Promoting inclusive teacher education: Introduction

‘Promoting Inclusive Teacher Education’ is a series of five advocacy guides. The guides discuss challenges and barriers to inclusive education in different areas of teacher education and offer related strategies and solutions for effective advocacy towards more inclusive practices. The series begins with this introductory guide. It provides an overview of inclusive teacher education and of what advocacy means in this context. It also provides an introduction to the topics covered in the four other guides in the series. These are ‘Policy’, ‘Curriculum’, ‘Materials’, and ‘Methodology’.

Advocacy Guide 1: Introduction – This introductory guide begins by providing a brief introduction to inclusive education. Readers should not, however, see this introductory guide as their only guide for understanding inclusive education. It is assumed that advocates will either have existing knowledge of inclusive education or will refer to other more comprehensive sources of information to learn about the concept. This guide goes on to explain the benefits of integrating awareness and understanding of inclusive education throughout pre-service teacher education. Finally, it provides a practical introductory guide to advocacy.