This research focused on how student teachers develop understandings about people with disabilities and their future role as inclusive educators. The main objective of this study was to investigate student teachers' reflections on what it meant to be a teacher of children with disabilities. The research recognised the importance of the social context of education. Local contexts of teaching and learning involved community experiences with people with disabilities as a means of facilitating situated learning. Participants engaged in expressing their understandings and attitudes from their past and present interaction with people with disabilities and their understandings about becoming inclusive educators.

The research questions involved:

The conceptual framework of the study focused on the development of student teachers' understandings and awareness about people with disabilities through the process of active learning. The voluntary community experiences were the social contexts for student teachers' reflections on their interactions with people with disabilities and interpretations as a way of developing deeper understandings of self as teacher and wider understandings of curriculum for children with disabilities.

The significance of the study was that the outcomes had benefits for student teachers and teacher educators. In particular, the student teachers learnt about people with disabilities and reflected on their perceptions of the teaching role. Prior to this study there had been few practical components in the compulsory special education subject, which meant that previously student teachers gained knowledge without the opportunity to apply their learning. Many students studying the Special Education subject had expressed their concern about their feelings of anxiety and embarrassment about what they should do and say to a person with a disability. The community experiences gave a specific context to student teachers' learning and developed their professional identity, social awareness and acceptance of people with disabilities. The results of the study are relevant to teacher educators who are continually looking for strategies to enhance their students' learning.

The field of special education is typically characterized as needing to cater for diversity by caring for difference. Special educators tend to hold a strong appreciation and celebration of diversity in individuals and acceptance of a pluralistic view of society. The shift to personalise curriculum has led educators to adopt the term "personal practical knowledge" which Connelly and Clandinin (1988), define as 'that particular way for reconstructing the past and the intentions for the future to deal with the exigencies of a present situation' (p.25). Such notions of reflecting on experiences as a process of sense making are attributed to Dewey (1938) who wrote about thinking and learning as reflection 'on action', 'in action' and 'for action'. This reconstructing process is designed to encourage learners to reflect critically on past, present and future experience and reframe actions from multiple perspectives as a way of exploring alternatives and understanding broader contexts. This study aimed to link deliberations with experiences that promote forms of knowledge with the subjective life experiences of student teachers engaged in situated learning in community programs.

Contextualising curriculum gave voice to student teachers' tenuous understandings of identity and reality. Lovat and Smith (1995) offer an expansive view of the curriculum process and describe it as 'a series of decisions and judgments. These decisions are based upon the planner's beliefs, assumptions, perceptions and biases and upon the ways in which teachers, and others, make meaning of the teaching reality in which they are located' (p.2). Connelly and Clandinin (1988) took the view that curriculum 'can become one's life course of action. It can mean the paths we have followed and the paths we intend to follow' (p.1). Similarly, Pinar (1975) referred to curriculum as an educational journey. Such definitions emphasise the dynamic nature of curriculum and its relation to past, present and future orientations. Understanding how individuals interpret their own experienced curriculum within a cultural construct is a more difficult process, which required investigating the influences of society and cultural environments.

The context of curriculum in this broader sense moved beyond the classroom experience and was considered for its cultural dimension in the wider community. The context of the study involved student teachers in out-of-course community settings designed to foster situated learning opportunities. Participants were given the opportunity in conjunction with assessment tasks in the teacher education program, to interact with people with disabilities in situations involving post-school options, independent living skills, recreation activities and respite in families' homes.

The study involved a critical appraisal of theory and research relating to processes of self-knowledge and life experiences influencing how student teachers constructed identity and curriculum in a range of contexts. Curriculum was defined as 'the product of social, historical, political and economic forces. It involved the selection, interpretation, representation and assessment of culturally based knowledge, skills and values' (Australian Curriculum Studies Association, 1992). To understand how curriculum was constructed involved exploring the context of the student teachers' teaching and learning, and interpreting how relationships and experiences contributed to the development of role identity as inclusive educators, catering for children with disabilities.

Previous studies by Tom (1985), Liston and Zeichner (1987), have viewed teaching as a 'moral craft'. Liston and Zeichner distinguish between technical skills and moral values claiming that 'the focus is not so much upon the act of thinking as upon the actuality of being, on engendering particular dispositions or ways of being. Teachers can be honest, caring and fair in their relationships with students, and they can encourage their students to act likewise' (p.6). To be aware to 'focus on teaching as a moral enterprise rather than an exercise of technical skill is ultimately to challenge the technocratic and patriarchal discourse of western culture' (Elbaz, 1992, p.422). Such a humanistic view of teaching promotes a personal, caring relationship between teachers and learners and engenders knowledge of self, which is particularly relevant in a special education context when considering varying motivations for becoming a teacher.

