Teachers’ attitudes towards integration avramidis e norwich

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Teachers' attitudes towardsintegration / inclusion: a review ofthe literatureElias Avramidis & Brahm Norwich

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Teachers’ attitudes towardsintegration/inclusion: a review of the

literature

ELIAS AVRAMIDIS* AND BRAHM NORWICH†

*University of Bath, UK†University of Exeter, UK

Address for correspondence:Dr Elias Avramidis, Department of Education, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK.

E-mail: [email protected]

ABSTRACT

On the assumption that the successful implementation of any inclusive policy is largelydependent on educators being positive about it, a great deal of research has sought toexamine teachers’ attitudes towards the integration and, more recently, the inclusionof children with special educational needs in the mainstream school. This paper reviewsthis large body of research and, in so doing, explores a host of factors that mightimpact upon teacher acceptance of the inclusion principle. The analyses showedevidence of positive attitudes, but no evidence of acceptance of a total inclusion or ‘zeroreject’ approach to special educational provision. Teachers’ attitudes were found tobe strongly in�uenced by the nature and severity of the disabling condition presentedto them (child-related variables) and less by teacher-related variables. Further,educational environment-related variables, such as the availability of physical andhuman support, were consistently found to be associated with attitudes to inclusion.After a brief discussion of critical methodological issues germane to the researchfindings, the paper provides directions for future research based on alternativemethodologies.

KEYWORDS

Integration, inclusion, teacher attitudes, inclusive education

Eur. J. of Special Needs Education, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2002), pp. 129–147

European Journal of Special Needs EducationISSN 0885-6257 print/ISSN 1469-591X online © 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journalsDOI: 10.1080/08856250210129056

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BACKGROUND

Philosophies regarding the education of children with learning difficulties and/ordisabilities have changed dramatically over the past two decades and several countrieshave led in the effort to implement policies which foster the integration and, morerecently, inclusion of these students into mainstream environments. Here, althoughthe movement of inclusive education has gained momentum in recent years, a keyelement in the successful implementation of the policy is the views of the personnelwho have the major responsibility for implementing it, that is teachers. It is arguedthat teachers’ beliefs and attitudes are critical in ensuring the success of inclusivepractices since teachers’ acceptance of the policy of inclusion is likely to affect theircommitment to implementing it (Norwich, 1994). Based on that assumption, a lineof research has generated important findings that have practical implications for policy-makers endeavouring to promote inclusion. Although some reviews of thisliterature exist (Hannah, 1988; Jamieson, 1984; Salvia and Munson, 1986; Yanito et al., 1987), these were based mainly on studies conducted in the early 1980s and,moreover, focused solely on American studies. A more recent attempt to synthesizethe literature was Scruggs and Mastropieri’s (1996) meta-analysis which, albeitsystematic, included only a small number of American studies. In this respect, nocomprehensive research synthesis to date has been completed. The purpose of thispaper is to review the large body of literature on mainstream teachers’ attitudestowards integration and, more recently, inclusion. In doing so, we hope to elucidatesome of the factors that might impact on the formation of these attitudes. We alsodiscuss pertinent methodological issues and outline possible directions for futureresearch on teachers’ attitudes.

SEARCH PROCEDURE

Databases including ERIC (1984–2000), BEI (1986–2000) and PsychINFO(1984–2000) were searched for articles describing teacher attitudes towardsmainstreaming, integration and inclusion. Reference lists from relevant books (e.g.Jones, 1984; Yuker, 1988b), literature reviews (e.g. Yanito et al., 1987) and allidentified relevant reports were searched for additional references. Moreover, thefollowing international journals were hand-searched for relevant reports: BritishJournal of Educational Psychology; British Journal of Special Education; EducationalPsychology; European Journal of Special Needs Education; Exceptional Children;International Journal of Disability, Development and Education; Journal of LearningDisabilities; and Journal of Special Education. For this synthesis, reports were includedonly if their main research focus was on teachers’ attitudes. Not included were articlesthat reported student teachers’ attitudes towards integration/inclusion (with theexception of one study, Ward and Le Dean, 1996), neither were studies conductedprior to 1980.

Given that teachers’ attitudes towards integration and inclusion have receivedunprecedented interest over the past 20 years, the review presented here cannotpossibly be complete. However, where previous efforts have focused solely onAmerican attitude studies, the one reported here endeavours to present as manyinternational studies as possible. In doing so, the aim is not to draw �rm generalizationssince studies conducted in different countries cannot possibly be comparable given thedifferences in their education systems. Moreover, there are variations within countriesin terms of philosophies, policies and systems. However, despite these differences,there is evidence (Meijer, Pijl and Hegarty, 1994) that in most OECD countries up to

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1 per cent of the school population is taught in special settings (special schools orclassrooms); it is this small group of children with signi�cant and complex needs thatforms the focus of this literature review and not the much wider percentage of pupilsexperiencing learning dif�culties of a mild to moderate nature commonly placed inmainstream settings.

A further issue that was taken into account in the presentation of the studies hereis the distinction between those investigating attitudes to integration and those towardsinclusion. Although the two terms are often used interchangeably and it is not at allclear that they have common meaning across national boundaries, inclusion hasrecently superseded integration in the vocabulary of special educators as a more radicalterm located within a human rights discourse.

