IGNITE– Intercultural Comparison between German and Nigerian Teachers’ Understanding of Inclusive Education for Autistic Students

The population of autistic students in schools is growing rapidly in both Africa and Europe, and teachers often face challenges in creating inclusive classrooms where autistic and non-autistic students can thrive together. The effectiveness of inclusive education for autistic learners may be further hindered by teachers' lack of expertise, misconceptions, and stereotypical expectations. Teachers’ understanding, views and experiences on autism, influenced by cultural contexts, can vary significantly between countries like Germany and Nigeria. These cultural differences may lead to divergent professional insights, creating gaps and variations in teachers’ competences and educational practices across cultures. Variations in teachers' competency variables, such as knowledge, beliefs, motivation, and practices regarding teaching autistic students highlight the need for more nuanced studies exploring cross-cultural differences.

The IGNITE project addresses this gap with a cross-national study evaluating these competency variables in Germany and Nigeria. Germany and Nigeria differ significantly in socioeconomic and developmental bases, and such differences could translate to huge variations in teachers and teaching of autistic students. Though Germany and Nigeria may both rank high on problems regarding teaching autistic students, context-specific factors may vary and could cause variation in country-specific resilience. The project seeks to address the question of what cross-national differences exist between the two countries, offering inter-cultural perspectives that can inform the development of a multicultural framework for enhancing teachers' competence in autism services.

The project first compares data from Germany and Nigeria on teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, motivation, and classroom practices related to teaching autistic students. It then investigates the relationships between these competency variables within each country.
Firstly, a literature review and the development of concepts of the study variables, and the exploration of current policies regarding teaching autistic students in the two countries will be conducted. Secondly, a qualitative primary data collection using phenomenological qualitative approach will be used to explore teachers’ lived experience, biases, perspectives, expectations and narratives regarding teaching students with autism. In doing this, two vignettes developed by the research team, and one-on-one interview schedule adapted from the Stereo-DiSk project are used. Thirdly knowledge tests and questionnaires developed in the project  INCLASS will be used to collect quantitative data on knowledge, beliefs, motivation, and practices respectively. 
Qualitative outcome data regarding knowledge, beliefs, motivation and practices will be analysed through Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), and the R (R Core Team, 2018) will be used to put data in perspective. Further descriptive (frequencies, mean and standard deviations) and regression analyses will be conducted to link socio-cultural and demographic factors with the study variables.

To shed light into the cross-national differences in German and Nigerian teachers’ approach-es to autistic students, IGNITE project explores

• the knowledge of, and misconceptions about, autism spectrum disorders among teachers in Germany and Nigeria
• teachers’ beliefs regarding teaching autistic students in Germany and Nigeria
• teachers’ perceived values for teaching autistic students in Germany and Nigeria
• teachers perceived self-efficacy for teaching autistic students in Germany and Nigeria
• the professional and cultural factors that predict teachers’ knowledge of ASDs in Germany and Nigeria
• whether teachers’ knowledge about autism influence their classroom pedagogical practices in Germany and Nigeria 
• how teachers’ beliefs about teaching autistic students influence their classroom behaviours in Germany and Nigeria
• contextual variables that influence teachers’ beliefs about teaching autistic students in Germany and Nigeria
• how teachers’ motivation to teach autistic students influence their practices in Germany and Nigeria

Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

University of Nigeria Nsukka – Charity N. Onyishi

• Dr. Franziska Baier-Mosch
• Nick Gerrit Hasche
• Dr. Hannah Kleen
• Prof. Dr. Mareike Kunter