Attitudes of Pre-service Teachers towards the Inclusion of Students with Disabilities into Mainstream Education

Abstract

The study was planned to examine the pre-service teachers’ attitude towards the inclusion of students with disabilities in mainstream education system. The mainstream education, which is usually called as inclusive or regular education, has recently gained favours all over the world. The present study employed convenient sampling technique to select the four teacher training colleges and stratified random sampling technique to draw 217 pre-service teachers. An attitude scale developed by Yakur was adapted and used to record the responses of 217 respondents. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. On the whole, the respondents were found to have negative attitudes toward inclusion of disabled children in mainstream schools. There were no significant differences in attitudes based on gender. However, in-service teachers from urban background had more positive attitudes than their rural counterparts. The findings of the study are significant as the understanding of pre-service teachers’ attitudes is critical for examining the on-going teacher education programmes across the country. The result of the study can also be used as a guideline for developing intervention programmes that aim at generating awareness among inservice school teachers about mainstream education practices.