F.09. Teachers’ Emotions, Agency and Professional Capacity for Inclusion within the Education–Democracy Nexus

Inclusive education is increasingly recognised as a core condition for democratic schooling, yet its enactment takes place in school environments marked by social tensions, fragmentation and competing expectations. Teachers are called to sustain inclusive practices that respond to disability, neurodivergence, cultural and linguistic diversity, and forms of difference, while negotiating demands from students, families, colleagues and institutional frameworks. This work requires emotional labour and interpretative judgement. When teacher education—both initial and in-service—privileges procedural compliance over emotional, relational and reflective capacities, teachers may struggle to uphold accessibility, participation and recognition of difference as democratic values, especially in contexts affected by structural inequalities and educational poverty. Teachers’ self-efficacy is closely linked to well-being and to their capacity to sustain inclusive pedagogies. Limited preparation, unclear guidance or insufficient formative support can heighten stress and undermine professional agency. Emerging technologies hold potential for more responsive and differentiated teaching yet may generate uncertainty or perceived loss of expertise when teachers are not supported through training and organisational capacity-building. Evaluation and accountability frameworks also shape teachers’ emotional experience of inclusion. While they can support reflective practice and collective learning, they risk being perceived as external pressure when disconnected from participatory governance. This panel invites interdisciplinary contributions examining how emotional labour, self-efficacy, training and professional conditions shape teachers’ capacity to enact inclusive education as a democratic practice. We welcome work on emotional competence and teacher agency; capacity-building for the meaningful use of emerging technologies; and evaluation processes that foster equitable, accessible and socially just school cultures.