Traditional international schools are institutions that exist in the 21st century yet carry within them structures of an early era. As globalisation continues, the mobile student population has come to challenge these structures and demand a more inclusive approach. International Learning Support (LS) professionals are trying to manage the balance between serving students and expanding to meet the needs of more learners. They are faced with regulating their agency in order to build and develop more inclusive environments or threaten the very goals they wish to achieve. Inclusion is a shared responsibility (Ainscow et al., 2004). This idea threatens such a bureaucratic system and leaves international schools with an extraordinarily difficult task of returning to a more inclusive mission (Bartlett, 2014). As international schools contend with the need for more inclusive environments, the realities of the influence of power within these structures poses a challenge to empowerment and to those who might will lead this change (Foucault, 1980a; Caffyn, 2007). This study looked at the barriers and challenges LS professionals face in meeting student needs and to expanding their influence on inclusion at their sites. The study found that LS teachers who engage in critical dialogue about how their practice and how to manage this change can influences their agency. By using technology to create virtual spaces a LS teacher’s agency can be regulated to lead traditional internationals schools back toward a more inclusive future (Creese and Daniels, 2000; Wenger et al., 2011).
- Agency
- Power
- Empowerment
- Virtual CoPs
- Educational leadership
Student Inclusion in Traditional International Schools: an Examination of the Potential of Learning Support teachers as Agents for Change
Neubauer, A. N. (Author). 24 Jun 2020
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis › Doctor of Education (EdD)