In the UK context, the principle of integration is strongly associated with thepublication of the Warnock Report (1978) where the term was viewed as part of awider movement of ‘normalization’ in Western countries. In this report, integrationwas seen to take various forms – locational integration (placing children ‘with specialneeds’ physically into mainstream schools), social interaction (some degree of socialbut not educational interaction between children with ‘special needs’ and their main-stream peers) to functional integration (some unspecified level of participation in common learning activities and experiences). However, although the Integrationmovement strongly advocated the placement of children in the ‘least restrictiveenvironment’, there was no expectation that every pupil ‘with special needs’ wouldbe functionally integrated, but rather that children will be integrated in the mannerand to the extent that is appropriate to their particular ‘needs’ and circumstances. In this respect, integration was seen as an ‘assimilationist’ process, in the sense ofviewing a full mainstream placement as depending on whether the child can assimilateto a largely unchanged school environment (Thomas, 1997). However, functionalintegration in the context of whole-school policies was clearly intended to change theschool environment.

Inclusion implies a restructuring of mainstream schooling that every school canaccommodate every child irrespective of disability (‘accommodation’ rather than‘assimilation’) and ensures that all learners belong to a community. Such an argumentlocates the discussion in a social-ethical discourse which is strongly focused on values(see Salamanca Declaration: Unesco, 1994). Some favour the term ‘inclusion’ becauseit is thought to embody a range of assumptions about the meaning and purpose ofschools and embraces a much deeper philosophical notion of what integration shouldmean. Finally, the term inclusion has come to take on a wider significance andpopularity in linking up with the recent development of the concept of inclusion orsocial inclusion as having broader social and political value. Inclusion in this widersense is comparable to equality as a social value in relating to all aspects of socialdisadvantage, oppression and discrimination. Nevertheless, integration has been themain focus of research, and it is towards presenting this body of work that we turn�rst.

OVERVIEW OF STUDIES OF TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDSINTEGRATION

Although the movement for ‘inclusive education’ is part of a broad human rightsagenda, many educators have serious reservations about supporting the widespreadplacement of pupils with SEN in mainstream schools. Research undertaken in Australiaabout professional attitudes towards integration education has provided a range ofinformation in this area. Studies undertaken between 1985 and 1989 covered the

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attitudes of headteachers (Center et al., 1985), teachers (Center and Ward, 1987),psychologists (Center and Ward, 1989) and pre-school administrators (Bochner and Pieterse, 1989), and demonstrated that professional groups vary considerably in their perceptions of which types of children are most likely to be successfullyintegrated. (Summary data from these studies were presented by Ward, Center andBochner, 1994.) These studies suggested that attitudes towards integration werestrongly in�uenced by the nature of the disabilities and/or educational problems beingpresented and, to a lesser extent, by the professional background of the respondents.The most enthusiastic group were those responsible for pre-school provision and themost cautious group were the classroom teachers, with heads, resource teachers andpsychologists in between. A similar level of caution was re�ected in another Australianstudy involving prospective teachers (Ward and Le Dean, 1996) who, although positivetowards the general philosophy of integration, differentiated between different typesof needs.

Other studies have indicated that school district staff who are more distant fromstudents, such as administrators and advisers, express more positive attitudes tointegration than those closer to the classroom context, the class teachers. Headteachershave been found to hold the most positive attitudes to integration, followed by specialeducation teachers, with classroom teachers having the most negative attitudes(Garvar-Pinhas and Schmelkin, 1989; Norwich, 1994). Similarly, Forlin (1995) foundthat teachers from the Education Support Centres (special centres that cater for theeducational needs of children with SEN requiring limited or extended support) weremore accepting of a child with intellectual and physical disability than educators from regular mainstream primary schools which co-existed on the same site. Forlinconcluded that special education resource teachers tend to have a more positive attitudeto inclusion than their mainstream counterparts. This difference was also re�ected ina sample of Greek mainstream and special teachers (Padeliadou and Lampropoulou,1997).

Bowman (1986), in her 14-nation Unesco study of approximately 1,000 teacherswith experience of teaching children with SEN, reported a wide difference in teacheropinions regarding integration. The countries surveyed were Egypt, Jordan, Colombia,Mexico, Venezuela, Botswana, Senegal, Zambia, Australia, Thailand, Czechoslovakia,Italy, Norway and Portugal. The teachers were found to favour different types ofchildren for integration into ordinary classes. Interestingly, Bowman noted that incountries which had a law requiring integration, teachers expressed more favourableviews (ranging from 47 to 93 per cent). Teachers from countries which offered the mostsophisticated segregated educational provision were less supportive to integration(ranging from 0 to 28 per cent).

Leyser, Kapperman and Keller (1994) undertook a cross-cultural study of teacherattitudes towards integration in the USA, Germany, Israel, Ghana, Taiwan and thePhilippines. Their �ndings showed that there were differences in attitude to integrationbetween these countries. Teachers in the USA and Germany had the most positiveattitudes. Positive attitudes in the USA were attributed to integration being widelypractised there as the result of Public Law 94-142. The positive views expressed bythe German teachers were seen as surprising because, at the time of the investigation,Germany had no special education legislation, their teachers were not provided with special education training, their children with SEN were educated in segregatedsettings and integration was being practised only on an experimental basis. This �ndinggoes against a simple relationship between legislative system and inclusive attitudesas Bowman’s study had suggested. The authors speculated that the positive viewsexpressed by the German teachers represented an overall sensitivity of Germanstowards minorities and, thus, towards disabled people. Teacher attitudes were


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signi�cantly less positive in Ghana, the Philippines, Israel and Taiwan. The authorsreasoned that this could probably be due to limited or non-existent training for teachersto acquire integration competencies; the limited opportunities for integration in someof these countries; and the overall small percentage of children who receive servicesat all (none of these countries had a history of offering children with SEN speciallydesigned educational opportunities).

