'Deaf people don't dance' : challenging student teachers' perspectives of pupils and inclusion

Abstract

Successful inclusion for deaf pupils relies to a considerable extent on their mainstream teachers. This paper explores how student teachers can be educated to fulfil this role. A project involving students on a range of pathways to qualified teacher status used a narrative approach to motivate participants to engage with ideas in the field of inclusion. It sought to show how perspectives of ability, special educational needs and deafness are constructed and to help students identify and, if necessary, change their own perspectives in these areas. Outcomes suggest that this approach can lead to student teachers becoming advocates for inclusion and can enable them to identify effective ways of working with individual pupils.