ATTITUDE OF TEACHERS, ADMINISTRATORS AND POLICY MAKERS TOWARDS INCLUSIVE EDUCATION

Abstract

This study was conducted to measure the attitude of teachers, administrators and policy makers towards inclusive education. It was conducted to achieve the following objectives: 1) to construct an attitude towards Inclusive Education Scale; 2) to measure attitude of representative sample of stake holders towards IE; 3) t o find out difference between the attitude of special education and regular education teachers; 4) to find out difference between the attitude of female and male teachers both in regular and special education; 5) to find out difference between the attitude of rural and urban respondents; 6) to find out difference among the attitude of teachers, administrators and policy makers. An intensive review of related literature covered the to topics such as concept of inclusive education, emergence of Inclusive Education, International initiatives of inclusive education, benefits of inclusive education, National commitments, barriers for inclusive education, reservations about inclusive education, attitude, factors influencing attitude about inclusive education. A five point Likert Scale instrument was developed for the study. A panel of experts examined the content validity of instrument. Analysis of the data showed reliability of the instrument was .79. Instrument was piloted and improved then it was administrated for data collection. The population of the study comprised all the teachers, administrators and policy makers working in the province of Punjab. A sample of the 590 respondents was selected randomly. As many as 432 teachers, 108 administrators and 50 policy makers were selected from both special education and regular education systems. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the responses of the sample and inferential statistics were used to compare the differences among the sample. Different comparisons were made during the analysis of data on following basis age, academic qualification, professional qualification, regular and special education, personal relation with persons with disability, experience of interaction with persons with disability, monthly income, mother tongue, gender, living area, administrative division, marital status, professional experience and profession. Findings of the research showed that objectives of the study have been achieved. It was concluded that teachers, administrators and policy makers had positive attitudes towards inclusive education.