Pedagogical practices and teacher discourse relating to “pupils in difficulty” in the Académie de Versailles, France: what effects does co-teaching have?

Abstract

Drawing on the theoretical and philosophical framework of the inclusive school, widely used in the skills framework for specialist teachers in France, the aim is to analyze the effects of collaboration between these specialist teachers, belonging to the RASED (Réseaux d'Aide aux Elèves En Difficulté), and classroom teachers who therefore declare “pupils in difficulty” within their class. The aim of this research is to analyze the impact of co-teaching between these two teaching professionals, in terms of changes in the way these teachers talk about “pupils in difficulty”, as well as in their professional gestures. As the specialized teacher is a resource person, he or she must be able to activate levers for the joint evolution of both practices and discourses.

The methodological framework of this research is based on a longitudinal collection of different types of data collected in the classroom, interviews with the teachers concerned, and seminars proposed by the research team, which bring together either teams of co-teachers or specialist teachers alone.

The results reveal a clear distinction in the initial discourse held by classroom teachers about pupils they declared to be “in difficulty”, and the discourse held after several months of collaboration with their specialist teacher colleagues. From an initial essentialist and stigmatizing designation, the teachers modulated their discourse and opened up to a more open and systemic designation of the pupils. Discourses are modulated and made more complex. From difficulty as a descriptive principle of pupils, they move on to the notion of need. Similarly, their practices are no longer confined to separating “pupils in difficulty” from other pupils, but to thinking about their support in a different way, by considering their needs, beyond the initial difficulties observed. These “pupils in difficulty” are no longer necessarily separated from other students, but participate in the same pedagogical configurations as their peers.

This research reveals the extent to which the substrate of an inclusive school, which considers that difficulties are not inherent to the pupil, but depend on the way in which the needs of each pupil are considered, makes it possible to think of school differently. The inclusive school paradigm thus opens up a way of thinking about learning in the light of each individual's learning needs, and not because of their difficulties.