Prospective Teachers’ Metaphoric Perceptions of Inclusive Education

Abstract

The need for special education stems from “a group of neurodevelopmental disorders that begin in childhood”. Today, one of the main topics discussed with regard to the education of children with special needs is inclusive education. Inclusive education, which aims to ensure that they all receive the best quality of education, is an education model based on students’ sharing experiences with their peers. The purpose of this research is to examine university students’ perceptions of inclusive education through metaphor analysis. This study aims to determine how Faculty of Education students perceive the concepts of inclusive education, inclusive students, the family of inclusive student and teacher of the inclusive student. The study group consisted a total of 200 prospective teachers from different branches, including six participants from each grade level in the 2018-2019 academic year fall semester in Faculty of Education at Sivas Cumhuriyet University. 79 of the prospective teachers were male and 121 were female. The data obtained through interviews were analysed through content analysis and descriptive analysis. 12 different metaphors for inclusive education, 11 different metaphors for inclusive student, 9 different metaphors for the family of the inclusive student, and 11 different metaphors for the teacher of the inclusive student were produced.