Leading and Working Collaboratively for Educational Inclusion: Facilitators and Barriers to Co-teaching

Abstract

Within the framework of an inclusive paradigm, the need for co-teaching arises in order to meet the policies and educational needs of students in a regular classroom. However, these policies present difficulties in their transfer to teaching practices. This article aims to describe what are the facilitators and barriers to the implementation of co-teaching between the special education teacher and the basic education teacher in Chilean public schools. To do this, a quali-quanti mixed investigation is proposed, of a sequential explanatory type. The results indicate that the main facilitators are attitudinal aspects, collaborative work and support from management teams. Regarding the barriers, time, training and lack of personnel arise. It is concluded that the time provided by the legislation to do co-teaching would be insufficient, however, when an establishment has a leader with a focus on the pedagogical that accompanies co-teaching, that time can be managed in a way that optimizes and encourages its implementation in school.