Supervisory Praxis in Special Education Clinical Practice: A Cultural-Historical Activity Theory Perspective

Scholars have called for empirical work examining how field experiences mitigate or reproduce opportunity gaps for marginalized P–12 students in clinical practice (Diacopoulos et al., 2024; Hood, 2023; Lynch et al., 2024). This article extends that conversation into special education university supervision. Drawing on interviews with 15 university supervisors in a special education teacher preparation program at a large Midwestern university, Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) was used to understand how supervisors made meaning of their work and navigated the institutional positions in which it unfolded. Four findings emerged: supervisors (a) held the institutional role as evaluative while many additionally developed mentorship as a chosen practice; (b) centered candidate development as the primary goal, with intermittent attention to P–12 students; (c) drew on program-provided tools, previous teaching experiences, and self-designed practices; and (d) developed equity approaches individually rather than through shared programmatic resources. Discussed using third space theory, these findings highlight the significance of supervisors’ boundary-crossing work, which expanded the evaluative role yet remained dependent on individual disposition rather than systemic support. The equity-relevant dimensions of supervisory practice in particular were held individually and varied across supervisors, pointing to the need for collaborative, programmatic support to sustain this work for P–12 students with disabilities.