Objectives:

This study aims to investigate the attitudes towards inclusive education of parents who have hearing, speech and/or language impaired children in regular secondary schools.

Research question:

Parents of hearing and speech impaired students have positive attitudes towards the inclusive education of hearing, speech and/or language impaired students in secondary schools

Theoretical framework

For the last decades the idea of inclusive education and its practical application in the education of children with difficulties in general has gained in  importance. Parents are very important factor in education of their children, especially of children with difficulties. For this reason parents of the children with difficulties have one of the pivotal roles in the process of inclusive education and it begins with their decesion to include their child with difficulties into regular school (Dimitros et all, 2008).

Since increasingly many children with difficulties  have been included into regular schools, in accordance with these changes, the expectations and demands of parents of children with difficulties from the regular education have been also changed. Parents should have confidence in the educational system, especially in the education of their children with special needs. As their role in the education has been considered as significant one as well as their positive attitudes towards the inclusive education, precisely these attitudes have been frequently examined. Parents attitudes towards the inclusive education give us an important information on real state of the inclusive education and can help in improvement of state in regular schools in which students with difficulties also receive their education. Their attitudes are considered to be the part of the evaluation of the existing state of the education of students with difficulties.  

Former  researches on parents attitudes toward the inclusive education show contradictory results, from positive to negative variations. So Boer et al. (2010), Gilmore et al. (2003), Elkins et. al. (2003) and Palmer et al. (2001) in their researches have come to the conclusion that parents are very aware of many advantages that the education of their children in regular school has: more succesful socialization, better educational achievements, better preparation and acquiring of skills needed for real life. On the other hand, part of the researches (Ellkins et al., 2003, ElZein et al., 2009, Narumanchi and Bhargava, 2011) show that parents who are against the inclusive education see the next problems: fear from their children being despised from their peers, fear from peers abuse and teachers overwork with the child with difficulties  in the classroom.     

Parents positive attitudes are important for success of the inclusive education. Parents often observe  problems in the regular educational system that other participants of the inclusive education may not be aware of. For this reason their opinion has to be seriously taken into consideration. On one hand, esteemating attitudes of parents, the existing problems that are not always noticable to all participants in the educational system should be detected. On the other hand, esteemating some of the parents suggestions for improvements, the existing inclusive education should be advanced.

Boer, A., Pijl, S.J., Minnaert, A. (2010). Attitudes of Parents towards inclusive education: a review of the literature. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 25(2), 165-181. Bryer, F., Grimbeek, P., Beamish, W. and Stanley, A. (2004). How to use the Parental Attitudes to Inclusion scale as a teacher tool to improve parent-teacher communication. Issues In Educational Research, 14(2), 105-120. http://www.iier.org.au/iier14/bryer.html Dimitrios, K., Georgia, V., Eleni, Z., Asterios, P. (2008). Parental Attitudes Regarding Inclusion of Children wiht Disabilities in Greek Education Settings. Electronic Journal for Inclusive Education, 2(3). Elkins, J., van Kraayenoord,C.E., Jobling, A. (2003). Parents' attitudes to inclusion of their children with special needs. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 3(2), 122-129. ElZein, H.L. (2009). Attitudes toward inclusion of children with special needs in regular schools (A case study from parents' perspective). Educational Research and Review, 4(4), 164-172. Hill, N.E. (2001). Parenting and academic socialization as they relate to school readiness: The roles of ethnicity and family income. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93, 686-697. Narumanchi, A., Bhargava, S. (2011). Perception of Parents of Typical Children Towards Inclusive Education. Disability, CBR and Inclusive Development, 22(1). NICHD (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development) (2004). Fathers' and Mothers' parenting behavior and beliefs as predictors of children's social adjustment in the transition to school. Journal of Family Psychology, 18, 628-638. Radojichich, D.D, and Chichevska-Jovanova, N.(2014). Parents Attitude: Inclusive Education of Children with Disability. International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education, 2(1).