Teachers as Agents of Inclusive Education: Developing a Reflexivity Cycle and Examining Teachers’ Conceptions and Practices in Vietnam

Abstract

This study explores the concept of inclusive education (IE) and the crucial role of teachers in fostering it, proposing a reflexivity cycle model to help educators reflect on their goals and teaching practices. Using this model, the research examines how Vietnamese teachers perceived and implemented IE, particularly for students with special educational needs. Through in-depth interviews with nine teachers from both public and private primary schools in Hanoi, Vietnam, the study gathered qualitative data which were analysed through qualitative content analysis with a constructivist interpretive stance. The findings reveal that teachers tended to view IE through a binary lens, distinguishing between what is considered normal and abnormal rather than embracing student diversity. There is a lack of faith in IE for students with SEN and the progress of such students in mainstream education. Additionally, building a fair and disciplined educational environment, fostering mutual understanding, communication, and trust among various stakeholders inside and outside the classroom emerged as the primary strategies for promoting IE. However, a disconnect existed between national education policies and teachers' actual practices, largely due to the lack of training and involvement from school administrators in advancing IE in Vietnam. This underscores the necessity of integrating practical pedagogical support with reflexivity-oriented professional training that enables teachers to critically examine their beliefs and enact IE more effectively in the Vietnamese context.

Introduction

In 2015, the United Nations introduced its Agenda for Sustainable Development Vision 2030, which outlined 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs). Among these, Goal 4 emphasises providing inclusive and equitable quality education for all levels of learners, which is a key for sustainable development. The origin of inclusive education (IE) can be traced back to 1994, when it gained significant recognition through the Salamanca Statement (UNESCO, 1994) and was further reinforced by the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Cate et al., 2018; Heyder et al., 2020). To be specific, the Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education (UNESCO, 1994) recognises and accepts unique abilities and learning needs of every child and asks regular schools to provide children with special educational needs (SEN) with child centred pedagogy so as to meet their needs (UNESCO, 1994). The children with SEN include ones with different types of (intellectual/ physical) disabilities or face other challenges (behaviour difficulties, emotional conditions, difficulties related to ethnic minorities, etc.). In addition, the Salamanca Statement (1994) also states that the movement of inclusive orientation in regular schools is the means for social justice:

regular schools with this inclusive orientation are the most effective means of combating discriminatory attitudes, creating welcoming communities, building an inclusive society and achieving education for all (UNESCO, 1994, p.ix).

Later, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) strengthened the concept of “mainstreaming disability issues as an integral part of relevant strategies of sustainable development” (UN, 2006, p.1). It acknowledges the importance of accessibility to education of people with disabilities. Therefore, both the Salamanca Statement (1994) and the UN Convention (2006) establish the concept of inclusive education with two characteristics. First, it addresses the educational needs of a more vulnerable group in our society, children with SEN, in the mainstream education system (i.e., a regular school); and second, it has the core value of social justice for sustainable development which tries to erase discrimination and inequality against such people (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1

The evolution of the concept of inclusive education

Having evolved through the time since the Salamanca Statement (1994) and the UN Convention (2006), the concept of IE has been developed to become more broadened. Instead of only focusing on individuals with SEN, nowadays, IE embraces and views differences as they are already available in the school setting, and take into account the groups that are more vulnerable (Finkelstein et al., 2019; Heyder et al., 2020; Pantić & Florian, 2015). For example, Pantić and Florian (2015) argue that IE involves respecting and responding to human differences in ways that include rather than exclude, to extend the concept of what is ordinarily available rather than viewing that doing additional things to treat differences. From the idea of Pantić and Florian (2015), IE means acknowledging and accepting differences as ordinary and a part of the diversity nature. This approach aims to ensure all students' presence, participation, and learning across different educational contexts (Heyder et al., 2020; Llorent et al., 2024; Pantić & Florian, 2015). Hence, the core value for social justice of IE still remains, but the target group is widened to the whole society (Fig. 1).

It is notable that while the concept of IE is expanded to acknowledge differences and diversity as ordinary, this does not ignore or exclude students with SEN, instead recognises that students with SEN have their own differences like other students, which is not unusual or abnormal that needs to be segregated from the mainstream class. Rather, IE increases the ability of students with SEN to get access and participate in learning activities, as well as integrate in the whole group with support that caters their needs.

To achieve successful inclusive education in regular schools, different research findings highlight the importance of teachers, especially their attitudes influencing their practice (Cate et al., 2018; Heyder et al., 2020; Llorent et al., 2024; Pantić & Florian, 2015; Rix et al., 2009; Sharma & Sokal, 2016). For example, Heyder et al., 2020 argue that teachers' attitudes and beliefs influence their teaching practices and behaviours, ultimately impacting the learning environment and outcomes for students (Heyder et al., 2020). Sharma and Sokal (2016) found a significant association between teachers’ positive attitudes towards IE and inclusion-sensitive teaching practices in the classroom, like the use of individualised learning goals and peer-teaching methods.

