Construction and validation of the cognitive attitudes toward inclusive education scale among teachers and paraprofessionals in the French context

Recent years have seen a growing shift toward global inclusive policies. Previous research highlighted the development of inclusive education, which notably requires collaboration among multiple actors (i.e., teachers, paraprofessionals, families). Among the barriers and levers to this implementation, attitudes toward inclusive education have been the subject of particular scholarly inquiry. This article reports two studies conducted to develop a French-speaking scale to address the emerging challenges in inclusive education by virtue of its suitability for a variety of actors. The 12 items of the Cognitive Attitudes Toward Inclusive Education Scale (CATIES) were derived from nine pre-existing scales. Two studies (N = 180 and N = 228) involving teachers and paraprofessionals (e.g. psychologists, special educators, nurses, and other paraprofessionals working in medical-educational facilities) were conducted within the French context to establish the scale's psychometric properties, such as internal consistency and convergent validity. Results reveal a reliable and valid tool with a three-dimensional structure measuring teachers' attitudes toward teaching students with special educational needs, benefits and risks of inclusive education on students with and without special educational needs and classroom management. In light of its relevance to a variety of inclusion stakeholders, this scale offers perspectives for more reliable inclusive education research.