After completing this module, you will know more about
how to promote inclusive education and initiate inclusive school development,
how to support and strengthen interprofessional collaboration in schools, and on
how to facilitate students’ agency.
Success factors based on current research and literature review will be discussed and illustrated using success stories from our partner schools.
Special emphasis will be placed on concrete steps and recommendations for establishing a Community of Practice in schools in the context of inclusive education.
An ecosystemic model of inclusive education
The Ecosystemic Model of Inclusive Education is based on ecological approaches, particularly on Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory and views inclusive education as an interaction between multiple influencing factors at different levels. It emphasises that inclusion is a systemic process that goes beyond individual students (individual level) and affects the entire school as well as its surrounding environment. Accordingly, inclusion is not only shaped at the school level but is also influenced by social, cultural, and political frameworks. Thus, this model highlights that inclusive education is shaped by the interaction of these levels, and systemic changes are necessary to achieve true inclusion (Óskarsdóttir et al., 2019).
The model includes the following key levels (Óskarsdóttir et al., 2019, pp. 52-54):
The Individual Level involves classroom practices that directly affects the learner’s development and outcome.
The School Level focuses on the traditions, culture, ethos, values, ideology, patterns of authority and collaboration within the school
The Community Level represents the community context
The National/ Regional Level provides the context for school’s work
Success factors
The following section provides information on success factors for implementing inclusive education, interprofessional collaboration and students’ agency in schools.
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Success factors for inclusive education
The international discussion on implementing inclusive practices has highlighted a range of factors that influence the success of inclusive education.
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Success factors for students’ agency
This section explores success factors for students’ agency, empowering students to take over an active role in a Community of Practice to co-design an inclusive school together…
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Success factors for interprofessional collaboration
Discover the essential factors that contribute to successful interprofessional collaboration with the CoP method at the institutional, organisational, managerial, and staff levels.
Success stories
🎥 In this section you will find four examples describing successful practices regarding interprofessional collaboration and students’ agency within an inclusive educational context.
Support conference in a middle school in Austria
Community support during Covid-19 pandemic in Portugal
Student council practices in an Slovak secondary school
Concrete steps and recommendations for preparing and implementing a Community of Practice in schools
The Community of Practice (CoP) approach is important in inclusive school development for the following reasons:
CoPs are a method to give all participants a voice: The dialogue between different actors bringing their valuable perspectives on a shared passion or concern results in collaborating in a participatory way and learning from each other.
CoPs offer an alternative to a traditional top-down approach to innovation: solutions are not imposed from outside but are practised by the participants of the CoP collaborating on equal footing.
CoPs allow an experimentation space facilitating a transformative process: The space is open for doubt, curiosity and trust in each participants’ abilities. Collaboration and sharing tacit knowledge (practical and context dependent know-how) leads to practical solutions in promoting inclusive education.
Thus, when participants in CoPs feel that their knowledge, experience and needs are taken into account, their knowledge and confidence in inclusive practices is greater.
Wenger (1998; 2002) proposed three structural elements that constitute a CoP: Domain, Community and Practice. It is the combination of these three elements that cultivates such a community (Wenger-Trainer, 2015).
To visualise these three elements, which are linked to each other, we suggest using the metaphor of a tree with the trunk representing the domain, the branches representing the community and the fruits representing the results of the practices.
To harvest as much fruit as possible and make the most of your Community of Practice, we recommend the following four steps to support you from creation to implementation.
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Click on the buttons to learn more about the four steps for preparing and implementing a Community of Practice in your school.
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1 | The CoP team: Bring the right people on board
In order to bring the right people on board, initiators establish a group in the form of a core team. This team consists of motivated people who share a passion or concern. Ensure…
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2 | Getting started with your CoP: Take the first steps
With the core team established, it’s time to prepare the ground: a few key activities will help create the right conditions for collaboration and ensure the CoP can focus on its…
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3 | Making your CoP work: From ideas to practice
In order to bring your ideas into practice, we recommend three key elements for every CoP process: defining a shared goal, creating an action plan, and evaluating the implemented…
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4 | Making your CoP thrive: Create sustainable success
Check it out.
Additional resources
Silveira-Maia, M., Neto, C., Sanches-Ferreira, M., Alves, S., Durães, H., Breyer, C., Vandenbussche, E., Boonen, H., Zacharová, Z., Ferková, Š., Schukoff, P., Unterreiner, S., & Teijsen, E. (2025). Mapping CoP for inclusion: a Knowledge Base. Instituto Politécnico do Porto. https://doi.org/10.26537/e.ipp.136
