students in need of support who were physically placed in the general
classroom. Moreover, all studies described increasingly positive attitudes towards
inclusion among teachers, towards shared responsibilities for students, and towards
school cultures that value cooperation. Strogilos (2012) suggests that the combination
of support inside the general classroom with interprofessional cooperation through dis-
cussions and consultations both challenged the teachers’assumptions about special needs
and strengthened their beliefs that inclusion is possible. In some cases, benefits of the
models in terms of student progress were described by respondents in the studies. For
example, the special educators in Eisenman et al. (2011) study suggested that the instruc-
tional arrangement was an important reason that more students in need of support were
accepted to their top choices for further education.
Facilitating and constraining factors
Organisational prerequisites
Many studies stressed different organisational factors as crucial for successful interpro-
fessional cooperation, and the importance of common planning time was one of the
factors most frequently mentioned, especially in the studies examining co-teaching
(e.g. Leatherman 2009; Olson, Leko, and Roberts 2016; Shankland 2011; Smith and
Leonard 2005; Terranova 2010; Strogilos 2012; Vadala 2014; Vernon-Dotson 2008). In
the study by Olson, Leko, and Roberts (2016), for example, teachers and special educators
got time during weekly meetings to plan lessons together, to discuss student matters, and
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION 9
to share ideas, which the researchers argue led to a sense of shared responsibility for all
students at the school.
Another organisational prerequisite highlighted by several researchers was provision
of professional development (e.g. Brendle, Lock, and Piazza 2017; Hemmingsson, Gus-
tavsson, and Townsend 2007; Klein 2009; Olson, Leko, and Roberts 2016; Shankland
2011; Smith and Leonard 2005; Strogilos and Avramidis 2016; Terranova 2010; Vadala
2014; Vernon-Dotson 2008). Brendle, Lock, and Piazza (2017) argue that insufficient
professional development for the co-teachers in their study limited the benefits of
being provided adequate time for cooperative planning. Hemmingsson, Gustavsson,
and Townsend (2007) suggest that a lack of training was one of the main reasons for
the tensions and conflicting views between teachers and therapists in their study.
Smith and Leonard (2005) call attention to the role of the principal in their study of chal-
lenges in the implementation of school inclusion programmes. The principal whom they
considered to have the greatest success in changing school culture in a more inclusive
direction provided opportunities for professional development and involved regular tea-
chers and special educators in decision-making and cooperative problem solving. In con-
trast, the principals in the study by Klein (2009) did not consider themselves
knowledgeable enough to support the co-teachers, which meant that the responsibility
for change ended up in the hands of the two cooperating teachers in the classroom.
Thus Klein (2009) stresses that principals also need professional development on
inclusion in order for them to be able to lead and support teachers.
Standardisation and curricular constraints
A couple of studies discuss how the educational content might relate to the degree of
inclusion in teaching. From investigating strengths and weaknesses with regard to
inclusion in academic and vocational classrooms, Casale-Giannola (2012) argues that
active learning experiences, strong connections to the outside world, and a shared inter-
est in a specific career are some of the elements that facilitate the building of an inclusive
community in vocational settings. Sanahuja-Gavaldà, Olmos-Rueda, and Morón-Velasco
(2016) discovered low degrees of inclusion in academic environments in their study on
four schools’organisation of support to students with autism spectrum disorders. By
using the index for inclusion developed by Booth and Ainscow, Sanahuja-Gavaldà,
Olmos-Rueda, and Morón-Velasco (2016) found that students in need of support were
included to a higher degree in physical and artistic education than in mathematics or
language classes and that the primary schools in the study were more inclusive than
the secondary school.
A possible explanation for these differences might be found in the many studies dis-
cussing the constraints placed on teachers from the policy level, which may be more
evident in academic education. In Ashton’s (2010) study, the co-teachers were limited
to acting within a framework clearly affected by school policy reforms such as the No
Child Left Behind Act, which put pressure on teachers to deliver good student results
on standardised tests. Shankland (2011) found that although the co-teachers in her
study were willing to make adjustments in order to meet the needs of all students,
they were constrained by a tightly packed curriculum, which reduced their scope for
testing alternative teaching methods and approaches. Also, Strogilos (2012) and Bray
and Russell (2018) describe how a standardised curriculum and centrally determined
10 D. PAULSRUD AND C. NILHOLM
guidelines and rules can make teaching difficult to change in a more inclusive direction.
van Hover, Hicks, and Sayeski (2012) found that the two co-teachers in their study had a
strong focus on very specific content areas, and strategies to memorise them, in order to
prepare their students for standardised tests. This approach did not leave much room for
other competences, such as critical thinking and creativity. However, while the regular
teacher was almost totally committed to this task, the special educator was more ambiva-
lent and underlined the importance of also giving the students tools necessary for hand-
ling different situations in life.
Discussion
To sum up, the reviewed body of research focused on different forms of cooperation,
associated to different benefits and challenges. Overall, the many studies that examined
cooperative teaching stressed several benefits of this form of instructional arrangement.
For example, it was argued that co-teaching can foster the development of deep pro-
fessional relationships (e.g. Lava 2012) and can help keep students ‘on task’(Strogilos
and Avramidis 2016) and that regular teachers and special educators can learn from
one another through observations in the instructional setting (Leatherman 2009).