Aligned with aforementioned studies that recognise the key role of teachers to build inclusive education for children, Pantić and Florian (2015) present a model of teacher agency for social justice and inclusion, consisting of sense of purpose (beliefs and values related to IE), competence (inclusive pedagogy and collaboration), autonomy (perception of external influences affecting their practice), and reflexivity (self-evaluation of their own practice and context). The model of teacher agency proposed by Pantić and Florian (2015) still surrounds teachers’ attitudes, perceptions and practice for IE. However, their perceptions and practice are not separate from their context; instead teachers need to understand and evaluate external forces that influence their practice (the component of autonomy) and reflect on their own practice and context (reflexivity). They are the reasons why the model of teacher agency that Pantić and Florian (2015) put forward is significant as it internalises context as a part of teacher agency.

From the model of teacher agency proposed by Pantić and Florian, it can be seen that reflexivity is an independent component, but related to both teachers’ competence (their practice) and autonomy (their context or external factors influencing their practice). Moreover, different empirical studies have pointed out the correlation between teachers’ attitudes towards IE and their practice (Heyder et al., 2020; Llorent et al., 2024; Sharma & Sokal, 2016). Hence, this current study argues that reflexivity also requires teachers to rethink and question their attitudes and beliefs towards IE as well as their role to construct such education, which can affect their practice of building IE. There is not one answer to the question “how to build IE” that effectively works in a multitude of situations. Instead, this is teachers’ reflexivity of their own context to choose values and approaches to IE that suit their specific circumstances, taking into account scientific and humane achievements for sustainable development. They include equity and inclusion in education in which no one is left behind and can get access to opportunities to build a better life. Thus, the model of reflexivity for teacher agency in building IE and social justice is revised as the following (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2

The cycle model of reflexivity for teacher agency in building inclusive education

From Fig. 2, it can be seen that the sense of purpose will affect teachers’ competence of building IE which in turn influences teachers’ perception of their autonomy and how the context surrounding them can support or hinder their practice of building IE for social justice. This helps teachers to make their own decisions. All the three components need to be reflected to finish one cycle and start a new procedure with adaptation and adjustment (if necessary) on teachers’ perspectives and practice, based on what has been reflected.

With the framework proposed, this study emphasises the role of reflexivity in building IE for students and aims to foster teachers’ reflexivity by conducting in-depth interviews to help them reflect on (i) their sense of purpose, (ii) competence and (iii) autonomy in creating an inclusive educational environment for students, especially for students with SEN. This current research focuses on IE for students with SEN in the context of Vietnam for some reasons. First, there is a lack of studies in this area. Second, recent research has shown that this group of students is specially disadvantaged in Vietnam in which Dinh et al. (2022), Tran et al. (2020) found that many educators struggled to identify and provide appropriate support for such students. In addition, Austin (2011) and Nguyen et al. (2020b) pointed out the pessimistic view of teachers regarding the ability of disabled students and the benefits that mainstream education can bring to children with autism—a specific type of SEN. Among a few studies investigating IE for students with SEN in Vietnam, there is a scarce amount of research examining teachers’ practice although different studies all acknowledge the insufficiency of teachers’ competence to support students with SEN. This creates a question for both researchers and teacher trainers to know what teachers really do when lacking competence to support students with SEN in the mainstream class. Answering these questions can benefit further interventions and training to support teachers’ practice and enhance students’ well-being to build IE in Vietnam.

With the aim of helping teachers reflect on their purpose, competence and autonomy in creating an inclusive educational environment for students, especially for those with SEN, also investigating their practice in reality, the research questions of the study are the following.

Research question 1

What is teachers’ concept of inclusive education, especially for students with SEN?

Research question 2

What do teachers do to build an inclusive educational environment, especially for students with SEN?

Research question 3

How do teachers perceive the context affecting their practice of building an inclusive educational environment, especially for students with SEN?

Literature Review

Research on Teachers as the Agent of an Inclusive Educational Environment for Students with SEN

Based on the model of teacher agency for social justice and inclusion proposed by Pantić and Florian (2015) introduced in the previous section, this section presents key themes related to teacher agency for an inclusive educational environment, especially for students with SEN that have been established in research. They include teacher’s beliefs and values related to IE, their pedagogical strategies to create an inclusive learning environment, and their perception of the context that can affect their own values and teaching practice. It is noteworthy that in research, studies can either approach SEN generally to refer to different types of learners with special educational needs (e.g., Opoku et al., 2022) or specifically mention a specific type of learners (e.g., behaviour difficulties, hearing impairment, autism spectrum disorder—ASD, down syndrome, immigrants from ethnic minorities that face difficulties related to the majority language, etc.).

