Abstract
Students should receive appropriate and comprehensive educational opportunities regardless of their ethnicity, gender, and even probable disabilities or exceptionalities. For this purpose, governments and educational boards have agreed to investigate the concept of inclusive education as a new paradigm where students can benefit from materials and classroom environment whether they are ordinary students or students with special needs. Chinese educational government has also adopted inclusive education within its pedagogic program since the middle of the 1990s. In this regard, some well-known researchers highlighted the impact of teachers' attitudes, sentiments, and concerns in inclusive education as a driving force toward student support and rapport. Moreover, the cultural background has also been emphasized in studies of inclusive education. Hence, it is necessary to employ the proposed and standardized attitude, sentiment, and concern scales, as well as the translated version to measure the factors affecting the proper implementation of inclusive pedagogy. The present study was an attempt to review related studies on teachers' attitudes and sentiments, particularly in China. Findings suggest that cultural differences might not necessarily contribute to the successful implementation of inclusive programs; however, pre-service or in-service teachers have demonstrated that higher levels of sentiment (efficacy), as well as positive attitude, can lead to the efficient provision of materials and building a supportive classroom environment for ordinary students and more importantly student with special needs.
Highlights
Educators and educational systems have always attempted to provide equal and appropriate education to students with special needs
In an attempt to develop a valid and reliable scale to measure teachers’ sentiment, attitudes, and concerns in the implementation of inclusive education, Loreman et al (2007) conducted a seminal study and proposed a 19-item scale regarding the perception of teachers about inclusion programs i.e., the sentiments, attitudes, and concerns about inclusive education (SACIE) scale
Forlin et al (2009) conducted a study on 603 pre-service teachers from Australia (n = 270), Singapore (n = 93), Canada (n = 58), and Hong Kong of China (n = 182) teachers. They concluded that there is no significant difference between these participants from different cultural backgrounds in terms of inclusive education attitudes, sentiment, and concerns
Summary
Educators and educational systems have always attempted to provide equal and appropriate education to students with special needs. In an attempt to develop a valid and reliable scale to measure teachers’ sentiment, attitudes, and concerns in the implementation of inclusive education, Loreman et al (2007) conducted a seminal study and proposed a 19-item scale regarding the perception of teachers about inclusion programs i.e., the sentiments, attitudes, and concerns about inclusive education (SACIE) scale They further proposed that teachers’ sentiment can help them deal with classes with students who have disabilities, teachers’ attitude is directly related to the successful implementation of teaching approaches, and teachers’ concern stems from their uncertainty about their capabilities and preparedness for inclusion schools. The present study aimed to review related studies and key empirical findings are introduced
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