However, a large share of the co-teaching studies found that the regular teacher was
often responsible for instruction in the classroom, while the special educator assumed
the role of an assistant. This was thought to lead to negative consequences in the co-
taught classrooms, for example in the shape of reduced interaction with peers among stu-
dents in need of support (Strogilos and Avramidis 2016). The extensive use of the one
teach, one assist model has also been repeatedly found in previous research and is dis-
cussed in the previous research review on co-teaching by Scruggs, Mastropieri, and
McDuffie(2007). Following Skrtic, such a distribution of roles could be the sign of a
strong professional bureaucracy in which adaptions for students with special educational
needs are limited. In order to be an example of adhocracy as advocated by Skrtic (1991),
the cooperation between regular teachers and special educators would need to take the
professional knowledge of both cooperating actors into account and simultaneously chal-
lenge the cultural and institutional norms that facilitate professional bureaucracies.
The relatively few studies that examined special educational consultations offered
some examples of cooperation in which power and responsibilities were equally
shared (e.g. Eisenman et al. 2011; Pettersson and Ström 2017). Challenges found in
studies focusing on interprofessional cooperation with a consultative character, on the
other hand, were associated, for instance, with a lack of communication between the
cooperating actors (Bray and Russell 2018; Hemmingsson, Gustavsson, and Townsend
2007). The mixtures of co-teaching and different forms of consultations and professional
development activities that were described in some of the reviewed studies tended to be
described by the researchers as fruitful and as having the potential to change attitudes,
school cultures, or classroom practices in a more inclusive direction. As in the studies
of co-teaching and consultations, this seemed to be more evident in schools where the
cooperation was based on local autonomy, cooperative problem solving and interprofes-
sional sharing of ideas. Such a kind of cooperation is in line with Skrtic’s descriptions of
adhocracy as resting heavily on trust, reliance upon the expertise of different professions,
and an openness to change and re-evaluation of roles, values, and methods. However, we
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION 11
want to emphasise that the success stories of interprofessional cooperation that were
described in the reviewed studies were related to various views of what desirable
results consisted in. In some cases, success was understood in terms of the number of
students who were placed in regular classrooms or given access to the general curricu-
lum. Other studies based their narratives about successful cooperation or schools becom-
ing more inclusive on the perceptions of respondents. Actual descriptions of observed,
extensive re-evaluations and adaptions of pedagogical methods were rare.
The benefits and challenges associated to the different forms of cooperation were related
to factors on multiple levels. Some studies stressed chemistry, matching teaching styles, and
other individual factors as important for the success of co-teachers. Even more studies
emphasised the organisational conditions for cooperation between teachers and special
educators and thereby also the role of the principal as the leader and main decision-
maker in the school organisation. The most often mentioned organisational prerequisites
for successful cooperation were provision of professional development and a sufficient
amount of common planning time. Similar findings have been presented in the previous
research review on co-teaching by Scruggs, Mastropieri, and McDuffie(2007).
Many of the reviewed studies discussed education policy as a constraining factor for
the cooperating actors in their effort to achieve more inclusive classrooms. Regular tea-
chers and special educators in the studies felt pressure to cover a large amount of curri-
cular content and prepare their students for standardised tests, which hindered their
flexibility and their opportunities to adapt instruction and use alternative methods. In
some cases, the conflict of interest that emerged between inclusion and demands for
high student performance was seen to affect special educators and regular teachers in
different ways (e.g. van Hover, Hicks, and Sayeski 2012) or even to reinforce the role
of the regular teacher in co-taught classrooms as responsible for whole-class instruction,
while the teaching of students in need of support became a side activity (Ashton 2010).
The pressure from education policy experienced by teachers and special educators in
different national contexts that is highlighted in this review can be understood in relation
to the global spread of audit cultures and educational standardisation along with the
growing significance of PISA and other international standardised tests (Sellar and
Lingard 2013). Conflicting policy demands for inclusion on the one hand and compe-
tition and performativity on the other have been previously discussed in research that
often emphasise the dominance of the latter (e.g. Barton and Slee 1999). Magnússon
(2019) points out that even the Salamanca statement allows for several different
interpretations of the meaning of inclusion, which range from narrow definitions
focused on placement of pupils to wider ideals of creating communities. We mean
that a highly standardised and competitive education system encourages an interpret-
ation of inclusion focused on individuals’access to the general curriculum and class-
rooms rather than community, adaptions and meaningful participation.
By once again returning to Skrtic (1991), the constraints on interprofessional
cooperation inflicted by education policy would be a sign of a strong machine bureauc-
racy that shape the work of professionals in schools. Based on our analysis, we argue that
adhocracy is a possible way forward to achieve more inclusive classrooms, but that pro-
fessional, and above all, machine bureaucratic structures hinder professionals’opportu-
nities for flexible cooperation. In the light of our discussion, the question of how much
responsibility for inclusion can be placed on teachers and special educators and on
12 D. PAULSRUD AND C. NILHOLM
principals is a legitimate one. The influence of education policy should not be underes-
timated, and from our perspective, future studies that investigate this link in the chain of
responsibility for inclusion would be relevant.
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge support from the Swedish Research Council, educational sciences.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Funding
This work was supported by Vetenskapsrådet: [Grant Number 2016-03679].
Notes on contributors
David Paulsrud is a doctoral student in education. His main research interests are the teaching
profession, educational policy and educational philosophy. His dissertation project focuses on tea-
chers’and special educators’enactment of policy.
Claes Nilholm is a professor in education, His research interests are inclusive education, edu-
cational philosophy, educational theory and special needs education. He is currently leading a
research project concerned with research overviews and reviews.
ORCID
David Paulsrud http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8423-2428
Claes Nilholm http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8613-906X
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