The aim of this paper and presentation is to make visible and heard students’ in special educational needs (SEN) own perspectives on and experiences of various forms of support in vocational education and training (VET). Research has shown that students studying in vocational programmes were in high need of accommodation and require increased attention, especially in activities and subjects with academic focus (Yngve et al., 2019). Students are rarely informants, even when they are the subject being studied (Keles et al., 2022). However when asked, various experiences of inclusion and exclusion emerges from their narratives (Öhman, 2022b). Recent research reviews focusing on special education show that more inclusive assessment practices are needed (Öhman, 2022a) as well as more research in the area of special needs education (SNE) in vocational education (Björk-Åman & Holmgren, 2021).

This presentation uses the Aristotelian concept of practical wisdom phronesis (Aristotle, 1976) connected to bildung (Klafki, 1998; Tyson, 2019) to discuss and widen the understanding of the informants’ descriptions of their possibilities or hindrances to participate in educational activities.

The empirical material is drawn from eight semi-structured interviews undertaken in two different vocational schools in two separate municipalities and regions. The qualitative study is inspired by a phenomenological approach taking interest in understanding social phenomena from the participants own perspectives and lived experiences (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2014). In line with this approach the further analysis uses Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) as a tool to map and interpret expressions in their context (Beck & Berterö, 2015).

Overall the informants in the interview-study express satisfaction with the vocational programme they have chosen as it gave possibilities to inclusive support in the practical activities, whereas activities related to more academic achievement required special support and individual accommodations such as special support classes (SSC). A common reason for this exclusive support was failed grades in academic core subjects such as Mathematics, Swedish or English. The students’ experiences of being in need of special support are ambivalent; they blame themselves of being disable while grateful for the support they get, even when excluded

The interest in this review lies in two research fields: Special Education and Classroom Assessment and explores if and how these fields interrelate. A review of classroom assessment with regards to special educational needs has not yet been published; the knowledge of the impact of assessment in education concerning students in special needs is thus scarce. Therefore, this study aims to contribute with knowledge about how assessment practices can be understood in relation to special educational needs. From a broad overview of present research within the two fields, 17 articles from 2010 to 2020 were selected and analyzed. The focus of these articles is on content that overlaps in both assessment of knowledge and special needs. Four dyadic themes were found showing practices of inclusive assessment in the research: equity & equivalence, inclusion & access, interaction & relation and self-regulation & identity. These themes are considered important strategies in inclusive assessment practices. Intersections between disability, language- and cultural background as well as class, make visible dimensions of marginalization and special needs on various levels of education. These aspects are informative to policy makers, education staff as well as academic researchers. In addition, they can be approached separately or as entangled areas of knowledge.

Abstract:

The interest in this empirical study aims at assessment, more precisely feedback as part of ordinary activities within hairdressing education. The study investigates feedback practices related to assessment of knowing during production, with focus on communication between student and teacher. Communication is regarded as interactively constructed and is investigated through a multimodal social semiotic perspective which implies studying verbal as well as nonverbal resources in meaning making. Speech and body movements are not subordinate to each other and are studied as contributing in communication on their own terms.

Video observations were used to investigate feedback practices in the hairdressing classroom, during a couple of lessons when last year’s students received customers for various treatments. From one hour recording, a selection was made showing communication between student and teacher with joint focus of attention during production. The selection is based on the assumption of feedback as interactively constructed and represented in a multimodal way.

The analysis of the feedback practice shows a multifaceted result, since each interaction between a student and a teacher is unique. Nevertheless, a recurrent pattern of feedback construction could be discerned. Three important functions of feedback were distinguished, that of control, instruction and evaluation. Furthermore, these functions interact in temporal processes of cycles and loops. The core of feedback practice is found within the loop, where questions and wonders from the student are brought into a joint investigation.

Upper secondary students’ experiences of special needs support: Narratives of alienation and belonging

What does the provision of special educational needs actually mean to those concerned and how can their narratives be understood within perspectives of power and identity? This article reports an interview-study with upper secondary school students who have special needs. The empirical material is analyzed with a narrative approach and discussed within perspectives related to power and identity. The meanings and conceptualizations of special educational needs are complex and multifaceted. Grasping it from the participants themselves, with their unique experiences of special educational support, is thus a necessary condition. The results show that support demands much more than placement or special educational training. Teaching and learning must be provided with regards to relational aspects such as thrust and security, and accessible to everyone in a variety of local contexts. By exploring students’ accounts of special needs support, this study develops knowledge about special needs and support as intertwined in systems of power. Their experiences of inclusion and exclusion build identities of winners and losers. All in all, the results give insights to the importance of an understanding of treating each student with special needs as an individual subject/person (someone) and not as categorizing him/her as an object/disability (something). A framework of relational, as well as existential pedagogy that creates spaces for senses of belonging, becoming and being, is central with regards to students’ special educational needs. 

