Inclusive education and adaptive care in increasingly diverse contexts

Course goals

1. To acquire knowledge of and insight in the developmental potential of children and youth with diverse backgrounds and the nature and causes of their learning and support needs.

2. To acquire knowledge of and insight in the effects of education systems and models of interagency coordination between education and care in international perspective, focusing on the ways in which within these systems and models the developmental potential of children with diverse backgrounds is being actualized and their learning and support needs are met.

3. To acquire knowledge of and skills in ‘educational engineering’, that is, in designing educational action plans and support structures at the level of individual children, classrooms, schools and systems of interagency coordination.

4. To acquire knowledge of (formative) assessment, diagnostics and environmental analysis to determine children’s developmental potential and their support needs.

Content

The course Inclusive education and adaptive care is an in-depth follow-up course for the fields early childhood education and care, primary and secondary education, special education and care of children, youth and young adults with physical or intellectual handicaps, with relations to youth care and youth health care. The course builds upon knowledge acquired in Ba-1 (Pedagogical and Educational Systems, Cultural Diversity) and Ba-2 (Diagnostics and Treatment). The course prepares for the master’s programs Clinical Child, Family and Education Studies (in particular special education, care for people with handicaps, inclusive education) and Youth, Education, Society (in particular prevention of educational disadvantages, intercultural education, preventive youth policy). A key concept in the course is the concept of developmental potential. Addressed are the scientific foundations of the concept, how an orientation on potential differs from an orientation on deficits in the areas of cognitive learning problems and developmental disabilities (in particular language learning disabilities, dyslexia, dyscalculia) and behavioural problems, how potential can be assessed, and especially under which educational conditions at different system levels children’s potential can be best realized.

The course provides an international orientation on education systems, models of inclusive education and inter-agency collaboration. The following questions are addressed: how is inclusive education and adaptive care organized in the Netherlands compared to other countries and what works best? To what extent do schools, either or not in collaboration with external partners, succeed in support students in realizing their developmental potential? This orientation pertains to the education an care system in a broad sense, from early childhood education and care to secondary education, on the one hand, and to collaboration with organizations for youth care and family support outside the education system, on the other hand. Attention is paid to common and new innovative methods and protocols for (formative) assessment and (dynamic) diagnostics, and the contextual analysis of home, classroom and school environments in a diverse society. In addition, students are introduced to ‘educational engineering’ by conducting practical design assignments: they are challenged to think about the measures than can be taken within the education system and in inter-agency collaboration between education and other institutions. Students learn to think in a co-creative way (instead of from an ‘expert’ position) about how to (re)organize (special, inclusive) education practices at different system levels.