How Does Supervision Support Inclusive Teacherhood?

Abstract

Supervision is a multidimensional concept and phenomenon. In this study, the advantages of supervision and its development in inclusive teacherhood was studied. Inclusive teacherhood means a teacher’s professional development and the school culture’s change toward participatory school for all students. The study analyzed the views of supervisors with a teaching background on how supervision can be a way to support inclusive teacherhood and its development. This was a qualitative research. The data were obtained using the focus-group interview method focused on supervisors with a teaching background. The interviews were conducted in five places in Finland. The analysis involved a combination of phenomenography, particularly the application called the variation theory, and the classic analysis that is typical of the focus-group research method. According to the findings, supervision provides individual and communal support to inclusive teacherhood. Individual support was given in four ways: empowering and promoting new teacherhood, clarifying teachers’ professional growth and roles, helping teachers to evaluate their work, and supporting teachers in challenges at work. Communal support was manifested as strengthening collaboration, promoting a change in the work culture of a school, and developing a communal work approach. At its best, supervision can enable teachers’ professional, communal, and personal development in an inclusive learning environment, but more time, resources, and opportunities for supervision should be arranged for teachers.

Keywords

• Supervision
• Inclusive Teacherhood
• Supervisor with a teaching background
• Focus group interviews