Transition from Exclusive to Inclusive Attitude and Teaching Practice: a Reality or a Vision?

Author(s):

Eleni Damianidou(presenting / submitting)Helen Phtiaka(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

04. Inclusive Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

04 SES 04 C, Teacher Education for Inclusive Education

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-09

09:00-10:30

Room:

429.Oktatóterem [C]

Chair:

Heidi Omdal

Contribution

Inclusive education has become a contentious area of public and education policy during the last few years, sincethe quest for implementing inclusive policy and practice is fundamentally anendeavorto radical de- and re-constructthe educational system,so as to provide equal educational opportunities to children, irrespective of diversity (Armstrong, 2005;Barton&Armstrong, 2001).Whereas a legislation that contributes to removing physical barriers, andtherebyfacilitates access to public spaces like schools, is welcomed, technical solutions are less than enough in order to solve the problem of how to achieve educational equity(Armstrong, 2005).In fact, exclusion may be experienced even within ‘inclusive’ schools, through the curriculum,theassessment andmost importantly the teachers’ attitudes andpractices (Barton&Armstrong, 2001).

Teachers seem to play apivotalrole inthe exclusion/inclusion of disabled children, because,even though they usually intend to do their bestandfacilitatelearning, in practice they mayend up withthe oppositeoutcomes.As researchers explain,educators tend to think in terms of the norm and therefore theycategorise theirstudents according to abstract notions of intelligence, in a purely comparative manner.As a result, labelling and stereotypingsimply work towards the construction of Otherness and the designation of marginal positions (Graham&Slee, 2008; Tuval&Orr, 2009; Vlachou, 2004). Barriersto inclusion thatare related to the current ideologies and everyday practice towards disabledchildren, seem to justify and perpetuate theiroppressionand exclude them from school life and social interaction(Abberley, 1987;Norwich, 2008).

In order to ensure a truly inclusive environment though, schools and educators should tackle prejudice and adopt inclusive ethos. Tackling disablismatschool is important, becausein this wayfuture inclusive behaviour and disability awareness may be founded. As a result,an inclusive community may be builtat a local and international level(Beckett, 2009;Oliver & Barnes, 2010).According to the Europe 2020 strategy, inclusion is a prerequisite for delivering high levels of employment, productivity and social cohesion in the European Union. Of course, in order to underpin this strategy, concrete actions at EU and national levels are essential (European Commission, 2010). Therefore, since inclusive attitude and values may be culminated at school and exclusion is related to power relations that are recycled through schooling(Lonsbury & Apple, 2012; Nussbaum, 2009), it is important to understand whether thetransition from exclusive to inclusive attitude and teaching practice has become a reality or is still a vision.

In this framework, our study aimed at exploring the attitudes and practices of Cyprus secondary education teachers so as to better understand their role in the implementation of the inclusive society and the transition from exclusion, since current research in Cyprus has not covered satisfactorily this level of education yet. In fact, the inclusive education law in Cyprus is rather new and dates back to 1999. According to this law disabled students are entitled to go to their neighborhood schools alongside with their peers. However, being in the same school with non-disabled peers does not guarantee inclusion (Phtiaka, 2008). Therefore, by understanding the role of teachers, policies and programs may be designed, so as to accelerate the transition from exclusion to inclusion at the local and EU level.

Based on the above, our research questions were:

Which are the attitudes of Cyprus secondary education teachers towards disabled students?
What practice is employed by Cyprus secondary education teachers at the school level in relation to disabled students?
Has the transition from exclusive to inclusive attitude and teaching practice become a reality or is it still a vision?

Method

In order to answer the research questions, we decided to conduct a cross-sectional survey. In this way, we would be able to gather data regarding the trends in the population of secondary education teachers in Cyprus as a whole and within groups (Creswell, 2012). Our main research tool was a structured questionnaire, which compiled questions from three previously used, standardized questionnaires. The constructed questionnaire consisted of items asking for demographic information, teacher attitudes and practices related to disabled students. We tried to gather fuller and richer information by including both fixed and open-ended items. Thus participants had to answer dichotomous questions and a Likert-type scale, choose between multiple answers and complete sentences. In order to avoid response bias we included reversed items. Moreover we tried to increase the response rate by constructing a clear, simple and easy to answer questionnaire (Robson, 2011). To this end we piloted the questionnaire on a small random sample of secondary education teachers and we made the necessary changes and adjustments accordingly to their suggestions. Our population comprised 6169 secondary education teachers in Cyprus. Since the population was large and scattered, we employed a stratified sampling method so as to randomly select a representative sample (Creswell, 2012). To this end, we identified four strata: a) lower secondary education, b) upper secondary education, c) vocational/technical secondary education and d) second chance secondary education. We selected randomly and proportionally nine, six, two and one school from each stratum, respectively. Thus the final sample of schools consisted of 18 secondary education schools derived from all strata. Then, we delivered 600 structured questionnaires to randomly selected teachers of these schools. Participants were informed about the purposes of the study and their right to withdraw. The survey was anonymous and the answers were confidential. We got back 536 questionnaires, thus our response rate was 89%. We analyzed our data using SPSS. In order to test differences and similarities, we employed parametric tests, i.e. independent samples t-test, ANOVA and Pearson correlation, and non parametric tests, i.e. Chi-square, depending on the type of data. We set the confidence interval at 95%. Since our sample was large and selected randomly and the sample characteristics matched the characteristics of the population (for example gender analogy, mean of years of employment and position at school were almost the same), external validity was high and therefore our results can be generalized (Creswell, 2012; Robson, 2011).

