Teacher’s attitude towards inclusive education: A literature review

Abstract

Teachers are the key persons to implement the inclusive education in our society. In various studies researchers have argued how positive attitudes of teacher influence the concept of inclusion and inclusive education. This study is conducted to investigate teacher's attitude towards inclusive education, variables related to their attitude and if social participation of students with special needs in mainstream schools get influenced by these variables. A review of 31 literature that involve 2213 teacher's, revealed that the majority of teachers hold positive attitude towards inclusive education. Although their attitude towards the inclusive education is positive in terms of disability type (e.g. orthopaedically impaired, visually impaired, hearing impaired, gifted or creative and deprived children.). Some studies also reported negative or neutral attitude towards inclusion. No studies reported clear or complete positive attitude in their findings. Different definitions of the term 'attitude' can be found among the selected studies. The implication of teacher's attitude towards inclusive education has been discussed.