Teacher attitudes in Italy after 40 years of inclusion

Abstract

In 1977, Italy adopted a policy to fully include students with disabilities in mainstream classrooms. The study surveyed the attitudes of Italian teachers towards inclusive education 40 years after this reform. The data were collected from 153 basic school teachers using the Teachers' Attitudes towards Inclusion Scale (TAIS). The results indicated that the Italian teachers had a high commitment to inclusive education. Approximately 90% of the respondents agreed that students with special educational needs should be educated in mainstream classrooms, and only 7% felt that they should be transferred to special education classrooms instead. To improve the quality of inclusive education, the teachers most frequently mentioned the need for more in-service training, smaller class sizes, and additional help from support teachers and therapists in the classroom.

Attitudes Toward Inclusive Education: An Exploration of the Interaction Between Teachers’ Status and Students’ Type of Disability Within the French Context

“…Congruently with the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2010, France has recently developed a policy regarding inclusive education (for more information regarding the specificities of the French system, see notably Desombre et al, 2019;Rattaz et al, 2020). Replicating previous findings in this context is important to allow comparisons with educational systems in which inclusive policies are much older (e.g., Italy, Saloviita and Consegnati, 2019).…”

The conflict between inclusive education and the selection function of schools in the minds of French teachers

“…Finally, several decades of research have illustrated that the implementation of inclusive education is no straightforward task, and that reluctance to implement the policy remains despite prominent early adopters (Saloviita & Consegnati, 2019). The present research suggests that these difficulties might lie not only with those who keep the educational system functioning on a day-to-day basis (i.e., teachers), but may in fact emanate from the very core of the educational system (i.e., its functions and objectives).…”

Efectos de una formación en inclusión sobre la autoeficacia del profesorado de Educación Física (Effects of an inclusive Physical Education workshop on teachers' self- efficacy)

“…Diversos autores sugieren que a través de la formación continua del profesorado será posible mejorar su autoeficacia (Özer et al, 2013;Saloviita & Consegnati, 2019), hecho que parece estar directamente relacionado con la capacidad para incorporar eficazmente a ECD en las clases de EF (Block et al, 2010). Así, esta variable está siendo frecuentemente incorporada y analizada en la literatura respecto a la inclusión educativa (Tümkaya & Miller, 2020).…”