Given that a conflict perspective underpins a critical interpretivist research, it was necessary to focus on investigating conflicts and tensions (Beach & Pearson, 1998) experienced by student teachers in their interactions with people with disabilities. The investigation integrated and examined the nature of reflective processes of student teachers from both subjective and conflict realities in an attempt to link community experiences with curriculum practices and at the same time recognize differing perceptions of what they thought their course should do for them (Loughram & Russell, 1997).

The study involved action research and case study method. All students in Bachelor of Education courses were required to undertake a mandatory special education in the 2nd year of the course. For Primary students (n=89), the mandatory special education subject was studied in the fourth semester of the course. The out-of-course community experiences were introduced as an optional component of the special education subject. Additionally, students in the 3rd year of the Primary and Early Childhood course had the opportunity to elect to undertake an Early Intervention subject (n=31) and a Respite experience was introduced as an optional practical component.

Participants involved two cohorts (n=6 primary student teachers; n=6 early intervention student teachers) selected from volunteers who consented to participate in the research study from the Bachelor of Education Early Childhood and Primary courses.

Techniques included semi-structured interviews with 12 student teachers using the framework of the Biographical Transformation Model (Knowles, 1992) and student teacher stories. Two or three interviews of approximately 20-30 minutes were conducted with each participant on the campus in my office during each university teaching session over the length of the study. Participants were also asked to record their ongoing learning experiences and interpretations relating to their out-of-course community work in a learning journal detailing past, present and future reflections.

Qualitative data involved interview transcripts and reflective journals. Data sources were analysed to determine the nature of student teachers' developed understandings of people with disabilities. The reflective learning journals and interview data were analysed to identify emerging themes and to investigate the genre of reflection and whether participants were able to engage in descriptive, dialogic and critical reflection.

Results were further analysed from a constructivist research paradigm to investigate both ideal and actual realities. Results were categorized into areas of motivation; biographical experiences and critical incidents involving agents, contexts, and stages; and responses involving action, emotion and intellectual. The nature of reflection included descriptive, dialogic and critical aspects as well as focusing on the process itself. Motivations given by participants involved: increasing their confidence, expecting the experience to be rewarding, wanting a real experience, finding out about special education, wanting to reaffirm their decision to be special educators and developing their understanding about people with disabilities. People who influenced the participants included nuclear and extended family, friends and people with disabilities, university peers, respite parents and carers, teachers and teachers' aides, society and government.

Responses led to actions for communicating with people with disabilities, talking with peers, making progress, setting boundaries and protecting the person with disabilities. Emotional responses varied from feelings about being comfortable and uncomfortable, confidence, enjoyment, frustration, guilt, relaxed and finding it hard. Intellectual responses covered thoughts about acceptance, awareness, atmosphere, inclusion, need for parent break, resources and not learning anything.

Issues raised highlight emerging themes and related to the context, involving access, across context and segregation; educators and carers, involving burnout, career and qualifications; parents and families, involving burnout, dealing with professionals, practice, siblings and support; and pedagogy, involving issues relating to accountability, continuum of services, curriculum, ethics, inappropriate language, inappropriate practice and resources.

Additionally, reflections included the participants' philosophy involving expectations, attitudes of acceptance, non-acceptance and open-minded; and beliefs, involving inclusion, labeling, funding, respect and rights. Suggestions concerned course change, facilities and hands on experience. The research involved understandings outcomes about biographical changes, insights about themselves, participants as learners and people with disabilities, the role of classroom teacher and teaching strategies. As one student said:

Well, I think .. every person that goes through teaching should have something like this to go to. Um .. maybe not that much to relate to the textbook but just to get an idea of what happens .. I don't think it's all that important to say now you understand what the textbook's saying. It's very important for yourself (Raymond)

Participants reported on their ability to adapt and relate to people with disabilities, recognizing them as individuals with unique personalities and feelings, instead of media-portrayed stereotypes, who may not fit certain criteria. The experiences facilitated the participants' awareness about people with disabilities and getting close to them through developing sensitivity to their daily life. The participants claimed to have experienced more intense emotions ranging from feeling shocked, accepted, excited, passionate and challenged. They commented on how they enjoyed people with disabilities' selfless attitudes, having them remember their name, learning their ways, such as non-verbal greeting, seeing how others' interactions might lead to people with disabilities being the butt of jokes and alternatively, witnessing how other children who knew the person with disabilities, surrounding and supporting them.