Regarding teachers’ beliefs and values related to IE, different studies across different contexts report teachers’ conceptualisation of IE as an approach for human rights and social justice (Materechera, 2020; Rodden et al., 2019) to ensure students’ participation in mainstream schools (Magumise & Sefotho, 2020). Furthermore, teachers also acknowledge that diversity is a new norm in IE which is in conflict with the use of labels in class that can create stigma and reduce human’s diverse nature into several categories (Hodges et al., 2020; Larina & Markina, 2020). For instance, Hodges et al. (2020) argue that the use of labels can create assumptions, thus reducing teachers and parents’ concerns to each individual. To be specific, students with labels like SEN can be believed to behave and learn in a particular way without considering their unique characteristics (Hodges et al., 2020). Nevertheless, without the use of diagnoses associated with labels, early interventions to support students with SEN may not be timely provided (Chan et al., 2025; Rodden et al., 2019). The conflict or tension in labelling above can be explained from the rights-based perspective and the needs-based perspective to conceptualise IE, which is presented below.

The values and beliefs about IE can be categorised into two types of perspectives, including the rights-based perspective and the needs-based perspective (Rodden et al., 2019). While the former calls for an end to segregated education and emphasises the necessity of the inclusion of all children in mainstream schools, the latter requires a range of educational provision to satisfy the diverse needs of all children that does not exclude grouping or labelling children based on their needs (Rodden et al., 2019). Rodden et al., (2019), hence, contend for an integrative perspective to IE, meaning that the rights-based and need-based perspectives are not mutually exclusive, instead they can be integrated to conceptualise IE. IE, therefore, is conceptualised for both the rights and needs of students in order to support them to fully reach their potential and be socially integrated, especially taking into account those who are more vulnerable like students with SEN.

Regarding teachers’ strategies to create an inclusive educational environment for students, Finkelstein et al. (2019) conducted a systematic review of various studies on IE in pre-primary, primary, and high school settings. These studies, published between 2000 and 2017, used direct observation techniques to examine inclusive teaching practices. The review identified five key themes of teachers’ strategies to build IE: (i) collaboration and teamwork, (ii) assessing student progress, (iii) instructional support, (iv) organisational strategies, and (v) social, emotional, and behavioural support. While collaboration and teamwork emphasise teachers’ cooperation with families and colleagues to create an inclusive learning environment, the other themes focus on in-class practices to support learners with both their learning and well-being in class. Similar to what Finkelstein et al. (2019) have found, different studies reported corresponding strategies to build IE for students with SEN. They encompass: teachers’ collaboration (e.g., RyanSheehan, 2023), on-going assessment of students’ progress (Sandberg & Norling, 2018), individualised instruction and curriculum adaptation to support different needs of students (Larina et al., 2020); universal learning design with the application of multimodal resources (e.g., visuals, audio), as well as different types of grouping and collaborative learning in class (Finkelstein et al., 2019; Larina & Markina, 2020; Losberg & Zwozdiak-Myers, 2024).

Among those strategies, individualised instruction (also known as differentiated instruction) and grouping receive many arguments that are related to teachers’ conceptualisation of IE. On the one hand, from the rights-based perspective, differentiation for individual needs and grouping are concerned to be able to create social segregation or even to patronise students with SEN (Larina & Markina, 2020; Lleixà & Nieva, 2020). On the other hand, based on the needs-based perspective, they are seen as ways to adapt to each individual’s needs with their unique characteristics (Larina & Markina, 2020; Rukavina et al., 2019). To address this argument, an integrative approach can be applied, as individualised instruction and grouping do not imply exclusion or the removal of students’ rights to participate in mainstream education. However, the concerns related to associated social discrimination and patronising require caution and respect in treating students with SEN, especially when applying grouping and differentiation. In the study of Lleixà and Nieva, (2020), teachers shared that it is necessary to facilitate the climate of acceptance and motivation among participants in groups so as to avoid peer dominance and discrimination. In other words, students’ needs should be considered alongside their rights to participate in mainstream education and to socialise in society, through the lens of social justice and equity. This perspective enables teachers to apply pedagogical strategies and make instructional decisions that respect and embrace differences rather than exclude or patronise students.

Finally, in terms of teachers’ perception of the context that can affect their agency, research has reported challenges related to classroom conditions (such as class size, resources) (Magumise & Sefotho, 2020; Materechera, 2020) as well as the community’s assumptions and beliefs that can either hinder or improve teachers’ competence in creating an inclusive educational environment (Chan et al., 2025; Rodden et al., 2019). Rodden and colleagues (2019) find that the school system can perpetuate the ideology of students’ deficit, simultaneously argue that the concept of deficit is due to the school system rather than the child themselves. Furthermore, Chan et al. (2025) report that the society is too quick to judge, which affects both perceptions, values and practice of teachers, especially when they lack professional training.

In conclusion, research highlights the interconnected nature of teachers’ beliefs and values, pedagogical actions, and contextual factors in shaping their agency for inclusion and social justice (Pantić & Florian, 2015). Teachers’ inclusive practices are influenced by their underlying beliefs, which are in turn affected by the educational and social context in which they operate (Magumise & Sefotho, 2020; Materechera, 2020; Rodden et al., 2019). This reciprocal relationship underscores that fostering teacher agency for inclusion requires attention not only to individual competence, but also to systemic and contextual conditions that enable inclusive and socially just education.