Other attitude studies from the USA have suggested that general educators have not developed an empathetic understanding of disabling conditions (Berryman, 1989; Horne and Ricciardo, 1988), nor do they appear to be supportive of the place-ment of special needs learners in their regular classrooms (Bacon and Schulz, 1991; Barton, 1992). This can be explained by the fact that integration had often been effected in an ad hoc manner, without systematic modi�cations to a school’sorganization, due regard to teachers’ instructional expertise or any guarantee ofcontinuing resource provision. Center and Ward’s (1987) Australian study withregular teachers indicated that their attitudes to integration re�ected lack of con�denceboth in their own instructional skills and in the quality of support personnel availableto them. They were positive about integrating only those children whose disablingcharacteristics were not likely to require extra instructional or management skills onthe part of the teacher.

However, a UK study by Clough and Lindsay (1991), which investigated theattitudes of 584 teachers towards integration and to different kinds of support,revealed a wider positive view of integration. Their research provided some evidencethat attitudes had shifted in favour of integrating children with SEN over the past tenyears or so. They argue that this was partly the result of the experiences teachers hadhad: whether they had developed some competence and if they had not been‘swamped’, as some had feared at the time of publication of the Warnock Report(1978). Nevertheless, again responses appeared to vary according to the educationalneeds presented.

Finally, Scruggs and Mastropieri (1996) in their meta-analysis of American attitudestudies, which included 28 survey reports conducted from at least 1958 through 1995,reported that although two-thirds (65 per cent) of the teachers surveyed (10,560 intotal) agreed with the general concept of integration, only 40 per cent believed thatthis was a realistic goal for most children and responses, again, appeared to varyaccording to disabling conditions. Another important �nding was that there was nocorrelation between positive attitudes towards inclusion and date of publication,suggesting that teachers’ views have not substantially changed over the years.

OVERVIEW OF STUDIES OF TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDSINCLUSION

More recent studies have been of teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion. Early Americanstudies on ‘full inclusion’ reported results which were not supportive of a full placementof pupils with SEN in mainstream schools. A study carried out by Coates (1989), forexample, reported that general education teachers in Iowa did not have a negativeview of pullout programmes, nor were they supportive of ‘full inclusion’. Similarfindings were reported by Semmel et al. (1991) who, after having surveyed 381elementary educators in Illinois and California (both general and special), concludedthat those educators were not dissatis�ed with a special education system that operatedpullout special educational programmes.

Another American study by Vaughn et al. (1996) examined mainstream and special teachers’ perceptions of inclusion through the use of focus group interviews.


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The majority of these teachers, who were not currently participating in inclusiveprogrammes, had strong, negative feelings about inclusion and felt that decision-makers were out of touch with classroom realities. The teachers identified severalfactors that would affect the success of inclusion, including class size, inadequateresources, the extent to which all students would bene�t from inclusion and lack ofadequate teacher preparation.

However, in studies where teachers had active experience of inclusion, contradictory�ndings were reported; a study by Villa et al. (1996) yielded results which favouredthe inclusion of children with SEN in the ordinary school. The researchers noted thatteacher commitment often emerges at the end of the implementation cycle, after theteachers have gained mastery of the professional expertise needed to implementinclusive programmes. This �nding was also re�ected in the Sebastian and Mathot-Buckner’s (1998) case study of a senior high and a middle school in Washington SchoolDistrict, Utah, where students with severe learning dif�culties had been integrated. Inthis study, 20 educators were interviewed at the beginning and end of the school yearto determine attitudes about inclusion. The educators felt that inclusion was workingwell and, although more support was needed, it was perceived as a challenge. Similarfindings were reported by LeRoy and Simpson (1996) who studied the impact of inclusion over a three-year period in the state of Michigan. Their study showedthat as teachers’ experience with children with SEN increased, their con�dence toteach these children also increased. The evidence seems to indicate that teachers’negative or neutral attitudes at the beginning of an innovation such as inclusiveeducation may change over time as a function of experience and the expertise thatdevelops through the process of implementation. This conclusion was also reportedin a recent UK survey of teachers’ attitudes in one LEA, where teachers who had beenimplementing inclusive programmes for some years held more positive attitudes thanthe rest of the sample, who had had little or no such experience (Avramidis, Baylissand Burden, 2000). However, there have been no studies which show the movetowards more positive attitudes to inclusion, leading to widespread acceptance of fullinclusion.

FACTORS INFLUENCING TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES

Research has suggested that teachers’ attitudes might be in�uenced by a number offactors which are, in many ways, interrelated. For example, in the majority of inte-gration attitude studies reviewed earlier, responses appeared to vary according todisabling conditions. In other words, the nature of the disabilities and/or educationalproblems presented have been noted to in�uence teachers’ attitudes. Following thetypology developed by Salvia and Munson (1986), these factors could be termed as‘child-related’ variables. Moreover, demographic and other personality factors andtheir in�uence on teachers’ attitudes have been examined and this group of variablescould be classi�ed under the heading ‘teacher-related’ variables. Finally, the speci�ccontext/environment has also been found to in�uence attitudes and these variables canbe termed ‘educational environment-related’. This framework of synthesizing research�ndings has been adopted here for the presentation of the existing literature.

Child-related Variables

Several early integration studies have been concerned with determining teachers’attitudes towards different categories of children with SEN and their perceived


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suitability for integration (it is worth emphasizing here that these studies wereinvestigating teachers’ attitudes towards integration not inclusion, since the latter doesnot differentiate by category). Teachers’ concepts of children with SEN normallyconsist of types of disabilities, their prevalence and the educational needs they exhibit(Clough and Lindsay, 1991). Generally, teachers’ perceptions could be differentiatedon the basis of three dimensions: physical and sensory, cognitive and behavioural-emotional.

