Teaching attitudes towards students with disabilities

Abstract

(1) Background: Inclusive education has been a recurring topic during the last decades. However, not every teacher is equally enthusiastic about how to implement it. Understanding these discrepancies can help to identify improvement procedures. Therefore, even though teachers’ beliefs and attitudes around inclusion have been thoroughly explored, it is necessary to delve further on this type of study to understand possible changes derived from the socio-educational transformations experimented by current societies. (2) Methods: This study examined the attitudes of 122 teachers, both Primary and Special Needs ones, working in rural and urban schools, regarding inclusion of students with disabilities. The data were collected from two scales: Attitude Survey Inclusive Education–Teachers (ASIE-T) and Scale for Measuring Pre-Service Teachers’ Perceptions about Inclusion the Sentiments, Attitudes and Concerns about Inclusive Education Revised (SACIE-R). A quantitative approach was employed, of descriptive and correlational type. Descriptive and inferential analyses were performed by means of parametric tests. Furthermore, the bivariate correlation technique Person’s r was carried out in order to verify the intensity among variables. The effect sizes are provided as Cohen’s d. (3) Results: The results revealed positive beliefs concerning inclusion and the existence of differences among teachers, depending on their specialisation and gender. The variables “age” and “stage of education” were not significant in terms of generating in terms of attitude generation. (4) Conclusions: Understanding the association between socio-demographic variables and stigma is crucial when it comes to accomplishing an inclusive and high-quality education. The general findings of this study contribute to justify the implementation of programmes to stimulate and encourage meaningful interactions between general education teachers and students with disabilities.