Abstract:

Education policy in Latvia, as a part of European policies, is moving towards inclusion and is supported by a recently developed normative basis for implementing inclusive education in mainstream schools. Nevertheless, the insufficient awareness of what inclusive education is and how can it be implemented creates a certain ambiguity in most of the schools. This problem is compounded by the need to have, first, a clear and shared understanding of relevant contexts and, second, to develop the required capacity of a particular school to ensure sustainable organizational changes, as well as to set achievable goals. However, organizational culture that seeks to accept diversity and inclusion is unlikely to be developed only through the policy regulations and mere will of the staff engaged in the process. This is why leadership practices in schools focused on inclusive organizational culture are crucial, since just dealing with the scarcity of human, financial and technical resources, reported to be the main challenges in schools, cannot ensure sustainable results.

The aim of the paper is to explore the current state of learning culture in schools for inclusive education and to discuss the leadership role for creating inclusive educational environment in mainstream schools by using perspective of organizational learning. The research questions focus on, first, how learning processes are currently organized in schools to promote inclusive education; next, how organizational learning is reflected in daily learning practices in schools; and finally, what should be done to promote learning culture for inclusive education.

To study the situation regarding the attitude of teachers and leaders towards inclusive education in schools of the city of Riga, 1590 teachers from 69 schools and 58 school leaders from 55 schools were surveyed in 2018. The findings derived from both descriptive statistics and qualitative data analysis reveal:
1) the main challenges school leaders have been facing when implementing inclusive education and
2) learning practices for inclusive education.

To have an in-depth look into the situation, in 2022 the survey was followed by 6 interviews with school leaders from different Riga Municipality schools conducted to reveal practitioners’ view on leadership processes in schools that are contributing to inclusive school culture through the perspective of organizational learning.

The study uses the perspective of organizational learning as gradually progressing from externally organized to self-organized, and then further to mutual learning. The concept of organizational learning at school is considered both as a framework for the interview content analysis, and also as a guiding principle for developing and leading inclusive practices in mainstream schools. Leadership practices within this framework are analyzed to reveal how they are developing throughout three stages: from planning and organizing staff participation in training courses, then to working on targeted division of labor and self-organized professional development of individuals, and further to leading mutual learning for inclusive school.

Keywords:

Organizational Learning, Leadership, Inclusive Education.