Participants considered the role of an inclusive educator as important, requiring effort and perseverance and putting oneself in the child's position. To be successful, the participants identified qualities of being open-minded, gaining others' trust for them to be willing to share information, being more prepared, doing more training, questioning and being willing to try other strategies. The role was described as making a difference in somebody's life. As one participant explained:

my dad taught me that. He always said you know Okay you go right ahead and do that but before you do, think about what's going to happen when it does. So I've always been one of these .. um .. yes, yes, I could go out at 16 and get drunk but what's going to happen if I get brought home by the police you know and it's always been ((Mmm)) it always made me very cautious. I've never been one to jump into anything head first .. um .. but .. um .. and I think .. actually getting the chance to be at uni where you know .. probably 10 years ago I wouldn't have this chance. Like, I'm from you know the classic low socio-economic background and to be here I've just struggled and I've fought. I've been married and divorced and had kids of my own and just I think life experience plays a big part in what we become. ((Mmm)) And I know, if I'd left school at 18 and come here, I would never have got through this course. But I think it's having a purpose .. well, you know. ((Mmm)) The purpose is to get out there and get some kids learning and make a difference in somebody's life. ((Mmm)) So that's why I'm here.(Chris)

Another student described the need to take responsibility for children's learning rather than label them as having the problem:

when I first started I thought the curriculum was there and you just went through the motions of the teaching and then the kids that didn't keep up they just sort of automatically went out to remedial and that was their problem after that. Whereas, now I look at it, it is my problem and .. when I go into a class I want all the children to come up .. obviously it'll be at different levels. But I do want to see improvement every term in each child whether it be small or in leaps and bounds but I expect .. but for me to justify my role there to have all children come up to a certain level and then moving on, setting more goals and coming up to that.(Kerry)

Teaching strategies and curriculum engaged participants in learning about basic living skills, collaboration, having a good background and getting to know the person with disabilities, knowing how to react, implementing a program, individualising, attending to the environment, using positive reinforcement, asking questions, problem solving and non-verbal communication.

When reflecting on her own learning, one participant said:

I mean that's a learning experience all the time and you can see with hindsight the errors you've made and the things you should do but we are only human ((That's right)) and that's it and I mean you know we do .. I think making mistakes is a very valuable part of life (Ruby)

This need to be self-reliant was also mentioned by another participant, saying:

but when she leaves me alone like I'd .. I actually cringe. I was cringing so .. ((Mmm)) and then ((because of why)) because I didn't know how to handle M ((Mmm)) and I only learnt through my own mistakes. ((Mmm)) Well I mean everyone does that but ((Mmm)) straight up it was hard ((Mmm)) and it was raining and .. like we went outside for a little while and I had to try and get M back inside because it started to rain. And that was tough. That was a huge task in itself, trying to get her back inside. (Narelle)

Findings led to the development of a Model for Biographical Reflective Pedagogy, which demonstrates the centrality of reflection within a teaching and learning framework. Understandings of prior experiences and motivation are shown to interact with the outcomes of the community experiences through an on-going process of reflection. The interactions and critical incidents from the community experience facilitated reflection about educational issues and learning strategies, and contributed to the development of a personal philosophy, thus clarifying understandings about an inclusive educator's role.

To answer the research question concerning identifying critical biographical influences affecting how these selected students understand the role of inclusive educators, it is necessary to adopt an individual case basis. Life stories and biographical experiences are shown to be highly meaningful for the individual; however, shared understandings are more complex in that each person brings his or her own background and learning to any context, and like people with disabilities, what works with one may not work with another. Ultimately, I consider that the participants engaged in constructing meaning about the role of becoming an inclusive educator through individualised processes of empowering themselves to be in a better position to enhance people with disabilities' opportunities to experience where possible independent quality lives.

This study and the development of a Model for Biographical Reflective Pedagogy contribute to the emphasis on the social context of education. The analysis of student teachers' insights about an inclusive educator's role in catering for children with disabilities will have direct implications for teacher educators concerned with socio-cultural curriculum development. Situated learning in formal and informal venues facilitated understanding of role identity as an inclusive educator and produced new ideas about the nature of reflection as an integral tool in the development of thinking and learning.

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