Just what do Teachers Think about Inclusion in Secondary Schools?

Abstract

This seminar reports the findings of an extensive study which investigated the attitudes of teaching staff to inclusion in secondary schools. The research was conducted in one local authority area of Scotland and involved 392 teachers who completed an online questionnaire about their attitudes to inclusion as well as other details such as, length of teaching experience, gender, position, and subject area. Details of the development of the questionnaire will be presented as well as results which indicate that teachers, in certain situations, have more positive attitudes towards inclusion, than had hitherto been suggested. The results indicate levels of significance in areas that include, gender, teacher training institutions, and length of teaching service. Furthermore there is an unusual finding vis-à-vis the relationship between length of teaching service and attitude towards inclusion. This seminar goes further and discusses the possibilities that teaching staff are not being included in the discussions and the subsequent formulation of inclusive policy thus leading to difficulties with the successful operation of such policies. Teacher Attitudes Factor (TAF) is a concept that may have been neglected at the level of education management and factoring this into future inclusion policy developments may result in more successful school inclusion projects.