Forlin (1995) found that educators were cautiously accepting of including a childwith cognitive disability and were more accepting of children with physical disabilities.The degree of acceptance for part-time integration was high for children consideredto have mild or moderate SEN. The majority of educators (95 per cent) believed thatmild physically disabled children should be integrated part-time into mainstreamclasses, and only a small number of educators (6 per cent) considered full-timeplacement of children with severe physical disability as acceptable. Similarly, themajority of educators (86 per cent) believed that only children with mild intellectualdisability should be integrated part-time into mainstream classes. A very small numberof educators (1 per cent) considered full-time placement of children with intellectualdisabilities viable because of their belief that it would be more stressful to cope withchildren with SEN full-time than part-time. Forlin’s �ndings indicated that the degreeof acceptance by educators for the placement of children with SEN in mainstreamclasses declined rapidly with a converse increase in the severity of the disability acrossboth physical and cognitive categories, and placement should be part-time rather thanfull-time.

Ward et al. (1994) assessed teacher attitudes towards inclusion of children with SENwhose disabling conditions or educational difficulties were defined behaviourallyrather than categorically. With the cooperation of senior staff from New South WalesDepartment of School Education, Australia, they produced a list of 30 disablingconditions which they then de�ned behaviourally (see ibid., p. 37, for a list of thesedisability conditions). They felt that this type of operational de�nition would haverelevance for school practitioners, since traditional category grouping does notnecessarily re�ect the child’s actual educational needs. In general, teachers in theirstudy showed little disagreement about the inclusion of children with SEN perceivedas having mild dif�culties, since they were not likely to require extra instructional ormanagement skills from the teacher. Included in this group of children were thosewith mild physical and visual disabilities and mild hearing loss. There was a commonuncertainty about the suitability of including children with disabling conditions thatin various ways posed additional problems and demanded extra teaching competenciesfrom teachers. Included in this group were children with mild intellectual disability,moderate hearing loss and visual disability and hyperactivity. The teachers wereunanimous in their rejection of the inclusion of children with severe disabilities(regarded as being too challenging a group and, at the time of the study, normallyeducated in special schools). This group consisted of those with profound visual andhearing impairment and moderate intellectual disability. Children with profoundsensory disabilities and low cognitive ability (mentally retarded) were considered tohave a relatively poor chance of being successfully included.

In the Clough and Lindsay (1991) study, the majority of teachers surveyed rankedthe needs of children with emotional and behavioural dif�culties as being most dif�cultto meet, followed by children with learning dif�culties. Third in the ranking werechildren with visual impairments, and fourth were children with a hearing impairment.Clough and Lindsay attributed the low ranking of children with sensory and physicalimpairments to the relatively infrequent existence at that time of these children inmainstream classes.


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Bowman’s (1986) Unesco study indicated that teachers tend to favour differenttypes of children with SEN for integration. Most favoured for integration were childrenwith medical (75.5 per cent) and physical dif�culty (63 per cent). These children wereconsidered easiest to manage in the classrooms. Half of the teachers involved in thestudy felt children with speci�c learning dif�culty (54 per cent) and speech defects (50 per cent) were suitable for integration. Around a third felt that children withmoderate learning difficulties (31 per cent) and severe emotional and behaviouraldif�culties (38 per cent) were suitable for integration. A quarter of teachers perceivedchildren with sensory impairments, visual (23.5 per cent) and hearing (22.5 per cent),could be integrated in mainstream classes, and very few of the teachers considered that children with severe mental impairments (2.5 per cent) and multiple handicaps(7.5 per cent) could be taught in mainstream classes. There was a wide range betweenindividual countries: this indicates wide differences of teacher attitudes on the suit-ability of children with various types of SEN for integration in mainstream settings.The greatest differences of attitude between countries were about the integration ofchildren with sensory impairments (visual and hearing) and the lowest were for theintegration of children with moderate learning dif�culties. Contrary to the evidencereported in most attitude studies (see Salvia and Munson’s, 1986, and Jamieson’s,1984, reviews), children with moderate learning dif�culties and with severe emotionaland behaviour problems were more favoured for integration generally than those withsensory (deaf and blind) impairments.

In conclusion, even though in Bowman’s (1986) study the opposite was true,teachers seem generally to exhibit a more positive attitude towards the integration ofchildren with physical and sensory impairments than to those with learning dif�cultiesand emotional-behavioural dif�culties (EBD). This evidence is also consistent withChazan’s (1994) review, and it is especially relevant in the UK context where there hasbeen a dramatic rise in the exclusions from schools of students with EBD.

Teacher-related variables

A great deal of research regarding teacher characteristics has sought to determine therelationship between those characteristics and attitudes towards children with specialneeds. Researchers have explored a host of speci�c teacher variables, such as gender,age, years of teaching experience, grade level, contact with disabled persons and otherpersonality factors, which might impact upon teacher acceptance of the inclusionprinciple. A synthesis of these �ndings is presented below.

Gender

With regard to gender, the evidence appears inconsistent; some researchers noted thatfemale teachers had a greater tolerance level for integration and for special needspersons than did male teachers (Aksamit, Morris and Leunberger, 1987; Eichinger,Rizzo and Sirotnik, 1991; Thomas, 1985). Harvey (1985), for example, found thatthere was a marginal tendency for female teachers to express more positive attitudestowards the idea of integrating children with behaviour problems than male teachers.Others (Beh-Pajooh, 1992; Berryman, 1989; Leyser et al., 1994), however, did notreport that gender was related to attitudes (see also reviews by Jamieson, 1984, andHannah, 1988).


