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Despite dealing with special educational needs (SEN) students, many teachers feel unprepared for this task. This situation reveals the urgent need for studies in different areas, directed toward the inclusion of students in regular classrooms. Therefore, a diagnosis about the situation of inclusive education and the resources available in schools offering regular teaching becomes of paramount importance. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to present the results of an investigation that sought information on pedagogical work in inclusive education and in the use of support materials by teachers of basic education in Brazil and Portugal.

In order to carry out this investigation, a questionnaire was developed by a partnership between researchers from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, Brazil and the University of Minho, Portugal, and applied to mathematics teachers. The study participants consisted of 197 mathematics teachers, working in primary school, secondary school and young people and adult education. Data collection was carried out through a questionnaire, available online and designed in Google Forms, with 48 questions (both open and closed formats).

From the results obtained, there is a clear need not only for promoting initial and further teacher training that takes into consideration the profile of this teacher, but also for promoting the development of support materials (games, software, devices and assistive technology) in a collaborative way, involving users, teachers, engineers in a way to ensure a good usability and adequate adaptability. Thus, the inclusion of SEN students in schools must not take place only with their physical integration, but also must consider their integration at social, emotional and educational levels.

It is understood that the teacher should receive a solid training in successful inclusion experiences in terms of technological, educational and didactic experiences. Another problem that seems to be recurrent is that support materials have been developed in a way that is somehow disconnected from the reality of the classroom. The context in which the support material is inserted is fundamental to the success of its utilization. What is more, it cannot be isolated from the individuals who will use it. It thus becomes urgent to prepare the school environment for the reality of inclusion. This involves aspects from changes in infrastructure and development of assistive technology to assist the student with SEN in their learning, to the establishment of public policies that involve teacher initial and further training, specialized support and curricular discussions.

The purpose of this study is to contrast how the relationship between career and leadership development and workplace culture is experienced by women in two different countries and the implications this has for human resource development initiatives.

The study used a qualitative narrative research design to understand how the lived experiences of Australian and Vietnamese early- to mid-career female academics is engendered.

The study identified a number of key barriers and enablers that affected women’s career and leadership development. For the Australian participants, the main barrier included the competing demands of work and life and male dominated organisational cultures that discriminate against women in covert ways. The main enabler was mentoring and the building of professional networks that provided their careers with direction and support. For the Vietnamese participants, the main barriers were overt and included male-dominated organisational and societal cultures that limit their career and leadership development opportunities. The main enabler was having a sponsor or person with power in their respective organisation who would be willing to support their career advancement and gaining recognition from colleagues and peers.

Gaining a deeper understanding of the barriers and enablers that effect women’s career and leadership development can be used to investigate how culturally appropriate developmental relationships can create ways to overcome the barriers they experience.

The study analysed the contrasting experiences of barriers and enablers from two cultures. The participants narrated stories that reflected on the gender politics they experienced in their career and leadership development. The narrative comparisons provide a unique lens to analyse the complex cultural experience of gender and work with potential implications for human resource development.