Stronger Together: Building Teacher Collaboration for Efficient Inclusion of Learners with Special Needs

Teamwork among educators plays a significant role in advancing academic, social, and emotional processes in schools. However, despite broad consensus regarding the value of collaborative practices in addressing diverse educational challenges, there is limited knowledge about how such collaborations specifically contribute both to the advancement of inclusive processes in schools and society and to teachers’ own professional development.While teachers are undoubtedly responsible for promoting the inclusion of all students, this responsibility does not diminish the need to support their continuous professional growth and resilience. Schools, as microcosms of the surrounding society, cannot focus solely on student advancement without also addressing the professional development of those engaged in teaching. Therefore, there is a clear need to investigate the relationships between inclusion processes and teachers’ professional development.The teacher’s role has always been to prepare learners for adult life within society. This complex responsibility has intensified with the advancement of integration and inclusion processes for learners with diverse special educational needs. While teachers receive substantial preparation in pedagogy and inclusive practices, professional collaboration and teamwork among educators receive comparatively limited attention within teacher education programs. Furthermore, current scholarship provides limited and insufficiently updated evidence regarding the development of teachers’ professional relationships as a core component of effective school-based teamwork and the advancement of meaningful inclusion processes. This gap is particularly critical in an era marked by rapid global transformations that are reshaping the roles of teachers and schools.We invite researchers from diverse educational disciplines to submit manuscripts that contribute to understanding pathways for teachers' professional development in inclusive settings, with particular emphasis on cultivating collegial relationships and collaborative practices that support the inclusion of students with special needs.Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:• Professional learning communities and teacher collaboration• Team-based approaches to inclusive education• Teacher professional development for inclusion• Collaborative practices in diverse learning environments• Building professional relationships in schools• School culture and teamwork for inclusionSubmissions may include quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods studies, as well as theoretical papers, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses that contribute to conceptual, empirical, or practice-oriented understandings of collaboration in inclusive education. Topic editors: Heidi Flavian, Dana Barak Harel Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/78865/stronger-together-building-teacher-collaboration-for-efficient-inclusion-of-learners-with-special-needs