Nineteenth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

This research explores primary school teachers’ perceptions of refugee children inclusion in Greek schools. More specifically, it focuses on how teachers construct their discourse while talking about refugee students and their intercultural competencies as agents of inclusion and social justice in the context of Inclusive pedagogy. This paper focuses on teachers’ discursive construction around the inclusion of refugee children in the Greek educational system, the intercultural communicative competencies that teachers have acquired through their professional development, and on the ways that teachers perceive social justice in the context of inclusive education. Teachers often blame the government for not being prepared and for its inability to educate and train teachers. Therefore, they feel insecure in dealing with the emerging multicultural environment and inclusion of refugee children in their classrooms, while they discuss the need to give refugee children equal educational opportunities. They also negotiate the term social justice as they try to define the context of inclusive education. Twenty-five interviews were conducted as part of this study. They have been interpreted using Critical Discourse Analysis as used by Νorman Fairclough, Robert Hodge, and Gunther Kress.