Educación y empleo de personas discapacitadas

The fieldwork was conducted in two stages: the first was conducting the interviews; the second focused on participant observations (including informal conversation) and collection of documents. The first stage of the fieldwork took place during the second semester of the academic year 2012/2013. The second stage of the fieldwork took place in the first semester of the academic year 2013/2014. Thus, although spanning two academic years, the two phases reflected the same conditions, in that there were no changes in policy, legislation or personnel between the two.

Before the data were collected, I completed a demographic information sheet with the principals using tick boxes (see Appendix 6). The aim of this was to provide demographic data about the principals such as experience in the educational field, training, age, and gender, experience with children with special educational needs support and categories of disability, as well as the type of school (government or ARAMCO). When the form was completed, I assured the participants that information gathered in it would be confidential and would not be used in any way that could identify them to any third parties.

During the data collection period, I encountered a number of issues, including participants‘ reluctance to add their signature to a consent form (discussed later). However, I successfully completed all the interviews with the principals and the observations in the mainstream schools. I had had a great deal of experience dealing with principals as a former Special Education Supervisor; therefore, I felt that collecting data from principals would be achieved without great difficulty. Each principal presented a special challenge and each principal had his or her own story regarding that challenge.

The respondents were informed about the purpose of the interview and how it would be conducted, and their permission for it to be recorded was gained. Tuckman (1999) claims that interviewers should avoid expressing their opinions concerning the research issue during interviews, although they may need to control the interview by politely

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steering respondents back to the point if they deviate from it. Thus, I needed to be sensitive, careful and able to communicate well.

Collecting data through interviews can be an arduous task if the researcher is not trained in this. Bryman and Bell (2011) state that the language used in interviews must be completely understandable for the interviewee so that he or she can answer in the most efficient manner. Kvale (1996) also suggests that a successful interviewer should have sufficient knowledge about the topic as well as possessing good interpersonal skills. Interviews offer participants freedom to discuss desired topics. This being the case, the duration of each personal interview will differ greatly, from short to considerably longer, determined by the interviewee‘s cooperation. Therefore, I made sure that I was flexible with the time allowed for each interview.

In conducting the interviews, I followed Smith‘s (2008: p.58) recommendation that the interview ―be guided by the schedule rather than be dictated by it‖. This approach guided me to follow the interests and thoughts of informants, which are considered to generate the richest data (Smith, 2002).

A digital audio recorder was used during the semi-structured interviews, with the prior verbal approval of the participants. I did this for cultural reasons but the informal conversational interviews were not recorded. Using the digital recorder during the interviews was convenient as it offered me the opportunity to focus on the interview rather than noting down the responses. Moreover, the recordings could be replayed as many times as necessary for analysis.

The observations took place between 6 am and 1 pm, which are the official working hours for inclusive primary schools in Saudi Arabia, from Sunday to Thursday, the weekdays in Saudi Arabia. Although the observations were spread over all the official working hours, I was respectful of the culture of the participants in the research. I accepted requests from some of the principals for their participation to take place sometimes in the evening and/or at weekends. Indeed, I found this effort useful to the research, since it helped to increase the observation time by several additional hours.

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This provided an excellent opportunity to carry out informal conversational interviews with other members of staff, as I will explain later. It also allowed me to observe the relationship between the principals and the teachers. For example, I went out with some principals and school staff to sit on a corniche, a place to sit by the sea; I went with others to farms as well as to a kashtah (a picnic). It is in the culture in Saudi Arabia to sit on the sand and eat dinner together and then all return home at night; this often takes place at the weekend. All of this helped me gain information covering many aspects of the main themes and sub-themes of my study. A key purpose of participant observation is that it requires researchers who use this strategy to become involved in different activities, such as participation, documentation, informal interviewing and reflection (Willig, 2008).

I gathered data from all the principals who participated and, at other times, from teachers and parents, through informal interviews in school and in other places such as on trips. These interviews took place throughout the observation time, as the opportunity presented itself. This is an approach supported by theories of research methodology. Guest et al. (2013: p.84) confirm that, ―informal interviews are almost always part of

participant observation‖.

Thus, the focus of the observation was on how the principals conducted their daily work, but with a particular focus on issues related to the inclusion of children with Down‘s syndrome in mainstream schools. This included, for example, observing the process of the principals performing at a mainstream school, how the principals regarded inclusion, how they used equipment and facilities at their school, as well as their fears of such programmes, and how religion and culture affect principals at work, and dealing with the inclusion of children with Down‘s syndrome.

In addition, observations that focused on the process of inclusion enabled me to establish the nature of the relationships and cooperation within the school between, for example, the principal/deputy head teacher, principal/resident supervisor, principal/students and other relations, as well as how they worked together in a mainstream school. Moreover, I tried through observation to gain an insight into the nature of the cooperation between the principals and the beneficiaries of inclusion (in this case the parents of children with

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Down‘s syndrome). Furthermore, through observation, I learned a great deal about the school environments and the extent to which they are suitable for the educational process of the inclusion of these children. Break times in the school were also observed, as well as the classroom, where, besides aiming to observe the exclusion or inclusion of children with Down‘s syndrome, the activity was also designed to observe the friendships between children, which can be illustrated by playing, eating breakfast together and other activities. My visiting, attending classes, and observing the pupils and teachers did not interrupt the pupils, since most of them were familiar with visitors from the Ministry of Education or universities.

During the observation process, I observed various practices that encouraged the performance of inclusion and some that hindered its implementation, such as the exclusion of children with Down‘s syndrome in a separate wing in one school. I also observed how children with Down‘s syndrome were involved or otherwise in activities such as art and physical education class. In another example I noted during my observation of classrooms the use of some teaching aids that helped students to understand the lessons, while, in others, there were bare walls, which is a practice that hinders the implementation of inclusion. This reduces the development of children with Down‘s syndrome in academic subjects, because posters help their learning processes, as well as being beneficial for other children (Al-Khatteeb, 2008).

Participant observation provided useful opportunities for discussion. For example, I was able to observe a principal‘s visit to a special education teacher in one of the classrooms, which enabled me to ask the principal how he evaluated the performance of these teachers.

In the observations I also used a digital camera to take photographs of some parts of the interiors and exteriors of the school buildings, some of the furniture in the school, facilities such as toilets, and any other element that could support the interview results. These data collection process meant that I accumulated data that need to be analysed. The process of data analysis will be described in the next section.

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