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Age-teaching experience

Teaching experience is another teacher-related variable cited by several studies ashaving an in�uence on teachers’ attitudes. Younger teachers and those with feweryears of experience have been found to be more supportive to integration (Berryman,1989; Center and Ward, 1987; Clough and Lindsay, 1991). Forlin’s (1995) study, forexample, showed that acceptance of a child with a physical disability was highestamong educators with less than six years of teaching and declined with experience forthose with six to ten years of teaching. The most experienced educators (greater than11 years of teaching) were the least accepting. Forlin also obtained a similar result for the integration of a child with intellectual disability. His study seemed to indicatethat as educators gained experience in teaching, they became less accepting of inte-gration.

Leyser et al. (1994) also found that, in general, teachers with 14 years’ or lessteaching experience had a significantly higher positive score in their attitude tointegration compared with those with more than 14 years. They found no signi�cantdifferences in attitudes to integration among teachers whose teaching experience wasbetween one and four years, �ve and nine years and ten and 14 years (no mention wasmade based on individual country). Another study by Harvey (1985) compared thewillingness of teacher trainees and primary teachers to accept children with SEN intheir classes. His �ndings indicated that there was a clear reluctance on the part of themore experienced primary teachers compared to teacher trainees in their willingnessto integrate such children. In this respect, it would not be unreasonable to assume thatnewly quali�ed teachers hold positive attitudes towards integration when entering theprofessional arena.

However, although the above studies indicated that younger teachers and thosewith fewer years of experience are more supportive of integration, other investigatorshave reported that teaching experience was not significantly related to teachers’attitudes (Avramidis et al., 2000; Leyser, Volkan and Ilan, 1989; Rogers, 1987;Stephens and Braun, 1980).

Grade level taught

The variable grade level taught and its influence on teachers’ attitudes towardsintegration has been the focus of several studies. Leyser et al.’s (1994) internationalstudy found that senior high school teachers displayed significantly more positiveattitudes towards integration than did junior high school and elementary schoolteachers, and junior high school teachers were significantly more positive thanelementary school teachers (again, no mention was made based on individual country).Other American studies revealed that elementary and secondary teachers differed in their views of integration and the kinds of classroom accommodations they makefor students who are integrated (Chalmers, 1991; Rogers, 1987), with elementaryteachers reporting more positive views of integration and its possibilities than did their secondary counterparts (Savage and Wienke, 1989). Salvia and Munson (1986),in their review, concluded that as children’s age increased, teacher attitudes becameless positive to integration, and attributed that to the fact that teachers of older childrentend to be concerned more about subject-matter and less about individual childrendifferences. This was also supported by Clough and Lindsay (1991) who claimed that,for teachers more concerned with subject-matter, the presence of children with SENin the class is a problem from the practical point of view of managing class activity.In this, it could be argued that primary school ethos is more holistic/inclusive, while


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secondary is subject-based, and that might impinge on teachers’ attitudes. Althoughthere are studies which have not found a relationship between grade and attitude (see Jamieson’s, 1984, and Hannah’s, 1988, reviews), it is generally believed that anemphasis on subject-matter af�liation is less compatible with inclusion than is a focuson student development.

Experience of contact

Experience of contact with children with SEN or disabled persons was mentioned by several studies as an important variable in shaping teacher attitudes towardsintegration. Here, the ‘contact hypothesis’ suggests that as teachers implement inclusiveprogrammes and therefore get closer to students with signi�cant disabilities, theirattitudes might become more positive (see Yuker’s, 1988a, comprehensive review of the research on the effects of personal contact on attitudes towards persons withdisabilities).

Janney et al. (1995) found that experience with low ability children was animportant contributing factor to their eventual acceptance by teachers:

Already wary of reforms and overloaded with work, general educationteachers’ initial balancing of the anticipated high cost of integration againstits uncertain benefit created hesitation or resistance. Following theirimplementation experiences, teachers re-evaluated the balance betweenthe cost of teachers’ time and energy as compared to the benefit forstudents, and judged the integration effort successful. (p. 436)

Leyser et al. (1994) found that, overall, teachers with much experience with disabledpersons had signi�cantly more favourable attitudes towards integration than thosewith little or no experience. Findings of several other studies conducted in the USA(Leyser and Lessen, 1985; Stainback, Stainback and Dedrick, 1984), Australia(Harvey, 1985; McDonald, Birnbrauer and Swerissen, 1987) and the UK (Shimman,1990) have also stressed the importance of increased experience and social contact withchildren with SEN, in conjunction with the attainment of knowledge and speci�c skillsin instructional and class management, in the formation of favourable attitudestowards integration. These studies seem to suggest that contact with students withsigni�cant disabilities, if carefully planned (and supported), results in positive changesin educators’ attitudes. These studies, coupled with more recent ones on teachers’attitudes towards inclusion presented earlier, indicate that as experience of mainstreamteachers with children with SEN increases, their attitudes change in a positive direction(LeRoy and Simpson, 1996).

However, it is important to note here that social contact per se does not lead tofavourable attitudes. Stephens and Braun (1980), for example, found no signi�cantcorrelation between reported contact with students with signi�cant disabilities andteachers’ attitudes towards integrating these students into regular classrooms. Anotherstudy by Center and Ward (1987) showed that primary teachers were more tolerantof integration if no special class or unit was attached to their school: they claimed that contact experience with children with SEN did not result in the formation ofmore positive attitudes. Surprisingly, there is evidence in the literature that socialcontact could even produce unfavourable attitudes; Forlin’s (1995) study, for example,indicated that there were differences between teachers who were currently involvedwith the policy of inclusion and those who were not. Those not involved (but who wereaware of the concept of inclusion) believed that coping with a child with SEN and with


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a mainstream child was equally stressful. Those who were involved considered thestress of coping with the child with SEN to be greater than for dealing with amainstream child. Thus this study indicated that experience of a child with SEN mightnot promote favourable acceptance for inclusion, due to the stress factor.

