Professor Lani Florian
Bell Chair of Education

- Moray House School of Education and Sport, IETL
- University of Edinburgh
Contact details
- Tel: +44 (0)131 651 4840
- Email: lani.florian@ed.ac.uk
Address
- Street
-
Moray House School of Education and Sport, CH 4.11
- City
- University of Edinburgh (Holyrood Campus)
- Post code
- EH8 8AQ
Background
Professor Lani Florian is Bell Chair of Education and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS). She is best known for her work on the concept of inclusive pedagogy as a way of working that can improve educational outcomes for everyone, and teacher education for inclusive education. Her research challenges the assumption that certain groups of children, in particular those who find learning difficult, have a detrimental effect on the achievement of other children and shows how high levels of inclusion can be entirely compatible with high levels of achievement. She argues that combining the two is not only possible but also essential if all children are to have the opportunity to participate fully in education.
Her ESRC seminar series, Teacher Education and the Changing Demographics of Schooling, combined contributions from doctoral students and colleagues in Moray House School of Education with national and international contributors in an edited book of the same title published by Springer in 2017. This book focuses on the role that teacher education can play in responding to issues of diversity in schools by seeking new theoretical approaches for the preparation of teachers which understands diversity from multiple perspectives and aims to enable all students to flourish as learners.
She is currently working with the Safe Inclusive Schools Network (SISN), an interdisciplinary group of researchers to explore the intersections of violence in childhood, learning outcomes and educational practices. This work extends the reach of inclusive education from concern with individual learning needs to understanding how issues that can affect the lives of any child can create barriers to learning.
Professor Florian provides technical assistance on inclusive education projects in many countries and to international agencies including UNICEF, UNESCO, British Council, Open Society Foundations, and the Council of Europe.
Responsibilities & affiliations
Lani is a member of the American, British and European Educational Research Associations. She serves on the board of of five academic journals and is series editor of Inclusive Learning and Educational Equity a books series published by Springer. She is editor of the Sage Handbook of Special Education, now in its second edition, and co-author of Achievement and Inclusion in Schools, also in its second edition.
She is currently visiting adjunct professor at Teachers College Columbia University, New York.
Postgraduate teaching
- MSc Inclusive Education
- Comparative Approaches to Inclusive and Special Education (EDUA11174)
- Dissertation (MSc Inclusive and Special Education)
- Phd programme
Open to PhD supervision enquiries?
No
Current PhD students supervised
- Lakshmi Neelakantan, Understanding young people’s experiences of the ISPCAN Child AbuseScreening Tool (ICASTC): An investigation in multiple contexts.
Past PhD students supervised
Scott-Barrett, Julilet, Listening to Children on the Spectrum: Exploring Opportunities for Meaningful Interactions during Research, June, 2019
Murdoch, Diana, An exploration of the phenomenon of inclusive education in the life world of young people, parents and teachers, in a Scottish secondary school, January, 2019
Kim, Jiyoung, Inclusive Practice under a Policy of Integration: Learning from the implementation of support assistant provision in S. Korean schools, October, 2018
McLean, Justine, The factors that enable and constrain Physical Education teachers to actas agents of change during large-scale educational reform, March 2018
Wang ,Yuchen, Imagine inclusive schooling: an ethnographic inquiry into disabled children’s learning and participation in regular schools in Shanghai, May 2016
Taiwo, Mary, Teachers’ negotiation of inclusive practice in Nigerian Classrooms, 2015
Fry, Deborah, Relationship Violence and Non-Partner Sexual Violence among Young Peopleand Young Adults in New York City: Implications for Practice (PhD by publication), 2015
Research summary
- Inclusive pedagogy
- Teacher education for incluisve education
- Achievement and inclusion in schools
- Safe incluisve schools
- Special educational needs
Research interests include models of provision for meeting the needs of all learners, inclusive pedagogy and teaching practices in inclusive schools. Recent studies have focussed on the role of teacher education in promoting social and educational inclusion. This work has addressed questions about the knowledge and skills needed for teachers to be inclusive in their practice and how such practice might be developed.
Current research interests
Achievement and Inclusion in Schools – mapping the pedagogical intervention literature across diverse groups of learners Exploring intersections of violence in vhildhood, inclusive practices and learning outcomes. Enhancing teacher education for inclusion in EuropeProject activity
Current projects:
Exploring the Intersections of Violence In Childhood, Inclusive Practices and Learning Outcomes
Achievement and Inclusion in Schools
Mapping teacher education for inclusive education activities
Current project grants
Enhancing teacher education for inclusion in European, European Educational Research Association
Past project grants
Recently completed projects:
Exploring the intersections of violence in childhood, learning outcomes and educational practices: Towards a new conceptual model, (co-applicant with Deborah Fry, and Gillean McCluskey, PI), University of Edinburgh College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences Challenge Investment Fund
Teacher education for the changing demographics of schooling: policy, practice and research. ESRC Seminar Series, (with Nataša Pantić), University of Edinburgh, 2012.
Achievement and inclusion in schools (with Dr Kristine Black-Hawkins, University of Cambridge and Emeritus Professor Martyn Rouse, University of Aberdeen). Godfrey Thomson Trust
-
Consortium for the Study of Pregnancy Treatments (Co-OPT): An international birth cohort to study the effects of antenatal corticosteroids
(27 pages)
In:
PLoS ONE, vol. 18
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282477
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
The experiences and views of autistic children participating in multimodal view-seeking research
In:
International Journal of Research & Method in Education, pp. 1-32
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1743727X.2022.2149728
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
“What does that mean?": The content validity of the ISPCAN Child Abuse Screening Tool - Child version (ICAST-C) in Romania, South Africa, and the Philippines
In:
Child Abuse and Neglect, vol. 134, pp. 1-13
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2022.105869
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Adolescents’ experiences of participating in sensitive research: A scoping review of qualitative studies
In:
Trauma, Violence and Abuse
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380211069072
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
Making sense of teacher agency for change with social and epistemic network analysis
In:
Journal of Educational Change
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-021-09413-7
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
The universal value of teacher education for inclusive education
(17 pages)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1f70kvj.8
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
The development of inclusive practice under a policy of integration
In:
International Journal of Inclusive Education
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2020.1773946
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
Inclusive school leaders – their role in raising the achievement of all learners
In:
Journal of Educational Administration
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-10-2019-0190
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
Enhancing teacher education for inclusion
(5 pages)
In:
European Journal of Teacher Education, vol. 43, pp. 4-8
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2020.1707579
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Editorial (E-pub ahead of print) -
Preparing teachers for inclusive education
(6 pages)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1179-6_39-1
Research output: › Entry for encyclopedia/dictionary (Published)