The Context of Vietnam

In Vietnam, there are several studies investigating the concept of IE as well as teachers’ attitudes and practice to build IE, especially for children with SEN (Austin, 2011; Dinh et al., 2022, 2024; Nguyen et al., 2020a, 2020b; Tran et al., 2020). Those studies summarised the development of IE in Vietnam, reported the statistics related to IE (e.g., the number of students with SEN in Vietnam), and presented what they found regarding teachers’ attitudes towards IE and students with SEN.

About the development of IE in Vietnam, it can be traced back to 1991 with The National Centre for Special Education (NCSE) in Hanoi. Its first activity was to determine the number of students with disabilities, which was mostly based on data taken from families of children with disabilities (Dinh et al., 2024). Later, in 2006, the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) issued Decision No. 23/2006/QD-BGDĐT regulating inclusive education for people with disabilities. The Decision asks all educational institutions in the national education system to accept people with disabilities and provide safe and convenient facilities in classrooms and schools for such people to learn (Dinh et al., 2024). The recent Scheme for assisting children with disabilities in access to protection, care and education services in the 2018–2025 period was promulgated by the Prime Minister in 2018. The Scheme aims for 90% of children with disabilities to get access to education services in society. In 2019, Vietnam enacted its national education law recognising IE as a mode of education so as to meet diverse needs of learners, respect learners’ differences without discrimination in order to ensure equality in children’s rights to get access to education (Vietnam National Assembly, 2019). It can be seen that the development of IE in Vietnam follows the global progress of IE, centralising the core value in social justice and gradually broadens its concept to target all members of the society with more support to vulnerable groups such as children with SEN. In summary, three important milestones—2006, 2018, and 2019—have suggested changes in teachers’ practices in Vietnamese education. The years 2006 and 2018 highlight the recognition of students with SEN’s rights to attend mainstream schools, whereas 2019 reflects the expansion of the inclusive education concept in line with global progress. This has required teachers to become inclusive practitioners who are expected to address diverse learners’ needs and adapt their pedagogical approaches to ensure equity and participation for all students, especially considering those who are more vulnerable, thereby contributing to a more cohesive society.

About the statistics related to IE, there is a mix of numbers regarding children with SEN (e.g., disabilities, autism) participating in mainstream education in Vietnam. For instance, Dinh et al. (2024) reported that the 2016 National Survey of People with Disabilities announced that: 88.4% of children with disabilities were attending primary school, 74% of children with disabilities were attending secondary schools, and only 39.4% of children with disabilities disabled were pursuing high school level. Nguyen et al. (2020b) reported that in late 2016 and early 2017, Vietnam’s General Statistics Office conducted its first large-scale survey to assess the lives of individuals with disabilities. The study revealed that 94.2% of students identified with disabilities were being educated in general education classes. Those significant numbers of students with disabilities being educated in general education contrasts with what Dinh et al. (2022) reported. To be specific, nearly 70% of primary school-aged children with disabilities in Vietnam did not attend school (Dinh et al., 2022). It is noteworthy that Dinh et al. (2022) did not clearly mention the time of the statistics reported in their research. As the studies reporting the statistics of IE for children with SEN in Vietnam did not clearly mention either the time and/ or methods of collecting and analysing data, it is inadequate to evaluate the reliability of the aforementioned figures, thus requiring more research with rigorous and explicit methods to assess the reliability of statistics provided in previous research.

There are several studies investigating teachers’ attitudes towards students with SEN (Austin, 2011; Dinh et al., 2024; Tran et al., 2020); they mostly found teachers’ concern and pessimistic views towards IE for students with SEN. For example, Austin (2011) examined the prevailing attitudes of both school teachers and college-level teacher educators towards students with disabilities. The study gathered data from 435 participants across all regions and most of the 58 provinces in Vietnam. Findings revealed that the majority of participants (86%) believed that people with disabilities were not as intelligent as those without disabilities, but they could lead a normal social life and should not be confined to separate “special” communities (Austin, 2011, p. 13). Additionally, the study highlighted the scepticism of public-school teachers regarding the feasibility of implementing IE in rural areas of Vietnam. Their concerns stemmed from deep-rooted cultural beliefs that associated disabilities with negative social stigma, to be specific, “family members and teachers in these areas often associating disability with a ‘loss of face’” (Austin, 2011, p. 12). Tran et al. (2020) pointed out that the community support for IE is just a formality without specific activities (page 269). Dinh et al. (2024) also reported teachers’ concern of the feasibility of implementing IE in rural regions of the country (page 242).

From the policy to the research findings, it can be seen that there is a gap to actualise the policy related to IE in Vietnam (the milestones of 2006, 2018, 2019) that promoted teachers’ role of addressing diverse learners’ needs and adapting their pedagogical approaches to ensure equity and participation for all students. This gap can be explained with the following difficulties. Firstly, most pre-primary, primary, and lower secondary schools lack adequate facilities to support students with disabilities (Dinh et al., 2022; Tran et al., 2020). Additionally, there was inadequacy of formal training for teachers to create inclusive learning environments, and many educators struggled to identify and provide appropriate support for students with SEN (Dinh et al., 2024; Nguyen et al., 2020b; Tran et al., 2020). The challenges related to the socio-cultural context and insufficient teacher training can explain partly why despite Vietnam’s major waves of inclusive education policies, there is still a gap between policies and what actually happens in reality.