Training

Another factor which has attracted considerable attention is the knowledge aboutchildren with SEN gained through formal studies during pre- and in-service training.This was considered an important factor in improving teachers’ attitudes towards theimplementation of an inclusive policy. Without a coherent plan for teacher trainingin the educational needs of children with SEN, attempts to include these children inthe mainstream would be dif�cult.

The importance of training in the formation of positive attitudes towardsintegration was supported by the �ndings of Beh-Pajooh (1992) and Shimman (1990),based on teachers in colleges. Both studied the attitudes of college teachers in the UKtowards students with SEN and their integration into ordinary college courses. Their�ndings showed that college teachers who had been trained to teach students withlearning dif�culties expressed more favourable attitudes and emotional reactions tostudents with SEN and their integration than did those who had no such training.Several other studies conducted in the USA (Buell et al., 1999; Van-Reusen, Shoho and Barker, 2000), Australia (Center and Ward, 1987) and the UK (Avramidis et al.,2000) tend to reinforce the view that special education qualifications acquired from pre- or in-service courses were associated with less resistance to inclusivepractices.

Dickens-Smith (1995), for example, studied the attitudes of both regular and special educators towards inclusion (not integration). Her respondents were given anattitude survey before and after staff development. Both groups of respondentsrevealed more favourable attitudes towards inclusion after their in-service trainingthan they did before, with regular education teachers showing the strongest positiveattitude change. Dickens-Smith concluded that staff development is the key to thesuccess of inclusion.

Teachers’ beliefs

More recently, Canadian research has identified another factor that influences not only teachers’ reported attitudes towards inclusion, but their actual teaching styles and adaptations in heterogeneous classrooms; that is, their views about theirresponsibilities in dealing with the needs of students who are exceptional or at risk.Jordan, Lindsay and Stanovich (1997) found that teachers holding a ‘pathognomonic’perspective, in which the teacher assumes that a disability is inherent in the individualstudent, differed in their teaching instruction from those closer to an ‘interventionist’perspective, in which the teacher attributes student problems to an interaction betweenstudent and environment. Teachers with the most pathognomonic perspectivesdemonstrated the least effective interaction patterns, whereas those with interventionistperspectives engaged in many more academic interactions and persisted more inconstructing student understanding.

This finding was further reinforced by another study by Stanovich and Jordan(1998), which attempted to predict the performance of teacher behaviours associatedwith effective teaching in heterogeneous classrooms. This investigation was more


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sophisticated than previous ones because it was not only based on self-reports andinterviews, but also on observation of actual teaching behaviours. The results revealedthat the strongest predictor of effective teaching behaviour was the subjective schoolnorm as operationalized by the principal’s attitudes and beliefs about heterogeneousclassrooms and his or her pathognomonic/interventionist orientation. Moreover,teachers’ responses on the pathognomonic/interventionist interview scale were alsofound to be important predictors of effective teaching behaviour.

The above studies have provided evidence that the school’s ethos and the teachers’beliefs have a considerable impact on teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion which, inturn, are translated into practice. It can be said that teachers who accept responsibilityfor teaching a wide diversity of students (recognizing thus the contribution theirteaching has on the students’ progress), and feel con�dent in their instructional andmanagement skills (as a result of training), can successfully implement inclusiveprogrammes (see the study by Soodak, Podell and Lehman, 1998, where receptivitytowards inclusion was associated with higher teacher ef�cacy).

Teachers’ socio-political views

There have been a few studies of integration attitudes in relation to educators’ widerpersonal beliefs (political outlook, socio-political views) and attitudes. Stephens andBraun (1980), in a US study, found that attitudes to integration were more positivewhen teachers believed that publicly funded schools should educate exceptionalchildren. Feldman and Altman (1985), in another US study, found that classroomteachers with abstract conceptual systems held more positive integration attitudesdepending on the ethnic origin of the integrated child. Teachers with abstractconceptual systems showed less need for order, less pessimism and less interpersonalaggression, characteristics which have been related to low levels of authoritarianism.In his comparative study of educators in Devon, England, and Arizona, USA, Thomas(1985) found that educators with low scores on conservatism tended to have lessnegative attitudes to integration.

More recently, Norwich (1994), in his comparative study of educators in rural andurban areas in Pennsylvania, USA, and Northamptonshire, England, compared therelationships of integration attitudes to political outlook, socio-political views andother situational factors (contact with disability, professional position). In this study,integration attitudes were related to socio-political views only in the UK sample.Norwich concluded that while educators’ socio-political or ideological beliefs andvalues have some relation to integration, attitudes cannot be considered as a strongpredictor alone and other situational factors (provision in the two areas and culturalissues) needed to be taken into consideration.

Educational Environment-related Variables

A number of studies have examined environmental factors and their in�uence in theformation of teachers’ attitudes towards integration/inclusion. One factor that hasconsistently been found to be associated with more positive attitudes is the availabilityof support services at the classroom and the school levels (Center and Ward, 1987;Clough and Lindsay, 1991; Myles and Simpson, 1989). Here, support could be seenas both physical (resources, teaching materials, IT equipment, a restructured physicalenvironment, etc.) and human (learning support assistants, special teachers, speechtherapists, etc.).


