Voices from the staffroom : teacher beliefs and practices towards inclusion

Abstract

Since the enforcement of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Salamanca Statement, which advocates the importance of equal access, participation and education for all learners irrespective of their gender, race or disabilities, many international education sectors have adopted inclusive schooling. However, researches have found that the teachers face a lot of difficulties during the implementation of inclusive schooling. Therefore, this comparative study explored teachers’ beliefs and practices of including students with Special Educational Needs (SEN) in the mainstream classroom. More importantly, the study investigated whether teachers’ beliefs were aligned to their practices.

A comparative, ethnographic, case study including three primary schools in Hong Kong and one primary school in Victoria, Australia were adopted in order to investigate teachers’ beliefs and practices. Classroom observations, interviews and questionnaires were conducted in order to collect data.

The results of the study showed that numerous factors that exist in the school such as availability of support, teaching resources, types of disabilities and quality of professional development workshops influenced teachers’ beliefs on inclusion. This, in return, affected the success of inclusive practices in the classroom. The findings of the study suggest that more support and quality training courses should be provided to teachers to help them cater for diversity in the classroom.