Comparative Analysis of Special Education Teacher Training in France and Norway: How effective, areas taught and recommendation for improvement.

Abstract

This study aims to understand the quality and areas of training in the existing special education teacher education programme in France and Norway by examining how special education teachers are prepared in carrying out four components of administrative, teaching, student evaluation and inclusive tasks in everyday classroom. The theoretical framework used in this research is international comparative analysis via questionnaire, institutional analysis (training programme), discourse analysis(interview) and classroom observation based on Crossley and Vulliamy's ʻcase for the caseʼ(1984) method. The efficiency of the training programme is evaluated by (i) studying satisfaction of the teachers after training, whether knowledge and hands-on teaching tasks provided were successful to prepare them for real classroom teaching to children with special needs, (ii) relevant views of teachers about the training programme and (iii) observation of teachers teaching as per the training model. Subjects in this study include special education student teachers, teacher trainers, primary and secondary school teachers and academic psychologist.