Around the world, the number of learning assistants (LAs) employed in schools has increased dramatically over the last two decades. Underpinned by the global move towards more inclusive education, and consequently an increasingly diverse school population, they now play a key role in supporting learners with additional needs. A number of concerns…

This paper presents evidence of how the role of teaching assistants (TAs) in England has been remade by the COVID pandemic. Drawing on data from a national survey of 9,055 TAs and 22 semi-structured interviews with TAs, teachers and headteachers, the authors show how essential TAs were to schools' responses to managing the disruption caused by the…

Shadow aides (also known as learning assistants or shadow teachers) and the vital role they play in the learning support plan of many inclusive policies and practices is under-researched. This paper explores stakeholders' experiences with and the views they hold of shadow aides in the inclusive classroom in a Caribbean context using a qualitative…

Paraeducators are critically important members of school communities, but there is little statewide research on the characteristics of paraeducators. We therefore use over 25 years of longitudinal data from Washington state to provide a descriptive portrait of the paraeducator workforce. Paraeducators are more racially and ethnically diverse than…

The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of a professional development (PD) program on preschool teacher assistants' (TAs) attitudes toward multilingualism and self-efficacy in working with linguistically and culturally diverse children (LCDC) and their parents. The study was conducted in a northern peripheral city in Israel that reflects…

Inclusive education is vital for the rights of all children to education to be met and teacher aides are key players in inclusive education efforts. But inclusive education policy aspirations, like other policies, often fail to be fully realised. In this article we focus on the inclusion of teacher aides in educational networks and the extent to…

The study sought to establish the contribution of infrastructural availability to school growth and sustainable improvement of academic performance in selected secondary schools in Tororo District. The study employed a qualitative approach, and data were collected from school administrators, the management team and teachers using open-ended…