General, special and … inclusive: Refiguring professional identities in a collaboratively taught classroom

In implementing inclusive education, special educators frequently collaborate with general educators in various settings. How does such collaborative practice complicate the configuration of their professional identities? This paper uses the framework of figured world ( Holland, Lachiotte, Skinner, & Cain, 1998) to scrutinize the practice of one special educator, Stephanie. Alternatively assuming both subordinate and lead positions within a collaborative teaching team, Stephanie refigured her professional identity and practice contingently, initiating a trajectory of change that extended to “out-of-classroom” spaces (Clandinin & Connolly, 1996). Stephanie’s improvisations in this process index the significance of teachers’ authorial spaces in the implementation of inclusive education.