Key words: special needs support, narrative, upper secondary school, identity, power.

Artikeln, med sitt utbildningssociologiska perspektiv, har sin bakgrund i empiriska studier där intresset är riktat mot klassrumsbaserad bedömning, närmare bestämt återkoppling som en del av den dagliga undervisningen. Data konstruerades genom videoobservationer i frisörklassrummet. Analyserna av återkopplingspraktikerna synliggör lärares professionella yrkeskunnande steg för steg, koordinerade med och i respons till eleverna. Dessa empiriskt baserade resultat ställs i kontrast till neoliberalt färgad utbildningspolitik, som framkommer ur några centrala dokument och artiklar, där professionellt yrkeskunnande reduceras och yrkesutbildning generaliseras till instrumentella nyckelkompetenser och anställningsbarhet.

The aim of this study is to explore feedback practices and how such actions of assessment emerge from embodied participation in classroom interactions between teachers and students. Using video recordings of teacher and student interactions in hairdressing education, I look at how feedback practices within creative subject content are produced between the participants as social actions situated in interaction, using conversation analysis. Feedback is contingent upon an embodied moment-to-moment monitoring and collaboration between the teacher and student, and is organized as a trajectory from problem detection through exploration until a final solution is found. Feedback within creative subject content is displayed as a multifarious exploration of embodied as well as materially situated professional knowledge. Overall, the findings show how feedback is mutually produced in a process, making tacit dimensions of hairdressers’ knowing explicit. This allows for improving the quality of the work over time in a trajectory of problem solving phases gradually displaying how to assess creative subject content of the material product worked on.

The present dissertation concerns social organization of feedback in ongoing hairdressing education. The central aim is to explore feedback between teacher and student in multimodal interaction within classroom assessment, as co-production of action and student’s participation. Classroom assessment and feedback are understood as social actions situated in interaction.

The empirical data consists of video recordings from two vocational schools. From 31 hours of video material, selections of feedback interactions were made. At first, teacher and student communication in feedback cycles and loops was analysed from a social semiotic perspective. Secondly, examples of student initiated feedback loops were analysed from a conversation analytic perspective. Thirdly, a single case of a teacher and a student interacting through feedback related to creative subject content was analysed from a conversation analytic perspective. 

The analyses show the importance of collaborative use of artefacts and embodied communication in the production of mutual understanding; opening for student initiatives in actions of assessment as well as feedback. Silence and body position were found to be important resources giving the student space to display concern. Participation in feedback practices within creative subject content emerged in a trajectory of problem detection to problem solving, resulting in tacit dimensions of hairdressers’ knowing made explicit.

The findings indicate the importance of taking a participatory perspective on multimodal interaction when exploring actions of assessment and feedback between teacher and student. This study shows how feedback is not only given from the teacher, but also locally produced as a collaborative practice between teachers and students, displaying tacit dimensions of professional knowledge and subject content.

This study explores vocational didactics and embodied knowledge in hairdressing

education by studying how perceptive sensoriality is used by teachers and students in

creating shared understandings of vocational knowledge. Among multiple actions,

touch is distinguished as a central resource in learning the vocation, as it emerges in

interaction between teacher and student related to the ongoing teaching and its

assignment. The data is based on video-recordings displaying how touch is used in

manipulating objects and material, or in assessing qualities and defects. In such

instances, touch becomes a diagnostic criterion (Goodwin, 1997) to investigate how the

material worked with can be evaluated and handled. To bridge the gap between

individual and collective vocational knowledge, metaphors are of use. The results show

two approaches to the teaching of perceptive sensoriality. In order to learn the vocational

subject content the teaching need to provide for and practice the individual’s embodied

sense of touch as well as the vocation’s verbalised collective feel. This is the core of the

didactical challenge.

The aim of this study is to explore feedback practices in situated activities and how such actions of assessment emerge from embodied participation in classroom interactions between teachers and students. Using video recordings of teacher and student interactions in hairdressing education, we investigate through conversation analysis how feedback practices such as making loops are initiated and enabled between the participants in situated activities. Feedback in the practice of loops is contingent upon an embodied moment-to-moment monitoring and collaboration between the teacher and student, and is initiated with a concern from the student that is responded to by the teacher, enabling feedback to become a common exploration of professional knowledge. Overall, the findings show how feedback is mutually produced, making visible that salient aspects of the education are emanating from the student’s own concern.