Expected Outcomes

Our main findings were the following: • Most of the participants had experiences with disabled children in their school (67.4%), their class (71.1%), a support class (50.2%) or a special unit in the mainstream school (66.2%). • Almost half of the participants did not have any training on how to teach disabled students (47.4%), even though most of them had disabled children in their class. • Most of the participants would like to have more training on disability issues (82.3%). • The majority of the participants support that effective is the school which creates citizens that abide by the social rules (80.2%). • Secondary education teachers believe that the Cyprus education system does not offer equal opportunities in education, while it is dysfunctional and does not allow initiatives. • Most of the teachers of secondary education recycle the disablist rhetoric by supporting that they would like to use the term ‘children with special needs’ (61.6%). • More or less half of the participants believe that disabled students are not annoying (45.2%), nor they disturb the lesson (58.4%). However, they admit that they do not have high expectations from disabled children (75.3%). • Over half of the teachers believe that Cyprus society is prejudiced against disabled people (58.3%) and that schools in Cyprus are not prepared to welcome diversity (68.9%). • In practice, most teachers say that they do not avoid taking lessons in classes with disabled children (82.5%). However, they demand less from them (76.7%), they do not differentiate their instruction (50.9%), and they usually do not have partnerships with the parents (41.7%). Based on the above, it seems that the transition from exclusion to inclusion has begun. However there are still a lot to be done, such as in-service training, so as to turn the vision into reality.

References

Abberley, P. (1987). The concept of oppression and the development of a social theory of disability. Disability, Handicap and Society, 2(1), 5-19. Armstrong, D. (2005). Reinventing ‘inclusion’: New Labour and the cultural politics of special education. Oxford Review of Education, 31(1), 135-151. Barton, L. and Armstrong, F. (2001). Disability Education and Inclusion: Cross-cultural issues and dilemmas. In G. Albrect, K. Seelman and M. Bury (Eds.), International Handbook of Disability Studies (pp. 693-710). London: Sage Publications. Beckett, A. E. (2009). ‘Challenging disabling attitudes, building an inclusive society’: considering the role of education in encouraging non-disabled children to develop positive attitudes towards disabled people. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 30(3), 317-329. Creswell, J. (2012). Educational research: planning, conducting and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (4th edn.). Boston: Pearson. European Commission (2010). Europe 2020: A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. Retrieved on 15 January 2015, from http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ. do?uri=COM:2010:2020:FIN:EN:PDF Graham, L. J. and Slee, R. (2008). An illusory interiority: interrogating the discourse/s of inclusion. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 40(2), 277-293. Lonsbury, J. & Apple, M. (2012). Understanding the limits and possibilities of schools reform. Educational Policy, 26(5), 759-773. Norwich, B. (2008). Dilemmas of difference, inclusion and disability: international perspectives on placement. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 23(4), 287-304. Nussbaum, M. (2009). Education for profit, education for freedom. Liberal Education, 95(3), 6-13. Oliver, M. & Barnes, C. (2010). Disability studies, disabled people and the struggle for inclusion. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 31(5), 547-560. Phtiaka, H. (2008). Educating the Other: a journey in Cyprus time and space. In L. Barton & F. Armstrong (Eds), Policy, Experience and Change: Cross Cultural Reflections on Inclusive Education (pp. 147-162). Dodrect: Springer Books. Robson, C. (2011). Real World Research: A Resource for Social scientists and Practioner- Researchers (3rd edn.). Oxford: Blackwell. Symeonidou, S. and Phtiaka, H. (2009). Using teachers’ prior knowledge, attitudes and beliefs to develop in-service teacher education courses for inclusion. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25, 543-550. Tuval, S. and Orr, E. (2009). Social representations of inclusion and stratification: ethnographic research within two Israeli elementary schools. Disability and Society, 24(4), 503-516. Vlachou, A. (2004). Education and inclusive policy-making implications for research and practice. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 8(1), 3-22.

Author Information

Eleni Damianidou (presenting / submitting)

University of Cyprus

Education

Limassol

Helen Phtiaka (presenting)

University of Cyprus, Cyprus

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