Why Is the Excessive Entitlement Unfavorable to Inclusive Transformation of Professional Educational Practices?

This chapter links the emerging work on excessive teacher entitlement (Ratnam et al., 2019) with the ethical principle of inclusive professionalism: the right of all children to attend mainstream schools and therefore to receive accessible and appropriate teaching regardless of their educational needs (Armstrong, 1998). In the professional development process, teachers and educational leaders are confronted with numerous contradictions between prescriptions and facts, between means and ends, between intentions and actions, etc. They face numerous ethical dilemmas, which become more acute when they enter the professional field. The resulting uncertainties can lead to a defensive and inappropriate commitment to their prerogatives and difficulty in adjusting to the great diversity of situations encountered. This work reports on a multi-case study that involved a cross-case analysis of situations (Walton et al., 2022) observed by the researcher in an academic professional context.