Teachers’ perception of integration/inclusion -for students in need of linguistic support

Abstract: The curricula highlight the responsibility of the school to convey the norms and values that form the basis of the concept of inclusion. It is not just about students with disabilities or about special education, but about promoting diversity and understanding for other people. All students should be given meaningful teaching within the class framework as much as possible. This creates a good environment for socializing, respect and understanding for individual differences and diversity. This thesis aims to highlight teachers ' perception of the concept of integration/inclusion as well as their experience to integrate/include students in need of linguistic support in teaching.The theoretical approach of the study is based on the sociocultural perspective of Vygotsky, which highlights the importance of interaction between teacher and student as well as the interactions between the students themselves.five semi-structured interviews have been conducted with teachers from a multicultural secondary school. As a method, content analysis is used, that is, the interviews are systematically analyzed to quantify the content by categories to different themes. The following themes emerged in the framework of this study: (1) the concept of inclusion, (2) linguistic difficulties, (3) learning environment.The result shows that the teachers in the study have a similar definition of the concept of integration/inclusion although they have different perceptions of its value. Teachers experience both successes and setbacks with integration/inclusion. Success factors such as motivation, commitment, and participation are perceived as requirements for successful integration/inclusion. It also appears that teachers face some difficulties while integrating/including the students who need language support especially students who have Swedish as a second language. However, teachers use different methods and techniques to integrate/include the students.