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Perception of disability among pupils, parents, educators and staff in schools in Lebanon

Lebanon | Education, Sociology

Swiss partners

  • HES-SO, Haute école de gestion, Geneva: Sabine Emad (main applicant), Magali Dubosson

Partners in the MENA region

  • Université Saint Joseph de Beyrouth USJ, Lebanon: Michèle Kosremelli Asmar (main applicant), Sahar Issa, Claire Zablit 

Presentation of the projet

The project initially planned for face-to-face interviews with special needs children, other children, parents, staff and instructors in inclusive and non-inclusive, private and public schools in Lebanon. It was ultimately decided to conduct focus groups instead of face-to-face interviews, with the same populations in order to gather feedback more efficiently, from more people in the same amount of time.

Overall, we conducted, for each type of school (public and private inclusive schools) a focus group with:

  • special needs pupils
  • other pupils
  • parents of students with special needs
  • other parents
  • school staff
  • educators

In non-inclusive private and public schools, the same focus groups were conducted except for those with pupils with special needs and parents of students with special needs.

It is important to note that due to the economic and political situation in Lebanon since October 17, 2019, instead of travelling back and forth to co-conduct the focus groups with the local partners, we agreed to have all the focus groups taped, transcribed and translated, in order for us to be able to participate “from a distance”. The same (taping and transcription) approach was also adopted for the benchmark interviews, detailed below, in order to enable the Lebanese partner to participate “from a distance”, to these interviews.

In parallel, we conducted individual interviews with experts of inclusive education in French speaking Belgium, French speaking Canada, France (Region South Ouest), and French speaking Switzerland (Geneva). In parallel, we conducted a face-to-face interview with an academic researcher from the HEP Lausanne, specialized in research on inclusive education at the international level, including Lebanon.

The work package related to the preparation and submission of a funding request to a research-funding organism such as the OAK foundation is currently in progress and could not be completed due to the on-going economic and political unrest in Lebanon.

More on this project

Conference paper at the INTED 2024