Teachers’ perceptions of the inclusion of marginalised groups

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This paper is based on the concept of inclusion as a process of recognising and minimising the barriers to learning and participation of all children, with teachers as the key players in implementing inclusion in practice. There are two key questions: (1) How do teachers rank different groups of marginalised children? (2) How do teachers see their own role, the role of the marginalised and other children, and their parents in the inclusion process? The groups included in the research were children with special needs, migrants from former Yugoslavia, Roma/Gypsies and children from poor families. In the latter group, it also looked at their counterparts, the children of wealthy parents. Research carried out on a representative sample of primary school teachers in Slovenia showed that children with special needs are among all surveyed groups of children those seen as the most helpless. For these children, teachers are also most likely to lower learning and discipline standards, while at the same time feeling the least qualified to teach them and seeing them also as having the lowest abilities. In the teachers’ opinion, parents of other children have the greatest reservations when their child associates with a Roma/Gypsy child, and teachers also put the least trust in Roma/Gypsy parents.