Teachers' Experiences, Attitudes, and Perceptions Towards Early Inclusion in Urban Settings

Abstract

Given that inclusion benefits all children, it is important to understand why there are discrepancies in its implementation. Understanding teachers' views on inclusion may help identify ways to improve its implementation and prevent disparities. Although teachers' beliefs about inclusion have been widely explored, the beliefs and experiences of early childhood general and special education teachers in urban settings remain relatively understudied. This study explored early childhood educators' perceptions of inclusion in urban schools, using a mixed-method approach. The results from the qualitative focus group interviews (n = 13) reveal that most teachers have positive beliefs about inclusion and that there are specific benefits, challenges, and needs concerning early inclusion in urban settings. The analysis of the survey data (n = 36) shows differences in beliefs about inclusion among teachers of different ages and/or years of experience. Implications for research, policy, and practice are discussed.

Validation of the Inclusion Scale

“…Therefore, we fixed the number of factors in SPSS at four for our analysis. The resulting survey instrument (Kim et al, 2020) EFA yielded a four-factor solution for understanding early childhood teachers' attitudes and perceptions toward inclusion in South Korea that included the following factors: competency to practice inclusion, support received to practice inclusion, benefits of inclusion, and challenges in practicing inclusion.…”

“…Previous study examining the inclusionrelated experiences of early childhood educators in urban settings in the United States (Kim et al, 2020) found that teachers desire more systematic and individualized school-wide support, training, and mentorship to understand and support the learning INFANTS & YOUNG CHILDREN/APRIL-JUNE 2024 characteristics and processes of students with diverse abilities, as each disability type, geographic region, and cultural/linguistic background may require them to modify and adjust how they practice and promote inclusion. Therefore, having teachers complete the inclusion scale in the current study and analyzing the factor scores regarding the amount of support they receive from the school/administrators to include students with disabilities during instruction could enable schools and administrative teams to determine whether their teachers are receiving sufficient support to include all children in their classrooms, and if not, prompt them to undertake specific actions or provide specific resources to increase support levels.…”

“…In this study, we translated and validated the "inclusion scale" developed by Kim et al (2020) for urban teachers' perceptions in the United States into Korean. We aimed to (1) evaluate the validity of all scale items, (2) examine the internal structure of the survey constructs developed by Kim et al (2020) and used in U.S. educational contexts, (3) analyze the psychometric properties (i.e., item correlation, reliability) of the survey instrument, and (4) explore the factors that may affect teacher perceptions of early childhood inclusion in South Korea.…”

Education and dialogical self: state of art (Educación y yo dialógico: estado de la cuestión)

“…Otro gran bloque de investigaciones que tienen en la DST su fundamento se ha orientado a la necesidad de construir posiciones más inclusivas en las aulas. El grueso de investigaciones en este apartado se ha centrado en la diversidad relativa a alumnos con diferencias funcionales (Kim et al, 2020), diferencias de género y de preferencias sexuales (Moradi, 2017) y, de manera especial, a las diferencias debidas al origen cultural (Weise et al, 2022). Seguidamente nos referiremos a estas investigaciones, agrupándolas a partir de las secciones que acabamos de mencionar.…”

“…Another great block of studies based on a DST framework is oriented to fulfil the need to build more inclusive positions in the classroom. Most of these studies have focused on diversity, on functionally diverse students (Kim et al, 2020), gender-diverse and sexual orientation-diverse students (Moradi, 2017) and, particularly, on cultural-based differences (Weise et al, 2022). We will now review these studies, grouping them in terms of the themes we have just outlined.…”