Specialpedagogens roll i arbetet med stödinsatser

: En studie i tre teman: stödinsatser, specialpedagogens roll samt främjande och förebyggande insatser

Abstract

The Education Act (SFS 2010:800) states that students who are at risk of not reaching the minimum standards are entitled to support. The aim of this study is to describe the role of the Special Education Coordinator (SENCo) regarding the support given to students who risk not receiving a passing grade in at least one subject. The study has three parts: Support, The role of the SENCo, Promotion and prevention. The study has been conducted using a qualitative method with semi-structured interviews and qualitative analysis with nine SENCos. The analysis has been made using system theory and three perspectives: the relational perspective, the categorical perspective and the dilemma perspective.

The result shows that the role of the SENCo regarding support is complex. The role includes cooperation with teachers in identifying students, in choosing the correct supplemental support and in evaluating the support given. The result also shows that the roles of the SENCo are included in the System of Qualifications (SFS 2017:1111), but that the SENCOs that were interviewed have different perspectives where some are more inclined to work close to the students whereas others operate on an organizational level. There is also a clear difference between how involved the SENCos are in the systematic quality work and in developing the teaching methods in order to reduce the amount of support provided to individual students.

One conclusion is that the SENCos use the same types of supplemental support but that they motivate their use in different ways. Another conclusion is that documentation of supplemental support is necessary to be able to evaluate them and that many schools do this despite the intention in the reform from 2014 (Swedish Schools Inspectorate 2016; Swedish National Agency for Education, 2014).