Alison Kearney

Citation

Thesis Title
Barriers to school inclusion: An investigation into the exclusion of disabled students from and within New Zealand schools

Read article at Massey Research Online:

Ms Kearney’s research sought to uncover, using grounded theory methodology, the factors that exclude or marginalize disabled students from and within schools, and make recommendations to reduce and eliminate these factors. She found that if teachers have limited knowledge and understanding, there are ineffective relationships between parents and school staff, there is a lack of caring and valuing of disabled students, teacher aides are used inappropriately, disabled students are bullied, and issues of funding are not addressed disabled students can be excluded or marginalized. Prompts for classroom teachers and school principals/senior management staff were developed in seven areas shown to be important to this phenomenon. These areas are access, accountability, attitudes, knowledge, responsibility, and funding and resourcing.

Supervisors
Ms Jill Bevan-Brown
Dr Roseanna Bourke