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The rationale for a wider concept of inclusive education for teacher education: A case study of Serbia

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Abstract

Teacher education for inclusive education (IE) is recognized as vital for improving quality and equity in education globally. In the Western Balkan countries it is also part of the transition process towards joining the European Union and has attracted international funding for IE-related projects. A key finding from research funded by the European Training Foundation, carried out by the authors as members of a seven-country research team in 2009–2010, was that the prevailing local understanding of IE was very narrow. In this article we hypothesize the reasons for this finding. We use a case study of school and teacher education systems in Serbia to explore how this understanding has constrained the development of IE and associated teacher education and limited the efficacy of some recent internationally supported developments. We identify both challenges and possible ways forward for teacher education for IE based on promoting a concept of IE that is both collaboratively agreed and comprehensive.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education in Jagodina, University of Kragujevac, M. Mijalkovića 14, 35000, Jagodina, Serbia

    Sunčica Macura-Milovanović

  2. Centre for Education Policy, Svetozara Markovića 22, 11 000, Belgrade, Serbia

    Nataša Pantić

  3. Centre for Education Race Equality Scotland, Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh, St John Street, Edinburgh, EH8 8AQ, UK

    Alison Closs

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  1. Sunčica Macura-Milovanović
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  2. Nataša Pantić
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  3. Alison Closs
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Correspondence to Sunčica Macura-Milovanović.

Additional information

The authors are grateful to the European Training Foundation for permission to use the Regional Report (Pantić et al. 2010), the Serbia Country Report (Macura-Milovanović et al. 2010) and other country reports for this article.

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Macura-Milovanović, S., Pantić, N. & Closs, A. The rationale for a wider concept of inclusive education for teacher education: A case study of Serbia. Prospects 42, 19–39 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-012-9219-9

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