I am entering my fourth year in the Ph.D. program (Critical policy, Equity, and Leadership studies) and my research is an intersection between the fields of teacher education, inclusive education, and education policy. Following the UNESCO's initiative (Education for All) (EFA) (Salamanca statement, UNESCO, 1994), the shift from segregated education systems towards inclusive education has become evident as national and international educational organizations continue to seek better ways and strategies to accommodate all learners in the inclusive classroom regardless of their different backgrounds and learning experiences. Inclusive education is the approach that allows all students to learn together in the same classroom regardless of their race, gender, religion, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, and their individual learning abilities. It is the approach that aims to further include those students who have been systematically marginalized, respect them, and support them to achieve their full potential. The inclusive approach, many scholars argue, has become an equity and human rights issue. Therefore, I am keen to understand how Ontario teachers are being prepared to practice in the inclusive classroom where diversity continues to escalate and at times when newly graduated teachers continue to face complex instructional challenges. For this purpose, I seek to examine the adoption of the Ontario Enhanced Teacher Education Program in one Faculty of Education in Ontario by attending to the ways teacher educators, associate teachers, and teacher education program coordinators make sense of inclusive education and incorporate its principles and policies into their practices in ways that support teacher preparation for the inclusive classroom. Further, my research attends to the context in which these institutional practices are performed and how context shapes policy making and policy in practice. In my research, I use the lens of the New Institutionalism theory (NI) (Powell & DiMaggio, 1991), embedded in organizational studies, to understand how institutional guidelines and principles that pertain to inclusive education and teacher education frame the practices and the meaning making of individuals within educational organizations. In addition, I build on the perspectives of Stephen Ball and his colleagues towards policy enactment to examine how policy actors, with attention to their views and beliefs, interpret the institutional guidelines around teacher education and inclusive education and incorporate them into their practices.

Refereed articles

• Massouti, A. (submitted). Inclusion and its related practices in teacher education: The perspectives of pre-service teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education.
• Massouti, A. (submitted). The enactment of Ontario’s inclusive education policy in one teacher education program: Exploring the practices of teacher educators. Teacher Education Quarterly.
• Massouti, A. (2018). (Re)thinking the adoption of inclusive education policy in Ontario schools. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 185, 32-44.

Book review

• Massouti, A. (2017). Review of “Transforming teacher education: reconfiguring the academic work”. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 182, 38-41.

Refereed conferences

• Massouti, A. (2018, Sep). The ‘Inclusivity’ Construct in Teacher Education: Exploring the Institutional Practices of University-based Teacher Educators. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the European Conference on Educational Research ECER, Bolzano, Italy.
• Massouti, A. (2018, Sep). Teacher Candidates’ Perspectives towards Inclusive Education Policy Practices: A Single Case Study. Paper presented at the Emerging Researchers’ Conference ERC, Bolzano, Italy.
• Massouti, A. (2018, May). Pre-service Teachers’ Preparation for Inclusive Practices: A Case Study of One Ontario Teacher Education Program. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the Study of Education, Regina, SK.
• Riveros, A., Wei, W., & Massouti, A. (2018, May). A Critical Discourse Analysis of Canadian Leadership Standards. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the Study of Education, Regina, SK.
• Riveros, A., Wei, W., Verret, C., & Massouti, A. (2018, April). Agency, Action and Identity in Canadian Standards for School Administrators: A Critical Discourse Analysis of policy documents. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association Conference AERA, New York, USA.
• Massouti, A. (2017, June). Examining teachers’ preparation for inclusive classrooms: A neo-institutional approach. Paper presented at the International Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association Conference, Scotland, UK.
• Massouti, A. (2017, May). An institutional analysis of the Ontario enhanced teacher education program with a focus on inclusive education. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the Study of Education, Toronto, ON.
• Massouti, A. (2017, May). The role of context in studying the enactment of the Ontario enhanced teacher education program. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Society for the Study of Education (CCGSE session), Toronto, ON.

Non-refereed conferences

• Massouti, A. (2018, March). Pre-service Teacher Preparation for Rapidly Evolving Diverse Classrooms. What Does the Literature Say?. Paper presented at The Rosa Bruno-Jofré Symposium in Education, Queen’s university, Kingston, ON.