The Barriers to Inclusive Education: Mapping 10 Years of Serbian Teachers’ Arritudes Toward Inclusive Education

Abstract

The study provides a comparative review of 15 independently written studies on teachers’ attitudes toward inclusion in Serbia between 2002 and 2012. It also attempted to describe teachers’ attitudes toward inclusive education depending on the type of special need, as well as the main obstacles and benefits of a successful inclusion from the in-service teachers’ pointof view. The findings show that shifts in teachers’ attitudes toward inclusion are slow despite numerous reform changes. The results are discussed in two stages, first before and then after the inclusion legislation was enacted. Furthermore, the overview showed that teachers in Serbia hold the most negative attitude toward inclusion of students with sensory impairments in mainstream schools. Despite resistance toward inclusion, teachers in Serbia realize its benefits, emphasizing the importance of developing social skills as well as reducing prejudice toward people with disabilities. The main obstacles to inclusion, as teachers perceive it, are insufficient education and inadequate professional development programs for teachers in Serbia, low peer status of children with disabilities in regular classrooms and lack of resources, which is in line with reform goals in Serbia. The implications for further reform implementation are discussed, as well as the need for further clarifications in future research.