ELEMENTARY EDUCATOR ATTITUDES TOWARD MAINSTREAMING
This research presents a proposal for the measurement of the attitudes of elementary educators--teachers, education specialists, and administrators--toward the mainstreaming of at risk students in regular classrooms. This proposal is presented in two main sections. The problem statement, study purpose, hypothesis, importance of the proposed research, definition of terms, assumptions and limitations that will apply to the proposed research, and the plan of study are presented in Part I. A review of relevant literature is presented in Part II.
The problem that will be investigated, the study purpose, and the hypothesis that will be tested are presented in this section--Part I. Ancillary information--the importance of the proposed research, definition of terms, assumptions and limitations that will apply to the proposed research, and the plan of study also are addressed in this section.
Public Law 99-457 prohibited discrimination against handicapped persons in a variety of contexts including education. In the context of education, this law requires, to the maximum extent possible, that handicapped students receive the same educational opportunities as are available to all other students. Although there are important exceptions to the rule, to a great extent, education for the handicapped student tends to be assessed according to many of the criteria previously applied to cases that involved charges of discrimination based on race or ethnic background. One implication of this approach to the assessment of educational opportunity is that the concept of separate but equal, in and of itself, is not a justifiable basis for the exclusion of handicapped students from the general classroom. Thus, in the absence of cogent and supportable reasons why the integration of handicapped students into general classes should not occur, the mainstreaming of handicapped students into general...