Teacher Self-Concept and its Association with Willingness to Include Children with Special Needs in Regular Classes: Teacher Empathy as a Mediator

Abstract

More appealing is the inclusive education practice that recognizes diversity among children than practices that lead to inequality in education. However, there have been implementation challenges including the rejection of children with special needs (CWSNs) in regular classes by teachers. Given this, the study attempted to build an empirical model to explain associations between teacher self-belief system and socio-emotional factors and their willingness to include CWSNs in their classes. The sample size consisted of 316 teachers. Using path analysis, findings showed, among others, that the conceptual model fit the data satisfactorily, and that teacher self-concept had direct effects on teachers’ willingness to include CWSNs in their regular classes. Teacher cognitive self-concept was a better predictor and its impact was significantly mediated by teacher empathy. It was concluded that willingness for inclusion could be influenced by teacher belief system and socio-emotional characteristics.
 
 Received: 27 October 2020 / Accepted: 17 December 2020 / Published: 5 March 2021

Teachers’ Sociodemographic Characteristics, Psychological Distress, Job Satisfaction, and Their Willingness to Include Children with Special Needs in Regular Classes

“…ere could be factors that can affect the relationship between attitude and an individual's action. Because of this, there appears to be an increasing interest to study teachers' willingness to teach CWSNs [22,28,29,103,104]. An individual may have a positive attitude toward a particular thing, for example, teaching CWSNs in regular classes, but may not be willing to take up the responsibility to do so.…”

“…Given the importance of teachers' willingness to include CWSNs in regular classes, some factors associated with their will have been studied. ese include teacher self-concept [28,29], teacher empathy [29], attitude, self-efficacy, and subjective norms about inclusion [104], and teachers' sociodemographic profile [22]. Nwosu et al [22] and Nwosu et al [29] have noted that the willingness to include CWSNs in regular classes goes beyond teaching and extends to providing emotional/adaptive supports for them.…”

“…ese include teacher self-concept [28,29], teacher empathy [29], attitude, self-efficacy, and subjective norms about inclusion [104], and teachers' sociodemographic profile [22]. Nwosu et al [22] and Nwosu et al [29] have noted that the willingness to include CWSNs in regular classes goes beyond teaching and extends to providing emotional/adaptive supports for them. We, in line with the observation of Gilor and Katz [104], believe that willingness to teach these students is critical to the efforts being made in Nigeria to advance inclusive education.…”

“…We categorized these variables as teacher characteristics (gender, age, years of experience, highest educational qualification), negative affect variable (psychological distress), and motivational effect variable (teacher job satisfaction). Although some researchers have examined some psychosocial factors that impact teachers' willingness to include CWSNs in their regular classes [22,28,29], none has examined how teachers' characteristics, psychological distress, and job satisfaction will individually and collectively associate with the willingness to accept CWSNs in their classes notwithstanding that literature shows that common among teachers handling CWSNs is the additional workload that can lead to psychological distress and job dissatisfaction. Previous studies have not focused on these, and this gap in the existing body of literature could limit the capability of researchers to derive any concrete generalizations on how different variables could impact teachers' willingness to accept CWSNs in regular classes especially in the Nigerian context.…”

“…A number of researchers have reported teacher-related factors in inclusive education implementation, which include teacher attitude, teaching methods/materials, knowledge, skills, and competence of the teacher, creating activities capable of fostering inclusivity [23][24][25][26][27] and teacher self-concept, empathy, and willingness to include CWSNs in regular classes [22,28,29]. One of the factors that have captured the attention of researchers in understanding teacher-related factors in inclusive education is their sociodemographic profiles.…”