Teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education of children with special educational needs and disabilities in central Asia

Abstract

Teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education, particularly towards students with special educational needs and disability (SEND), have become a focus of research in the past years. In many countries, the process of the implementation of inclusive education has either not been smooth or, in some cases, stalled by negative attitudes of teachers. Teachers are regarded as key drivers of the implementation of inclusive education as they are at schools and classrooms, which are strategic delivery points. Central Asian countries have embarked on a process of implementing inclusive education in their respective education systems. Therefore, in this quantitative study, using regression analysis, and one-way ANOVA, the attitudes of eight hundred and sixty-nine (869) teachers from Central Asian countries i,e Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan were surveyed. The analysis shows a noticeable shift from the segregation strategy embedded in defectology to inclusion and equity for students with SEND. However, the teachers’ attitudes still vary, the teachers could be classified into six groups according to their settings towards inclusive education.