Furthermore, compared with global studies on IE, Vietnamese research emphasises statistics and implementation challenges rather than teacher agency, one of the important factors leading to the success of IE (Llorent et al., 2024; Pantić & Florian, 2015; Rix et al., 2009; Sharma & Sokal, 2016). There is a lack of studies investigating teachers’ values, beliefs, strategies and how they perceive their context in building IE for students, especially for those with SEN, which is the gap that this present research seeks to cover.

Methodology

Participants

The study involved nine classroom primary school teachers from Hanoi, Vietnam, including both those working in the capital city and its surrounding areas, applying the convenience sampling method. All of them are females. At the time of the interviews in November 2023, their ages ranged from 23 to 50 years old. Prior to conducting the interviews, the researcher obtained an official approval document from the Head teacher of the school where the participants were employed (participants 4 to 9). The research also received Ethics approval (no. 24–19) from the Ethics Committee of the University of Córdoba, Spain. Additionally, all interviewees were informed about the purpose of the study and provided their consent to participate. As the convenience sampling method cannot give a representative sample for all teachers in Vietnam, the interpretation of the research findings needs conducting with caution. All participants were female and willingly agreed to be interviewed. Their detailed information is presented in Table 1.

Table 1 Participants of the interview

Instruments

In the project, the semi-structured in-depth interview was applied to collect data as well as to help teachers reflect on the concept of an inclusive educational environment, their practice and autonomy to build such an environment for students with SEN. This follows and is aligned with the research questions and the reflexivity model proposed in the Introduction part of this current study. The interview included the following key questions: (i) Have you ever had students with SEN in your class? If yes, how are they and what has been your experience with them? (ii) What do you think of or define an inclusive educational environment (such as its characteristics, purposes, etc.), especially when there are students with SEN in the mainstream class? (iii) What do you often do to create an inclusive educational environment for students, especially for students with SEN? Do you face any difficulties or receive any training in this field? (iv) What do you perceive of the school context if it supports your practice of creating an inclusive educational environment or not?

Based on the key questions above, other questions could be added during the interviews so as to clarify or confirm the information or opinions that the teachers gave during the interviews.

Research Procedure

To conduct the interview with teachers, the researcher first recruited the participants through snowball sampling, therefore, the sample is not a representative sample for Vietnamese teachers. The inclusion criteria include Vietnamese primary teachers that have experience of interacting or teaching students with SEN. The teachers were informed about the purpose and consent of the study. They were aware that they voluntarily took part in the study without receiving any compensation, and they knew their rights to withdraw from the study whenever they wished. In addition, the researcher also asked for their permission to record their answers with a sound recording application.

The interviews were conducted face-to-face with six teachers (participants 4 to 9) and three telephone interviews with three teachers (participants 1 to 3). The face-to-face interviews happened at the school of the participants during their break time, lasting from 15 to 20 min per teacher. And the telephone interviews lasted for 20 to 30 min per teacher.

After interviewing teachers, the researcher transcribed the audio recorded and anonymised teachers’ personal information to prepare for the stage of data analysis.

Data Analysis

The data analysis was carried out using qualitative content analysis (Schreier, 2014) with a constructivist interpretive stance (Charmaz, 2011), and Atlas.ti 23 (for Windows) was employed for data processing and visualisation.

To analyse the data, the researcher applied two primary relationships between things that are similarity and contiguity as well as connecting strategies to form categories (Maxwell & Chmiel, 2014, p.23). Furthermore, the study employed both inductive and deductive approaches to data analysis. The deductive approach allowed the researcher to apply the theoretical framework introduced in the study (e.g., teachers’ sense of purpose, teaching practices) to interpret the data, while the inductive approach enabled themes and insights to emerge directly from the collected data rather than being limited by the pre-established theoretical framework (Reichertz, 2014). By reading the participants’ transcripts, key ideas are highlighted. Each participant’s response can provide several ideas corresponding to different codes (e.g., fairness in inclusive education, being ordinary, etc.). When participants share a similar idea, it is coded into the same code. In a specific code, each participant was counted 1, then the researcher calculated the sum of participants in each code to obtain the number of participants sharing that specific idea. Based on the relationship between ideas and entities that are similarity and contiguity, different codes can be categorised into a bigger group so as to form or establish the main categories that reflect main perspectives of participants.

The data were coded three times by one researcher. For the first time of coding, the researcher analysed the data to form codes and categories. The codes and categories formed were checked with the requirements of qualitative content analysis (Schreier, 2014, p. 175). They are:

• (i) Uni-dimensionality (main categories should represent a distinct and specific dimension, theme, or concept of the material),

• (ii) Mutual exclusiveness (there should be no overlap or ambiguity in assigning members to subcategories within one main category),

• (iii) Exhaustiveness (all significant themes, concepts, or dimensions of the material must be represented by the categories).

