The relationship between teacher personality and teacher quality: lifting a tip of a veil of a teacher’s X-factor?

The ideology of inclusive education signifies that every child should be able to attend a regular school, unless there are insoluble barriers which make this impossible. This principle is voiced in treaties such as the Salamanca Statement and the No Child Left Behind Act. Accordingly, many countries nowadays aim at integrating students with special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream education. A specific challenge for teachers who apply for inclusive education is teaching students who show challenging behaviour in the classroom1. A growing number of teachers report feelings of professional inadequacy in teaching students with behavioural difficulties. Feelings of professional inadequacy are said to occur when a teacher lacks pedagogic and/or didactic skills to act adequately in demanding classroom situations. Teachers of students with behavioural difficulties are found to be particularly at risk for experiencing occupational stress. Moreover, these teachers are more likely to end their career in education earlier than teachers who are teaching students with other SEN or without. Many teachers of students with behavioural difficulties tend to pay too much attention to controlling student behaviour rather than to teaching. At the same time, in this respect, students with behavioural difficulties are a population at risk as well. Regardless of the underlying cause of their behavioural problems, students with behavioural difficulties gain less academic progress than students who go through a normal development. Strikingly, this academic delay appears to increase rapidly over the years. For all the feelings of professional inadequacy, there are also teachers who are somehow able to bring out the best in all their students. These teachers are able to engage students, meet their differing needs and increase their potential. These teachers are commonly said to be equipped with a teacher’s X-factor; an enigmatic, yet unexplained talent causing a teacher’s excellence in the classroom. A widely accepted key determinant of successful schooling is teacher quality. Accordingly, the competencies of expert teachers have already been studied in detail. However, recent evidence points at personality as an underlying core factor from which these competencies may arise. In the literature, personality is defined as relatively enduring patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Much literature has already been published on the relationship between personality and job performance. Virtually all studies on the subject report strong correlations between the Five-Factor Model of Personality and job performance. However, until recently, these relations were not explored in the field of education. A first study of this kind was conducted by the authors. The results of this study were presented at last year’s ECER in Istanbul. The personality dimensions of Conscientiousness (facets of competence, self-discipline, ambition) and Neuroticism (facets of depression, vulnerability, shame) were found to discriminate expert teachers from non-experts. Furthermore, significant relationships were found between teacher personality and teacher quality in teaching students with behavioural difficulties for Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Extraversion (assertiveness). With the aim of contributing to finding ways to accurately recruit expert teachers of students with behavioural difficulties, a cohort of in-service teacher-trainees was studied on their personality and performance in teaching students with behavioural difficulties. The authors wondered whether the relationships found in the previous study could be established or replicated in teacher education

Segregation in the classroom: What does it take to be accepted as a friend?

Research on students' social relationships shows their preference to associate with similar peers. This study focused on the similarity in selection criteria used by students to form groups and similarity of characteristics of existing groups in schools. It compared these criteria to those of isolated students. The sample consisted of 124 students aged 14-15. The results revealed that the assessment of peers' social skills was a relevant selection criterion, and that global self-esteem, well-being, and, physical activity were important variables in describing groups. The selection criteria and group characteristics of isolated students did not match those of the groups. The isolated students have more outspoken views on criteria and characteristics compared to the groups' points of view

Regular primary school teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education:A review of the literature

Teachers are seen as key persons to implement inclusive education. Positive attitudes are therefore argued as playing a considerable role in implementing this educational change successfully. The aim of this study is to examine what attitudes teachers hold towards inclusive education, which variables are related to their attitudes and if these affect the social participation of pupils with special needs in regular schools. A review of 26 studies revealed that the majority of teachers hold neutral or negative attitudes towards the inclusion of pupils with special needs in regular primary education. No studies reported clear positive results. Several variables are found which relate to teachers' attitudes, such as training, experience with inclusive education and pupils' type of disability. No conclusion could be drawn regarding the effects of teachers' attitudes on the social participation of pupils with special needs

Social Participation of Students with Special Educational Needs in Mainstream Seventh Grade

AbstractThis study addresses the social participation of students with special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream 7th grade in Flanders (Belgium). Social participation (i.e., social interactions, peer acceptance, friendships, and social self-concept) was assessed by means of questionnaires among 86 students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), 61 students with motor and/or sensory disabilities (MOTSENS) and 1926 normally developing classmates. Seventh grade students with ASD scored less favorably in all aspects. Girls with MOTSENS scored less favorably on some aspects of social participation than typically expected of their peers. The social participation of students with ASD and students with MOTSENS did not differ significantly

The psychometric evaluation of a questionnaire to measure attitudes towards inclusive education

In many countries, there has been a development towards the inclusion of students with special educational needs in regular education. Over the past decade, this has resulted in an increased interest in attitudes towards this educational change of those directly involved. This current study aims at the development, psychometric evaluation, and validation of a questionnaire to measure attitudes of teachers, parents, and students. The questionnaire is based on the three-component theory, reflecting a cognitive, an affective, and a behavioral component. Based on data of a pilot study and a main study, we evaluated the psychometric properties and separability of the three components per questionnaire using a Mokken scale analysis. Removing various dysfunctional items resulted in questionnaires with appropriate psychometric properties and high reliability. Results of the analysis for the separability of the attitude components revealed no distinction could be made between the components in the teachers' and parents' questionnaire. In the students' questionnaire, the items belonging to the cognitive and affective/behavioral components were distinguished as two scales

Special education and globalisation:Continuities and contrasts across the developed and developing world

Over the past 30 years, inclusive education has become the dominant discourse in the field of special educational needs (SEN) across the developed and developing world, reflected\ud in the Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Educational Needs (UNESCO, 1994), the Dakar Framework for Action: Education for All (UNESCO, 2000) and\ud the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Convention includes a commitment to promote inclusive practices for disabled adults and children\ud across all fields of social policy, including education, training and employment. The focus on inclusion has tended to deflect attention away from changes within the\ud special sector (European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education [EADSNE], 2010; OECD, 2007) and the use of official and unofficial forms of school exclusion. The\ud papers in this Special Issue of Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education have been written by members of an international research network funded by the Leverhulme Foundation entitled Special Education and Policy Change: A Study of Six Jurisdictions (IN-089) which conducted a range of research and knowledge exchange activities from 2012 to 2014. Network partners analysed (i) the nature and extent of variation across developed\ud countries in the use of special schools and classes; (ii) the permeability of the boundary between mainstream and special settings and (iii) the discourses underpinning the use of special and inclusive settings in different contexts. The network developed an analysis and critique of official statistics on the use of mainstream and special settings and their underpinning discourses reflected in policy and legislation. Of particular interest was the discursive use of official statistics within a globalised context. Special educational needs policy, with its emphasis on inclusive education, may be seen as a manifestation of travelling policy, with an overall homogenising tendency. At the same time, SEN policy is embedded within particular national and local contexts histories and cultures, thus adopting distinctive vernacular forms (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010)