The Inclusive Secondary Teacher: The Leaders' Perspective

Abstract

Australian legislation and policies over the last fifteen years have reinforced the rights of students with disabilities to be included in mainstream classrooms. To make this a reality, change has been necessary in a number of areas such as teacher knowledge, resource allocation, curriculum reform, and support services. This paper presents a profile of an inclusive secondary school teacher from the perspective of Australian educational leaders. A qualitative methodology was used in this study. Fifty leaders in inclusive education across Australia were interviewed. Shulman's (1986) model of teacher knowledge was used to analyse and report the data. The paper identifies the skills, knowledge and attributes deemed necessary for inclusion by the educational leaders.