The Organizational Structure of Teacher Education and Pedagogical Instructors’ Professional Identity: The Impact of Structural Separation Between Training Tracks on Conceptions of Inclusion

Abstract

Inclusive education is widely framed as a pedagogical and attitudinal challenge situated at the classroom level. Far less attention has been devoted to how the organizational architecture of teacher education itself shapes professional orientations toward inclusion. This study examines how structural separation between regular and special education preparation tracks mediates pedagogical instructors’ professional identities and, consequently, their constructions of inclusive responsibility. Employing a mixed-methods design, data were collected from 45 pedagogical instructors affiliated with structurally distinct tracks. Quantitative findings revealed statistically significant differences in perceived responsibility, willingness to engage in multidisciplinary collaboration, and emotional responses to instructional adaptation. Qualitative narrative analysis further demonstrated divergent identity framings: special education instructors constructed inclusion as a normative, relationally embedded professional commitment, whereas regular education instructors more frequently framed inclusion as competence-dependent and structurally supported through external expertise. The convergence of findings suggests that inclusion is not merely an individual disposition but an institutionally patterned construct shaped through track-based professional socialization. Using the Israeli context as an illustrative case of broader dual-track systems internationally, the study advances a structural and identity-oriented perspective on inclusive reform. The findings imply that efforts to bridge the policy–practice gap in inclusive education must address not only teacher competence but also the organizational design of teacher preparation itself.