Influence of Social Support on Teachers' Attitudes Toward Inclusive Education

Teachers' responses to racism and racist bullying in Dutch primary schools

Background

Early in life, children with a non-White skin color, or a non-Western cultural or religious background, are susceptible of experiencing acts of racism. Since they spend a significant time of their daily life in school, teachers have a crucial role in providing a safe and bias-free environment for these children. However, teachers might find it challenging to react to bullying based on racism.

Aim

This study aims to investigate teachers' experiences of and reactions to racist bullying among pupils in primary schools in The Netherlands. Additionally, this study aims to explore how racism is discussed in class.

Method

With nine semi-structured in-depth interviews teachers' attitudes and reactions toward racist bullying were examined as well as their perceived competence and skills of handling this. In addition, teachers' availability on tools to discuss racism in class was investigated as well. Data was analyzed using thematic analysis.

Results

The results show that teachers emphasize a safe class climate but find it challenging addressing racist incidents, for instance determining its severity, or coping with the external influences on pupils' racist beliefs. Most teachers also expressed to not make a distinction between racist and interpersonal bullying. While teachers expressed that they talked about racism in the classroom, it seemed that they primarily talked about cultural diversity and not racism per se.

Conclusion

Dealing with racism and racist bullying is an important but complicated task for teachers. Providing teachers with appropriate tools to increase knowledge, awareness and skills will help them to understand the negative impact racism has on children. Further, the results implicate that a pro-active approach can stimulate teachers to critically reflect on their own racial identity, and on school methods, teaching resources and policies concerning racism.

Attitude and willingness of biodiversity conservation in Chinese university students: Associated factors and the mediation of social support

In this cross-sectional study of 1475 Chinese university students, we explored associated factors of attitude and willingness of biodiversity conservation, analyzed the hypothesized mediation by social support in the association between attitude and willingness of biodiversity conservation. Multivariate logistic regression model revealed that major and social support were prominently related to both attitude and willingness of biodiversity conservation. Besides, path model identified a statistically significant mediation by social support, sex, race, and family residence presented noticeable effect modification on the mediation of social support. These major findings suggest that intervention measures which aiming at enhancing social support could be considered for elevating attitude and willingness of biodiversity conservation among Chinese university students.

The use of theory of planned behavior to systemically study the integrative-qualitative intentional behavior in Romanian preschool education with network analysis

Predicting preschool teachers' intention to adopt qualitative and inclusive early childhood intentional behaviors represents an important research field. The objective of this research is first to develop and validate a scale to assess the integrative-qualitative intentional behavior (IQIB-ECEC) of preschool teachers in order to achieve SDG4.2's objective of ensuring that all children have access to high-quality pre-primary education and then to systemically analyze the relationship between variables with Network Analysis. The theory of planned behavior (TPB) describes key individual beliefs (attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavior control) that affect people's intentions to engage in a certain conduct and has previously been used with success in evaluating people's intentions to adopt a certain behavior. This research represents one of the first Romanian attempts to use the theory of planned behavior to study the Integrative-Qualitative Intentional Behavior in Romanian Preschool Education and systemically analyze results with Network Analysis approach. This study used a randomized 300 Romanian preschool teachers enrolled in a National Training Program entitled Qualitative and Inclusive Early Childhood Education managed by the Romanian Educational Ministry. Data were collected via an online questionnaire. The scale validation followed a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The fitting of the IQIB-ECEC 19-item scale showed that all coefficients CFI (0.942), TLI (0.920), SRMR (0.0452), and RMSEA (0.0451) bring strong evidence in the favor of the statistical validity of the scale. The final IQIB-ECEC 19 items and 8 factors scale obtained a Cronbach's alpha of 0.77. The systemic Network Analysis approach was used in interpreting data. The centrality of the network model was further investigated and the clustering coefficients index were calculated. According to the results, perceived power/control beliefs and behavioral intention were detected as the most important dimensions, whereas behavioral beliefs were less important. These findings were discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical significance.

Perceptions of Saudi Arabian school teachers in private general education schools toward the inclusion of students with disabilities

BACKGROUND

Teachers' attitudes and perceptions are of significance to the inclusion of students with disabilities in the general education classroom with their typical peers.

AIMS

This study quantitatively investigated the perceptions of private elementary school teachers regarding the inclusion of students with disabilities in the general education classroom.

METHODS AND PROCEDURE

The study sample comprised 213 teachers working in private elementary schools in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia that offer inclusive special education programming alongside a general education curriculum. The Opinions Relative to the Integration of Students with Disabilities (ORI) survey, was utilized to adapt the survey instrument for this study.

RESULTS AND OUTCOMES

We concluded that private school teachers have a slightly negative attitude toward the inclusion of students with disabilities. Although the results did not reveal a relationship between teachers' attitudes and their age or education level, a relationship was found between their perceptions toward inclusion of students with disabilities and the type of disability, the individual teacher's gender, the role of the teacher (general vs. special education), and the individual's training in inclusive education.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

The implications of the results to Saudi and beyond and suggestions for further research including outside of the urban context are discussed.

Attitudes of Primary School Teachers Toward Inclusive Education

Background

The aims of our study are related to examining the relevance of teachers' attitudes toward the implementation of inclusive education. In addition, its subject is related to the implications on inclusive education policies, limitations of the existing study along with the recommendations for our future research endeavors.

Methods

The research is a cross-sectional study type. The sample included 64 primary school teachers in the lower grades of primary school (grades 1–4), selected by using simple random sampling, in three primary schools on the territory of Belgrade, Serbia in 2021 (26, 17, and 21 primary school teachers). The Questionnaire for Teachers, which was used as a research instrument, was taken from the Master's Thesis Studen Rajke, which was part of the project “Education for the Knowledge Society” at the Institute for Educational Research in Belgrade. Dependent variables measured in the study referred to the attitudes of primary school teachers toward inclusive education. Categorical variables are represented as frequencies and the Chi-square test was used to determine if a distribution of observed frequencies differed from the expected frequencies.

Results

One in three teachers (32.8%) thought that inclusion was useful for children with disabilities (29.7%), of them thought that schools did not have the conditions for inclusive education, whereas one in four teachers (25.0%) believed that inclusion was not good. No statistically significant differences were found in the attitudes of professors, when observed in terms of their gender, age and length of service.

Conclusion

Investing more resources and time in developing and implementing special education policies can promote successful inclusive education.

Factors Affecting Middle School Teachers' Attitudes Toward the Inclusion of Students With Disabilities

Teachers’ positive attitudes are an essential element for the successful inclusion of students who have disabilities in schools with their peers who do not have disabilities. The current quantitative study examines middle school teachers’ attitudes toward the inclusion of students with disabilities in regular schools in Saudi Arabia and the factors that affect their attitudes. Middle school teachers (N = 613) from schools in Riyadh responded to a questionnaire regarding their opinions relative to the integration of students with disabilities. The results indicate that middle school teachers have a neutral attitude toward the inclusion of students with disabilities in regular schools. Moreover, teacher-related factors such as gender, position, and experience do not affect teacher attitudes toward inclusion. In contrast, training in inclusion plays a significant role in middle school teachers’ attitudes toward inclusion of students with disabilities. The implications of the results and suggestions for further research are discussed in the study.