Considering the public dialogue about inclusion that has been going on in Europe recently, one can observe a remarkable development in many areas of the educational sector. These developments concern educational policy, professional practice in schools, as well as the academic area and, among others, they are made visible in an ameliorated teacher training, inclusive didactic principles and the discussion about a basic understanding of inclusive schooling, which partially has an impact on the school system. However, the consequences of inclusive schooling on the level of didactic material, which is made available for this purpose, have not been taken into consideration systematically in a sufficient way so far. Making use of this deficit, educational publishers currently launch many publications they call “inclusive educational material”, which nevertheless, have usually neither been tested academically or in educational practice, nor do they possess added value compared to their “non-inclusive” predecessors. Moreover these materials were generally not designed based on an established notion of inclusion, but instead in order to attract buyers, mostly via media-effective marketing. According to recent surveys, teachers in Germany do buy these materials, but can hardly get the guidance for an inclusive education they would expect out of these materials. They are also missing appliances that make a quick and effective testing of these materials, concerning their suitability for using them in an inclusive learning environment, possible. Inquiries and consultations with other players in the educational sector in Europe revealed that this problem does not occur everywhere equally, but however seems to be a challenge for the professional acting of teachers beyond Germany. Referring to this initial situation, the project, which includes communication among the countries of Sweden, Italy, Germany and Luxembourg will serve to examine inclusive educational material as compared to international standards regarding its key design criteria. Moreover further communication about the ideal development of the respective material will take place and then also put to practice. It is the project´s aim on the one hand to develop a set of criteria which will appear in the different languages of the participating organisations and in English and which can be applied internationally in Europe. It should also aid teachers and eventually educational policy in evaluating already existing material for school education on the market, as it will be based on the suggestions of exemplary educational material. Both interdisciplinary and subject specific criteria will be taken into account for this matter. On the other hand inclusive teaching material and a concept for teacher training regarding the use and analysis of inclusive material in due consideration of local specifics in education should emerge. It is planned that the intellectual outputs of the project (set of criteria for inclusive teaching material, inclusive teaching material, concept for teacher training) will be made public in the first and third phase of teacher training via various institutions, ideally also by means of educational policy. Every step of the project will be accompanied, evaluated and analysed by a qualitative research study, which will be done in a comparative content analytic way. Interim data and the results of the project will be made public by the project partners and the applicant organisation via various online and journal publications. In order to design the intellectual outputs of the project as professional and helpful as possible, partners of different sectors of the education system have been chosen. On the one hand, the university partners of Sweden, Luxembourg and Italy guarantee a scientific basis for all the criteria and intellectual outputs. The partnering schools from Germany (Arnstein-Schwebenried) and Italy (Schulsprengel Bozen) add a functional perspective to the project in order to design the outputs as easy to handle as possible and to meet the needs of teachers and pupils. The Schulamt of the Main-Spessart region was chosen to care for the implementation of the evaluation and a wide distribution of the project´s results. In conclusion it is the project´s aim to improve the social inclusion of European pupils, also in the long run, and to support teachers in this matter by creating criteria for the evaluation and application of inclusive teaching material, a concept for teacher training and respective teaching material. On a scientific level the project will have a expectably huge impact as well, as the scope of material research will be broadened by adding inclusive material to it, which will influence students and researchers in a positive way. Therefore one can conclude that the project serves the optimal inclusion of pupils by ameliorating the condition in schools and universities.
Already at the time of its approval, the project was highly relevant, since teachers were supposed to implement inclusion in their lessons in a controlled manner via teaching and learning materials oriented towards educational policy demands, but at the same time had no possibility to assess the inclusion sensitivity of materials or even to create their own inclusive materials or supplements with guidance. At the same time, textbook publishers increasingly focused on this problem and began to distribute materials labeled as "inclusive" without showing any corresponding quality. In the pandemic situation, two additional factors were added that made the project even more relevant: First, materials-based adaptive learning became even more central through homeschooling, as the teacher was no longer in the same room, and second, the proliferation of digitally now available offerings for teachers, as well as the selection challenges this simultaneously created, increased even further. A variety of additional products, not initially planned, were created in order to offer support options and a higher degree of clarity for different target groups, and in the spirit of increased digitization, all products were made available in open access for every user. The core team consisted of Prof. Dr. Michaela Vogt (University of Bielefeld), whose research focuses on international comparative education and school research and inclusion-sensitive pedagogy, Christoph Bierschwale (University of Bielefeld) with knowledge in international comparative educational media and inclusion research, Prof. Dr. Katja Andersen (Universite de Luxembourg) as an expert in task development, educational media research and multilingualism, Prof. Dr. Vanessa Macchia (Free University of Bolzano) with expertise in inclusion pedagogy and evidence-based approaches to competencies, Prof. Dr. Anette Bagger (University of Örebro) with research interests in subject didactics of mathematics and special education, and Dr. Annemarie Ardemagni from the Bolzano Primary School District with knowledge in inclusion pedagogy and inclusive school development. In relation to the activities underway in the project, these were versatilely located between scientific and practical activities. In both areas they relied on an intensive personal as well as digital exchange of experts - complemented by intensive research and development phases - as well as on extensive dissemination activities via stakeholders in order to disseminate project results as versatile as possible and to anchor them permanently in school, as well as university structures in many countries. The results are permanently available on the project homepage: www.itm-europe.org. The results include versatile products for the relevant stakeholders. These include a scientifically based criteria catalog for the evaluation of inclusive learning materials by teachers and learners, a process model for the creation of such materials, and uploaded material packages for different subjects and grades. The impact of the project results is further increased by operating social media channels, publishing scientific as well as practical publications, giving lectures at international congresses, offering further training for teachers on a permanent basis and implementing the project contents in study modules and seminars at all locations on a permanent basis. To the same extent, the project products could be permanently implemented in school development programs and working groups of various schools, so that both the academic and the practical school sector profit from the project results in many ways. Long-term benefits of the project therefore arise in many ways: Combined with its permanent anchoring in existing structures as well as a further dissemination of the highly innovative project results, which have become even more relevant in school practice since the pandemic situation, via online channels, established newsletters and further project presentations and publications in various national and international contexts, the results are also further disseminated by multipliers. The group of multipliers includes student teachers, teachers and pupils as well as representatives of educational administration and science who show interest in the project results. The project group is working on further project applications and would like to develop the project results even more broadly in relation to new challenges.