Teachers’ attitudes toward inclusive education for children with disabilities

Abstract

Many international organizations have called on governments to make inclusive schooling for children with disabilities a priority. Although the number of children with disabilities enrolled in France’s mainstream schools has doubled over the last 15 years, inclusion rates vary according to type of disability and educational stage. Another important parameter is the efficacy of inclusive schooling, which may depend on teachers’ attitudes toward working with students with disabilities. In the present study, we used measures of 440 in-service teachers’ and 135 pre-service teachers’ attitudes toward inclusive education to investigate possible links between these attitudes and three variables: teacher status (pre-service vs. in-service), educational stage, and type of disability. Participants completed the Multidimensional Attitudes Toward Inclusive Education Scale between January and April 2021, giving responses with respect to inclusive education in general and to five categories of disabilities. In-service and pre-service teachers had similar attitudes toward inclusive education in general, but pre-service teachers had significantly more positive attitudes than in-service teachers toward students with cognitive disabilities, sensory disabilities, and motor disabilities. Our findings suggest ways for promoting the inclusion and well-being at school of both non-typically developing and typically developing children.