The codes and the categories were defined so as to categorise the data again. After finalising the codes and categories with their definitions from the first time of coding, the data were coded for the second and the third times following the codes and categories established. The researcher then looked at the two coding versions (the second and the third versions) to see if there are any differences or conflicts among the two versions to finalise the codes and categories, taking into account the framework and definitions of codes and themes established in the first time of coding.

Finally, while qualitative content analysis served as the primary method of coding and categorisation, the study incorporated interpretive insights from constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2011) to deepen the understanding of participants’ perspectives. The constructivist grounded theory was used not as a full methodological framework but as an interpretive lens that supports meaning-making beyond surface-level descriptions. According to Charmaz (2011), constructivist grounded theory analysis “adopts a relativist epistemology and seeks interpretive understanding rather than a variable analysis that produces abstract generalizations separate from the specific conditions of their production” (Charmaz, 2011, p. 168). This current study is based on the constructivism world view for research, meaning that researchers can recognise that their own backgrounds can shape their interpretation (Creswell & Creswell, 2018), and follows what Charmaz suggested about constructivist grounded theory, that researchers need to go beyond the surface of participants’ words and actions so as to reconstruct meaning from data generated from participants (Mills et al., 2006). Therefore, after analysing and categorising data, the researcher, as a Vietnamese person, reflected on the language that the participants used during their interviews, applying her understanding of Vietnamese culture and its educational settings to interpret the data.

Results

The results are presented following the research questions which investigated three aspects. The first one is teachers’ concept of inclusive education, especially for students with SEN, which is presented in section “Teachers’ concept of an inclusive educational environment”. The second content is teachers’ general practice to build an inclusive educational environment for students with SEN (section “Teachers’ practice to build an inclusive educational environment”). And the third aspect is teachers’ perception of the school context influencing their agency to build an inclusive educational environment for students with SEN (section “The school environment”).

Teachers’ Concept of an Inclusive Educational Environment

Teachers’ concept of an inclusive educational environment, especially for students with SEN, was seen from two main dimensions: (i) characteristics and (ii) purposes (Fig. 3). About the characteristics of an inclusive educational environment, they include: fairness (n = 1), being ordinary (n = 2), and teachers’ proficiency in special education (n = 3). According to the interviewees, an inclusive educational environment is not separate or being distinct from what is called “everyday class”, “being ordinary” and it shows the fairness among students, meaning that students with SEN will not have more privilege or they are treated differently from others although their vulnerability is concerned. A third of the participants believed that an inclusive educational environment requires teachers’ proficiency in special education. The second dimension is the purposes of an inclusive educational environment, encompassing: (i) to help students with SEN become normal and cure their illness (n = 2), (ii) to help students with SEN be able to do things that ordinary people can do (n = 2), and (iii) to support social integration of students with SEN (n = 4).

Fig. 3

The concept of an inclusive educational environment

It can be seen that there exists a contradiction in teachers’ perception. On one hand, they required the features of being ordinary and fair in the educational environment, on the other hand, they showed their binary view of learners’ ability which includes two opposite concepts “normal” and “abnormal”, “ordinary” and “not ordinary”. This is why they said that an inclusive educational environment aims to help students with SEN become normal and to help them be able to do things that ordinary people can do, which excludes students with SEN from being normal and ordinary.

Teachers’ Practice to Build an Inclusive Educational Environment

In terms of teachers’ practice to build an inclusive educational environment, there are the following themes: (i) assessment (n = 5), (ii) create a fair and disciplined environment (n = 5), (iii) create a safe environment (n = 2), (iv) recognise and promote students with SEN’s strengths and talents (n = 3), (v) teachers’ positive attitudes towards students with SEN (n = 3), (vi) teachers as the agency to promote communication and mutual understanding to support students with SEN (n = 4), (vii) and teachers’ self development (n = 2).

Five teachers contended that it is essential to build a fair and disciplined environment for young learners which is to combine both discipline and individual concern in class (n = 5) so as to promote fairness and equity (n = 1). They argued that students with SEN do not have a privilege not to obey discipline or take responsibility for their behaviours. However, as those students can have difficulties in controlling their emotions and each student has a distinct personality, their individuality needs to be considered in order to find a suitable approach, for example, to practice meditation by watering plants and express emotions via their interests such as drawing (n = 1), apply strict punishment and loving speech (n = 3). In addition, two teachers argued that it is essential for teachers to promote mutual understanding among different agents in the class (teachers—students, students with their peers) by listening to students’ problems and conflicts, explaining the situation and emotions of students involved, then proposing or modelling a solution to construct a positive disciplined environment (Fig. 4). Moreover, related to a fair and disciplined educational environment, two teachers also believed that teachers need to build trust between teachers and students by exploring their interests, strengths and personality, and caring for their school well-being. This aims to create a safe environment for children to calm themselves so as to share their thoughts and feelings with adults for timely support. A safe environment, therefore, becomes a requisite for a fair and disciplined environment (n = 2).

