The teacher as an agent for inclusion

This course is an introduction to education as an arena for democracy and inclusion, but also exclusion.

Students will be introduced to social pedagogy and special needs education. Furthermore, central and complex social pedagogical and special educational issues are highlighted in dialogue with the students' experiences from activities in school. In this dialogue, topics such as the relationship between adapted education and special needs education, normality and deviation, valuing all children and assessment practices will be important.

The course discusses knowledge about the teacher's role and autonomy in interdisciplinary cooperation around children and inclusion in cooperation with the home. The students' experiences with this work in school form the basis for joint exploration of opportunities to qualify and improve their own practice in these areas.

The course provides insight into the relational, institutional and didactic dimensions of the course's focus areas, with an emphasis on preventing social and academic exclusion through inclusive learning processes.

Knowledge

The student

• has knowledge about children and young people's experiences of inclusion and exclusion
• can reflect on categorization and the consequences of categorization, which arise in the span between normality vs. deviation, individual vs. community
• can understand different children's and young people's resources, opportunities and challenges in their encounters with school

Skills

The student

• can create inclusion processes through work in school and kindergarten
• can take initiatives to promote children's and young people's participation and collective experiences
• can develop professionalism in encounters with guardians and other professionals in the team around the child

General competence

The student

• can discuss the difference between teaching processes that exclude children and teaching processes that include all children
• can value diversity in the school and local environment
• can prevent social and academic exclusion

The course is completed with three live in person sessions. Forms of learning: Lectures and workshops with good opportunities for participant activity, reflections, discussions in small groups and in plenary, exercises, and guidance seminars related to work with a written assignment. There will be digital meetings focusing on students' work between sessions.