STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES AS PEER MENTORS: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF REVERSED SUPPORT ROLES IN INCLUSIVE SCHOOLS IN PAKISTAN

Abstract

The traditional framework of inclusive education studies has placed students with disabilities in the role of recipients of the support; new practices in inclusive classrooms are implying more complicated interpersonal interactions. This paper explores the issue of students with disabilities as peer tutors and therefore invert traditional support models in inclusive primary and secondary schools in Pakistan. The research problem will cover lack of empirical focus to the agency, competence, relational contribution of students with disabilities in integrated contexts. The main goal of the research was to investigate the processes behind reversed peer-support roles with respect to their enacting, perception, and maintenance in normal, school-based situations. The data collection was based on a qualitative research design as the researcher employed semi-structured interviews and classroom-based narratives of teachers and students studying in both the public and the private schools. The assumption of the study was that peer relationships are context-specific and constructed socially with limitations to school culture and instructional practice. These results suggest that students with disabilities often reinforce theoretical, emotional, and social assistance to their peers, which underlie the deficit-based beliefs common in the literature of inclusive education. The findings are consistent with the new research in the global arena focusing on student agency and mutual inclusion. The author concludes that practitioners should be aware of reversed roles of peer mentoring as a way of informing more equal inclusive pedagogies and invite research in the future on student-led work upon inclusion in the South Asian context.