Special Needs Education in Light of the Inclusion Principle: An Exploratory Study of Special Needs Education Practice in Belarusian and Norwegian Preschools

This study investigates possible correlations between increased focus on inclusion and special needs education practice in preschool. The study examines how preschool employees experience and describe their own practice and the special needs education practice of the preschool related to children with language difficulties such as pronunciation difficulties.

The employees experience that they have limited competences to work with children with language difficulties, and that they have unsatisfactory guidance from external professionals to achieve a satisfactory level of competence. The employees describe that they feel powerless with regard to being able to help the included children with language difficulties, and they express decreasing motivation to continue working with these children.

The authors conclude that the challenges affect the employees' self-understanding in such a manner that the experience of having limited competences affects their confidence in being able to carry out their work assignments. The authors also conclude that there is a need for supervision and guidance from external professionals who can help the employees to a higher level of competence. The authors stress that supervision may unintentionally affect the employees negatively if they experience supervision as criticism of their current way of working.

The research project focussed on both Belarusian and Norwegian preschools, but only the Norwegian part of the project is referred to here.

Data consists of individual interviews with five preschool teachers and assistants from five different preschools. All the preschools were public and had between 26 and 120 children. All the employees worked with children with special education needs and language difficulties who were included in public preschools.

Hannås, B. M., & Hanssen, N. B. (2016). Special Needs Education in Light of the Inclusion Principle: An Exploratory Study of Special Needs Education Practice in Belarusian and Norwegian Preschools. European Journal of Special Needs Education 31(4), 520-534.