Classroom Teachers’ Craft Knowledge of their Inclusive Practice

Whilst recent decades have seen significant progress in research on inclusive
education, many teachers still feel that the research literature does not fully
address their professional concerns about how to enact a policy of inclusion in
their classrooms. To help to bridge this gap, we drew on the concept of craft
knowledge to undertake a detailed study in two Scottish primary schools of the
practice of class teachers who are committed to meet the needs of all learners.
This paper describes the processes involved, and considers how these helped us
to develop a greater understanding of what constitutes inclusive practice, whilst
also contributing to a more robustly theorised knowledge of what we have
termed inclusive pedagogy, or the inclusive pedagogical approach. Methodological
complexities arising from the use of the concept of craft knowledge are also
explored.