An inclusive and equitable education is at the core of democratic societies. Over the past decades, the educational landscape has been reshaped by numerous societal changes, with the most recent pandemic highlighting educational inequalities for disadvantaged students in unprecedented ways. Mid-way through the Global Goals 2030 agenda, ensuring inclusive and equitable education for all (SGD#4) is still pivotal for promoting social democracy.   

Traditionally, research in inclusive education has addressed diversity and equality from multiple stances, with a particular interest in the school contexts and the way that teachers respond to the increasingly diverse student population. Teachers’ attitudes have been identified as one of the main elements to create an inclusive environment within mainstream school settings (EADSNE, 2010) and research on this topic is one of most prolific in the field of inclusive education (Hernández-Torrano et al., 2020).  Attitudes have been defined by Eagly and Chaiken as “a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favour or disfavour” (1993, p.1). In the school context, teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education can determine the level of inclusive practice in the classroom, where positive attitudes correspond to a higher level of inclusion for all learners (Avradimis & Norwich, 2002).  

Over the past two decades, several reviews of the literature on teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion have provided an overview of the factors influencing educational practice (Guillemot et al., 2022). However, since 2002 (i.e., since the publication of the literature review conducted by Avramidis and Norwich), reviews published in this field have not adopted systematic methods or have solely focused on synthesising one type of research method design. For example, Van Steen and Wilson (2020) quantitatively summarised the individual and cultural predictors that influenced teachers’ attitudes, whereas Ewing et al. (2018) systematically reviewed the questionnaires used to explore teachers’ attitudes vis-á-vis inclusive education.  

In the context of inclusive education, a mixed methods approach to investigate teachers’ attitudes, albeit limited to physical education, has been used to comprehensively synthesise empirical research evidence (Tarantino et al., 2022) and results offered an extensive view on physical education teachers’ attitude towards inclusive education. As researchers encourage the employment of mixed-methods systematic reviews to produce evidence synthesis of direct relevance to policy makers and practitioners (Pearson et al., 2015; Stern et al., 2020), this paper presents the first mixed-methods systematic review of the literature on teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education. 

The aim of this review is to comprehensively synthesise quantitative and qualitative research evidence on teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education in mainstream primary and secondary schools published over the past two decades. The primary objective is to identify what influences teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education in mainstream schools. Illustrating evidence from qualitative and quantitative research designs will provide corroborating evidence for stakeholders, policy makers, and teachers educators. 

Setting to be the most up-to-date comprehensive review of the literature on teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education in mainstream primary and secondary schools, this paper will offer a valuable contribution to the conference and will inform researchers and policy makers working in the field of inclusive education highlighting the implications for inclusive educational practice. 

The protocol of this mixed-methods systematic review was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42023382025) and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were followed. Five electronic databases (ERIC, PubMed, PsycINFO, Scopus, and Web of Science) were searched for articles published between January 1st 2002, and December 31st 2022. The search strategy was developed around three main concepts: (1) schoolteachers; (2) attitudes; and (3) inclusive education. The articles yielded by the search strategy were imported into Covidence, and the duplicates automatically removed. Eligibility criteria The records obtained through the database search were deemed eligible for inclusion in this systematic review if they (i) were focused on in-service general teachers; (ii) investigated attitudes; (iii) employed an empirical research design; (iv) were conducted within primary or secondary settings; and (v) were written in English and peer-reviewed. Articles that were excluded from this systematic review if they investigated: (i) pre-service teachers; (ii) teaching assistants/support teachers; (iii) self-efficacy, perceptions, or beliefs; and (iv) preschool or university settings. Any discrepancies were resolved through consensus. Study Quality Considering that this systematic review seeks to summarise evidence from both qualitative and quantitative research, the quality of the studies was independently assessed by the two authors using a mixed-methods appraisal tool. The Mixed-Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT) Version 2018 (Hong et al., 2018) has been widely used for quality assessment in similar mixed-methods systematic reviews (Clifford et al., 2018; Mey et al., 2017). This tool permitted the evaluation of the quality of five categories of studies: qualitative research, randomised controlled trials, non-randomised studies, quantitative descriptive studies, and mixed methods studies. The quality of each study was assessed using a score of 1 (if the criterion was met) or 0 (if the criterion was not met) for 5 items. This resulted in a total score for each study ranging from 0 (poor quality) to 5 (high quality). Data Extraction, Analysis, and Synthesis The two authors independently extracted the data from the qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods studies and exported it in an Excel spreadsheet. Data reported in the quantitative articles were meta-analysed to estimate the overall attitudinal levels among teachers (namely, if teachers hold positive, neutral, or negative attitudes towards inclusive education). If data was not suitable for inclusion in the meta-analysis, the results were synthesised in a narrative way. Data gathered through qualitative research designs was categorised into themes and narratively synthesised.

Preliminary findings The search strategy yielded 4,912 studies, of which 2,359 were removed as duplicates. Of the remaining 2,553 studies, 578 articles were retrieved for the full-text screening against the inclusion and exclusion criteria. A total of 307 studies were deemed eligible for inclusion in this systematic review. Expected outcomes The systematic review is still ongoing; however, the authors expect to summarise the data using two different approaches. Quantitative studies Data extracted from studies that employed a quantitative design will be synthesised in two ways: (1) data that were gathered using questionnaires will be meta-analysed to estimate the overall attitudinal levels among teachers (namely, if teachers hold positive, neutral, or negative attitudes). Moreover, this data will be also used to investigate the extent to which teachers’ attributes (i.e., age, gender, teaching experience) and schools’ characteristics (i.e., class size, level) influence teachers’ attitudes toward inclusion. (2) If data will not be suitable for inclusion in the meta-analysis (namely, the original authors did not report all the information required for the meta-analysis), it will be converted into standardised effect sizes (e.g., Cohen's d for evaluating mean differences between groups, and correlation coefficient for evaluating the correlation between continuous variables) by the authors and synthesised in a narrative way. Qualitative studies Data retrieved from the studies that employed qualitative research designs will be categorised into broader higher-order themes based on whether they had been reported across multiple studies. If the themes were generated and identified by the original authors, the themes will be grouped and categorised into broader higher-order themes. If the original authors did not generate and identify themes, the two authors will independently read the studies and identify the themes using an inductive/bottom-up approach. The new themes that will emerge will be subsequently grouped into the higher-order categories previously identified.

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