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Janney et al. (1995) found that the majority of teachers in their study were hesitantinitially to accept children with SEN in their classes, because they anticipated a worst-case scenario where both they and the children with SEN would be left to fend forthemselves. Later, these teachers were receptive towards these children after havingreceived necessary and suf�cient support. Respondents acknowledged that the supportreceived from the relevant authorities was instrumental in allaying their apprehensionthat part-time integration would result in extraordinary workloads. A significantrestructuring of the physical environment (making buildings accessible to studentswith physical disabilities) and the provision of adequate and appropriate equipmentand materials were also instrumental in the development of these positive attitudes.Besides those mentioned by Janney et al., other forms of physical support, such asavailability of adopted teaching materials (LeRoy and Simpson, 1996; Center andWard, 1987) and smaller classes (Bowman, 1986; Center and Ward, 1987; Cloughand Lindsay, 1991; Harvey, 1985), have also been found to generate positive attitudestowards inclusion.

Another type of support, that of the continuous encouragement from the head-teacher, has also been mentioned in several studies as being instrumental in the creationof positive attitudes to inclusion. In the Janney et al. study (1995), the enthusiasticsupport from headteachers was an attributing factor to the success of the part-time integration programme in the schools they studied. Chazan (1994), in his reviewof relevant literature, concluded that mainstream teachers have a greater tolerance of integration if headteachers are supportive. Similarly, Center and Ward’s (1987)study reported that mainstream teachers whose headteachers had provided some form of support for the integration programme exhibited a more positive attitudetowards its implementation than those who had not received any (see also Thomas,1985).

Support from specialist resource teachers was also identi�ed as an important factorin shaping positive teacher attitudes to inclusion (Kauffman, Lloyd and McGee, 1989).Janney et al. (1995) found that one of the factors cited by their respondents that hadcontributed to the success of the part-time integration programme they wereimplementing was the existence of effective support, both interpersonal and task-related, provided by the school’s special education teachers. Clough and Lindsay(1991) argued that special education specialist teachers are important co-workers inproviding advice to subject specialist teachers on how to make a particular subjectaccessible to children with SEN. Center and Ward (1987) found that children with amild sensory disability integrated in mainstream classes did not cause anxiety tomainstream teachers because of the con�dence generated by the presence of itinerantteachers for these children. Their study showed that experience of working withitinerant teachers positively affected teachers’ attitudes.

The importance of support from specialist resource teachers was also highlightedin another study conducted in the USA (Minke et al., 1996), which compared theattitudes towards inclusion and the perceptions of self-ef�cacy, competence, teachingsatisfaction and judgements of the appropriateness of teaching adaptation of regulareducation teachers who co-taught with resource teachers in inclusive classrooms andtheir counterparts in traditional classrooms. Regular teachers in inclusive classroomsreported positive attitudes towards inclusion and high perceptions of self-ef�cacy,competence and satisfaction. Regular teachers in traditional classrooms held lesspositive perceptions and viewed classroom adaptations as less feasible, and lessfrequently used, than did teachers in classrooms with the protected resource of twoteachers.

Other aspects of the mainstream school environment have also been identified in the above studies as being obstacles that have to be surmounted in order for


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inclusive programmes to be successfully implemented; for example, more often thannot, teachers report overcrowded classrooms, insufficient pre-prepared materials(differentiated packages), insuf�cient time to plan with learning support team, lack of a modified/flexible timetable, inadequately available support from externalspecialists and lack of regular INSET (Avramidis et al., 2000). In particular, the needfor more non-contact time so they can plan collaboratively has been stressed in anumber of American studies (Diebold and von Eschenbach, 1991; Semmel et al., 1991).In the Myles and Simpson (1989) investigation, for example, 48 out of 55 teachers(87.2 per cent) reported their perceived need for 1 hour or more of daily planningtime for inclusion. It could be said that mainstream teachers feel that implementingan inclusive programme would involve a considerable workload on their part, as aresult of increased planning for meeting the needs of a very diverse population. In thisrespect, human and physical support can be seen as important factors in generatingpositive attitudes among mainstream teachers towards the inclusion of children withSEN.

SOME CONCLUSIONS/HYPOTHESES EMERGING FROM THE LITERATURE REVIEW

The research synthesis presented above reveals that teachers, although positive towards the general philosophy of inclusive education, do not share a ‘total inclusion’approach to special educational provision. Instead, they hold differing attitudes aboutschool placements, based largely upon the nature of the students’ disabilities. Teachersare more willing to include students with mild disabilities or physical/sensoryimpairments than students with more complex needs. In particular, there is enoughevidence to suggest that, in the case of the more severe learning needs and behaviouraldif�culties, teachers hold negative attitudes to the implementation of inclusion. Giventhe consistency of this trend both across countries and across time, governmentswishing to promote inclusive education have a dif�cult task convincing their educatorsabout the feasibility of the policy. Consequently, it seems imperative that the processis carefully planned and well supported, so that teachers’ initial reservations orconcerns are overcome. That would require, in turn, a careful and �exible allocationof the available resources based on the severity of needs represented in the inclusivesettings.

Another conclusion of this review is that the evidence regarding teacher-relatedvariables is inconsistent and none of them alone could be regarded as a strong predictorof educator attitudes. On the other hand, there is sufficient consistency regardingeducational environment-related variables, which suggests that a signi�cant restruc-turing in the mainstream school environment should take place before students withsigni�cant disabilities are included. Again, it seems reasonable to conclude here thatwith the provision of more resources and support, teachers’ attitudes could becomemore positive. The primary implication for practice is the setting of appropriateexternal support systems (and the expansion and reorganization of the existing ones)operating across schools, and the setting of learning support teams within the schools,supporting individual teachers who request guidance over a teaching concern relatingto special educational needs.