Fig. 4

A safe, fair and disciplined educational environment

In addition to promoting mutual understanding among teachers and students in the class, teachers also reckoned that it was necessary for them to facilitate understanding among other agents outside their class but involved in the construction of an inclusive educational environment. They include parents (n = 3) and the school’s community of teachers (n = 2) so that parents can accept and co-operate with teachers to support students with SEN. Notably, students inside the class played a significant role in which two teachers explained that they needed to promote the understanding of students in class and four other teachers argued that it was necessary to have the involvement of other students to help students with SEN to be integrated in the mainstream education.

Gần như mình sẽ không cho bạn ngồi một mình, mà thường cho bạn ý ngồi cùng một bạn khác, để các bạn có thể cùng giáo viên giúp đỡ bạn ý để có thể hòa nhập. Nếu không thì rất thiệt thòi cho bạn ý. - I almost never let them sit alone, but usually let you them with another peer, so that other students and the teacher can help them integrate. Otherwise, it would be a great disadvantage for them. (Teacher 5)

In addition, all the stakeholders involved can benefit from the collective wisdom by sharing experience and lessons (teacher 1 & teacher 2). Among different agents that the teachers mentioned, there was a lack of the presence of both school managers and policy makers.

Furthermore, building an inclusive educational environment for students with SEN requires positive attitudes from teachers. However, only a third of the participants mentioned that requirement in which teachers need to accept students with SEN and be patient with them (two teachers), avoid labelling students (one teacher), and have faith in students’ progress (one teacher). In addition, the same number of teachers (three) emphasised that an inclusive educational environment needs to recognise and promote students with SEN’ strengths and talents to help them develop and thrive. However, even when recognising students’ abilities, two teachers believed that students with SEN should go to a special environment where they can grow up and receive better care than in the mainstream education (teacher 4 & teacher 5). Only one teacher thought that by promoting their talents, students with SEN are recognised, thereby, become more integrated in the mainstream school (teacher 3).

In terms of assessment, there are two main arguments, one argument supporting the equal assessment like other students (teacher 8), the other argument that received more agreement from teachers is individualised assessment for students with SEN in which one teacher said that she followed the guidance of the Ministry of Education and Training for disabled students (teacher 5), two teachers believed that students with SEN should be assessed focusing on their strengths and based on their actual cognitive ability (teacher 1 & teacher 3), and one teacher required to remove tests and grades for students with SEN (teacher 4).

From the themes analysed, a word cloud was created to find the popular categories based on their grounded quality (Fig. 5). It can be seen that teachers’ communication and mutual understanding promotion and creating a safe environment are the themes mentioned with many pieces of data, and teachers’ communication and mutual understanding promotion also receives the agreement of a number of teachers. The summary of the themes created from teachers’ practice is presented in Fig. 6.

Fig. 5

Word cloud—how Vietnamese teachers build an inclusive educational environment for students with SEN

Fig. 6

Vietnamese teachers’ practice to build an inclusive educational environment for students with SEN

The School Environment

From teachers’ perspectives, the mainstream school environment lacked support and attention to students with SEN although it still showed empathy to those students (n = 6). It has the following features (Table 2).

Table 2 The mainstream school environment and students with SEN

For instance, one teacher shared:

Bộ không có chính sách gì với những trường hợp như thế này. Giáo viên thường truyền tai nhau là, vào cô nào, thì cô đó phải hứng. Trường học cũng ảnh hưởng tới học sinh đó. Ở một môi trường có nhiều sự phân biệt, những bạn đó thường bị kì thị, xa lánh. Ở môi trường của chị, có những phụ huynh thông cảm với những bạn đó, và cũng có những phụ huynh không muốn con mình học cùng với những bạn ấy. Tuy nhiên, chỉ là số ít thôi. - The Ministry does not have any policies on cases like this. Teachers often tell each other that whoever is assigned, that teacher will have to take the brunt. The school culture also affects that child. In an environment with discrimination, those children can be ostracised. In my environment, there are parents who sympathise with the children, and there are parents who do not agree to let their children study with those children. However, just a small number. (Teacher 1).

Based on teachers’ responses, it can be seen that teachers were not clearly aware of the policies related to IE enacted in Vietnam and the role of teachers to actualise policies in reality. However, they recognised the impact of the school environment on the integration of students with SEN and how it could become a barrier hindering students’ participation in mainstream education. In addition, teachers also reflected on their own practice which was believed to be inadequate of both concern and competence to address students with SEN. Although teachers showed their empathy with those students, the fact that they were incompetent to support them, and that a part of other students did not play with students with SEN led to teachers’ ideas that general education was not for those students.

