Attitudinal barriers of teachers towards inclusive education in Ecuador

Abstract

This research has two objectives. First, to recognize the position assumed by teachers in the presence of students with specific educational needs in regular classrooms; and second, to determine the state of teaching attitudes required to implement educational inclusion. This work is ascribed to the critical reflective paradigm and uses the quantitative approach of scientific research. The instruments used were the Knowledge Questionnaire on Inclusive Education by Escarbajal et al. (2020) in survey format, and the Battery of Teaching Attitudes towards Educational Inclusion by Lavela & Sánchez (2014) in Likert-type questionnaire formats and contextualized observation sheets. The informants were 961 teachers from district 13D02 of the Ministry of Education of Ecuador, who participated in this process in 2022-2024. From the results, it is inferred that teachers prefer that students with specific educational needs attend special schools, but are not opposed to their presence in conventional schools, in coherence with public education policy. In addition, it was determined that teachers require technical advice, tutoring, and permanent motivation from specialists to implement inclusive practices with greater security. It is concluded that the persistence of attitudinal barriers in teachers limits the legitimate positioning and sustainability of specific educational needs in schools despite favorable advances in public policy for education in Ecuador.