Secondary Teacher Attitutudes & Inclusion

Research findings demonstrate that findings related to the topic of teacher attitudes toward inclusion are mixed and studies of secondary school teacher attitudes are few in number. In addition, findings show that these attitudes are related to factors such as teacher experience, training, support, and age, and student disability and behavior. Study findings have also demonstrated that there are differences between general and special education teacher attitudes.

Since research findings regarding the topic of inclusion are inconsistent or lacking, a study is needed to further examine secondary school teacher attitudes toward inclusion with a focus on differences between general education and special education teachers and related factors. If inclusion is the way of the future in educating students with special needs than we as educators need and must understand the attitudes all teachers have toward this trend. Such placement of all students receiving special needs services would carry a tremendous impact on everyone associated with the field of education. Especially teachers would be required to make major adjustments if students of special needs are included in general education classrooms. As Cochran (1998) indicated inclusion would mean that all teachers become teachers of special needs students. Th

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educated in the general education classroom with their non-disabled peers, the attitudes of general education and special education teachers at the secondary level in particular can be problematic to this effort (School, 2002). Beattie, Anderson, & Antonak (1997 cited in Smith, 2000) stated, "Experts agree that full acceptance of students with disabilities will happen only after long-term modification in attitudes." To discover whether a school is following both the spirit and the letter of the law, or to what degree the school has implemented the concept of inclusion, it is necessary to determine the attitudes that both general education and special education hold towards the components of inclusion. Study Design and Population Survey research will be used for this study. The study participants will include 100 secondary general teachers and 100 secondary special education teachers from public schools in Illinois. Participants will be chosen from those who voluntarily returned the research packet and qualify as teachers of general and special needs students. All participants will agree to participate in the study. Instrumentation The Scale of Teachers' Attitudes Toward Inclusive Classrooms (STATIC) developed by Coch
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Approximate Word count = 3167
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)