Further, the provision of extensive opportunities for training at the pre- and in-service levels should be seen as a top priority for the policy-makers. The assumptionhere is that if teachers receive assistance in mastering the skills required to implementan innovation such as ‘inclusion’, they will become more committed to the change (andmore effective) as their effort and skill increase. In this respect, it could be concluded


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here that while teachers are likely to show initial resistance to any innovative policy,their attitudes might become more positive later on, as they develop the necessaryexpertise to implement the policy and experience the success of their efforts. Thishypothesis also emerged from an Australian study (Harvey, 1990) which comparedthe attitudes of an 1984 sample of teachers, teachers-in-training and non-teachers inVictoria, Australia, to corresponding groups six years later. In 1990 the teacher groupsexpressed more positive responses than had their counterparts in 1984. Further, whilethe teacher groups in 1984 were less positive than the non-teachers, in 1990 thisdifference had disappeared. The author concluded that after six years of experiencewith an integration policy (what Harvey calls a ‘no choice policy’), teachers’ attitudeswere more positive. This evidence indicates the necessity of adopting a gradualapproach in the implementation of inclusion, and for this reorganization to succeed,careful planning, monitoring and review of the process is required. However, asindicated earlier in this review, there have been no studies which show the movetowards more positive attitudes to inclusion leading to widespread acceptance of fullinclusion.

METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES

Many researchers investigating teachers’ attitudes towards integration have usedLikert-type inventories in attempting to ascertain the extent to which respondentsagree or disagree with the general concept of integration as related to a range ofdisabling conditions. In this, much of the previous research has thus far been primarilyrepresented by acceptance/rejection issues reflecting the traditional categories ofdisability, without much effort directed at uncovering the factors that may underlieparticular attitudes. However, the use of labels or categories of disability, such as‘physically disabled’, ‘Down’s syndrome’ or ‘autistic’, raises the issue that therespondents in a population may have multiple interpretations for the same label; thatoccurs when teachers attribute different characteristics to a label based on theirexperience, or lack of it, which could be positive or negative and be largelyunpredictable across a population of teachers. The problem of multiple interpretationscan be alleviated by providing speci�c descriptions (in the form of vignettes) of thebehaviours and characteristics of persons with disabilities, rather than referring to agroup of persons by a disabling condition.

Moreover, in this line of research, paper-and-pencil measures prevailed in the methodologies and few attempts were made to include other sources of data, suchas teacher interviews, or other unobtrusive measures to validate the measurementstaken. Further, the signi�cance of these studies lies in the assumption that the reportedattitudes will be expressed in behaviour. Given the fact that ‘integration’ and, morerecently, ‘inclusion’ are politically correct ideas, there is always the danger of therespondents giving socially desirable answers that have little or no correspondence withtheir everyday behaviour. Teachers may endorse general statements in favour of havingchildren with dif�culties in regular classrooms, but it is another matter entirely howwilling they are to make speci�c adaptations for these children. For this reason, it isrecommended that observations of teachers’ actual classroom behaviour and inter-actions with the integrated child are conducted. One limitation of direct observations,of course, is that the person being observed may alter his or her behaviour during theobservation period. However, one is more likely to observe samples of true behaviourover periodic observations, rather than by relying solely on questionnaire data.

Furthermore, the present review highlights the need for adopting alternativeresearch designs for the study of teachers’ attitudes. As Eiser (1994) reminds us,


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mainstream psychological research on attitudes has taken the ‘individual self’ as boththe starting-point and the focus of analysis, resulting often in a ‘psychologizing’ aboutsocial issues without articulating how social interaction makes psychological processesthe way they are. Indeed, the great majority of the studies reviewed above employedtraditional quantitative research designs (survey) and investigated ‘individualistic’experiences of inclusion. However, as Eiser argues, there is an interdependence of the ‘individual’ and the ‘social’; in other words, attitudes should not be viewed as solely personal, but as arising out of interactions with others in the system (e.g.school). Given this social constructivist view of attitude as context dependent andresponsive to factors within a particular sociocultural environment, future researchwould bene�t from employing alternative methods, such as life history, narrative orautobiography, to examine teachers’ attitudes. These methods focus on participants’own narratives (the so-called ‘emic’ perspective) and can lead to an improvedunderstanding of the complex and interrelated processes of personal experiences,attitudes and practices.

Directions for Future Research

Although research on teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion has been on the increasein the last few years, research is needed to examine additional factors which in�uencethe formation of positive attitudes towards inclusion. For example, more specificinformation should be gathered about the quality of the training opportunities thatteachers had in implementing inclusion with regard to their duration, content andintensity, as well as about the quality of their experiences with different groups ofexceptional learners. For example, if training, whether at the pre- or in-service levelis indeed an important factor in modifying teachers’ attitudes, how can we prepare ourfuture teachers and, at the same time, facilitate the professional development of thosecurrently in schools, so that they feel more confident in implementing inclusiveprogrammes? Similarly, if ‘experience’ of inclusion promotes positive attitudes, howcan we support teachers (the main agents of the implementation of the policy) asschools become more inclusive, so their experiences are positive? Other school factorsthat impinge on attitudes and school practices, such as ethos, policies, organization,instructional arrangements and the utilization of resources, need to be explored. Futureresearch could also focus on more ‘longitudinal’ qualitative case studies of teachers’attitudes and practices as schools move towards more inclusive education. Thesestudies could examine transformation across time and allow for a more thoroughinvestigation of teachers’ attitudes towards the process. Studies of this nature (seeAvramidis, Bayliss and Burden, in press) carry the potential of deepening ourunderstanding of the complexities of inclusion, and provide directions for change orcontinuity of provision as appropriate.

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Teachers’ attitudes towards integration avramidis e norwich

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