Discussion

Teachers’ Concept of Inclusive Education—A Binary View of the World and the Lack of Support for Students with SEN

In comparison with other studies investigating IE for students with SEN (see Austin, 2011; Nguyen et al., 2020b), the study shows that there has been a movement in the perspective of teachers towards students with SEN that recognises their abilities and talents instead of only viewing them to be less intelligent than other people. However, even though there is recognition of those students’ talents, the bias against students with SEN as abnormal and they need to cure their illness to become ordinary like others is an obstacle avoiding teachers to try and devote more time and pedagogy to support them. The concept of IE, from teachers’ perspectives, still marks the separation of what is considered normal versus abnormal rather than embracing differences. This belief, thus, can lead to the perspective that mainstream education is not for students with SEN, and teachers of mainstream education are not trained for those students. Hence, those students need to have their special environments where their needs are addressed better, and in general education, teachers tend to accept their disadvantages and cannot offer more support; which is aligned with the findings of other research that shows a correlation between teachers’ attitudes and their practice (Heyder et al., 2020; Llorent et al., 2024; Sharma & Sokal, 2016). According to Pantić and Florian (2015), the concept of teachers as the agent for IE and social justice requires teachers to view students’ differences as a pedagogical dilemma rather than students’ problems. This facilitates teachers to find solutions and fosters their professional development. However, in this study, only two teachers tried to reach out to the teacher community and self-investigate to enhance their professional development so as to support students with SEN. Other teachers still believed that mainstream education and their profession would not be for those students, thus, even when they recognised their lack of competence in helping students with SEN, they did not feel a need for professional development.

Teachers as the Agent to Create an Inclusive Educational Environment—The Issues of Reflexivity and Competence

From teachers’ responses, it can be seen that there is a lack of both competence and reflexivity in their teaching practice, especially how they treated students with SEN. Only two teachers shared their self-investigation to support such students. Other teachers did not seem to delve deeper into the topic of IE or question their perspectives and practice. The lack of reflexivity on purposes of IE, teachers’ role as well as their own practice and its influence on students’ well-being can contribute to the lack of professional growth and competence. In addition, this consolidates the binary view of the world which divides students into two categories ‘abnormal’ and ‘normal’. This again requires an action of raising teachers’ awareness of their sense of purpose (Fig. 2) related to the concept of IE and reflexivity in their teaching practice as well as the context. The context surrounding teachers can contribute to the formation of teachers’ agency. However, teachers should not conflate their perspectives and capacities with contextual constraints; rather, reflexivity enables them to critically distance themselves from such conditions and explore possibilities that can support IE. This requires training in both practical pedagogy and reflexivity that enables teachers to critically question and evaluate their own beliefs and practice, so as to make effective and appropriate decisions related to IE in the Vietnamese context.

A Picture of Constructing an Inclusive Educational Environment in Vietnam—The Lack of Involvement from the School Manager

From what teachers shared in the interviews, a picture of IE in Vietnam lacked the appearance of the school manager and teacher trainers. This shows that the top down approach, especially the first national education law recognising IE enacted in Vietnam in 2019 (Nguyen et al., 2020a; Vietnam National Assembly, 2019) has not been brought into effect in the schools surveyed of this current study. IE does not seem to receive concern from the school manager and teachers are the ones to handle students with SEN without much support from the school context. This shows a gap from the policy to the school reality in Vietnam (Fig. 7) in which different stakeholders involved are separate without a connection to support and acknowledge each other. In particular, there was an absence of school managers in supporting the delivery of the law related to IE to teachers, supplying professional training, recognising teachers’ effort, and encouraging teachers to construct inclusive educational environments in Vietnam.

Fig. 7

The lack of connection from the law to the teaching practice to build inclusive education in Vietnam

Conclusions

This study reflects on the concept of inclusive education (IE) and teachers’ role to create such education so as to propose a cycle model of reflexivity for teachers to reflect on their purposes and practice. Based on the model proposed, the study investigates Vietnamese teachers’ perception and practice to build IE for students, especially those with special educational needs by conducting in-depth interviews with nine teachers in both public and private primary schools in Hanoi, Vietnam. Data collected were analysed with Atlas.ti (version 23 for Windows), based on qualitative content analysis with a constructivist interpretive stance. The study found that teachers viewed IE from a binary view, marking the separation of what is considered normal versus abnormal rather than embracing students’ differences. There is also a lack of faith in IE for students with SEN and such students’ progress in mainstream education. In addition, the primary practice to build IE is to promote mutual understanding, communication and trust among different agents both inside and outside the class. Finally, there is a lack of connection from the national law of education to the teachers’ practice as a result of the absent role of school managers in promoting IE in Vietnam.

The study has some implications for research and practice. First, it proposes a reflexivity model to support teachers’ own evaluation of their sense of purpose, practice and autonomy. Second, it identifies the need for teacher training that integrates practical pedagogical support with reflexive training, enabling teachers to make contextually appropriate and effective decisions regarding IE in Vietnam.

The study is not without limitations. The study primarily examined teachers' attitudes and practices through interviews without direct classroom observations, limiting the ability to gain a comprehensive understanding of how teachers perceive and practice to build IE, especially for students with SEN. Future research could adopt additional methodologies, such as ethnographic studies or questionnaire-based surveys, to provide a more reliable and in-depth analysis of teachers’ attitudes and strategies to build IE. Additionally, the study participants were exclusively from Hanoi, the capital city in northern Vietnam. Their perspectives and practices may differ from those of teachers in other regions. To develop a more holistic understanding, future research should explore teachers' attitudes and approaches toward SEN students in other areas of Vietnam.