| Summary: | Inclusive education is the education of all students regardless of their characteristics and competences. In Portugal, it is regulated by legislation. It is important to know how teachers accept and perform inclusion as a philosophical principle enforced by the Ministry of Education and the will to adapt their methodologies to the pedagogical procedures in inclusive education. The main purpose was to investigate the attitudes of teachers towards inclusive education as a philosophical principle as well as their availability to implement these practices. The quantitative methodology was based on the statistical analysis of the relations between social-demographic and professional variables of teachers and their answers to the Attitudinal Rating Scale of inclusion (EAFI). The following variables were determined: educational stage; age group; number of students per class; number of students with special needs per class; specific training in special educational needs/special education ("NEE/EE"); teaching venue. A sample of 218 kindergarten, 1st, 2nd and 3rd CEB (ages 3-15) teachers was collected. The sample consists of teachers in the "Agrupamento de Escolas do Bairro Padre Cruz" and the city of Torres Vedras. The data collection tool EAFI is a Likert scale of four levels, with 50 items grouped in 3 factors: (1) pro-inclusive attitudes, (2) obstacles to inclusive practices, (3) inclusion as a participated process. After the factor analysis of EAFI, the variables' statistical validity was checked. Teachers tend to have a favorable attitude towards inclusive education, with a 2, 99 average and SD = 0,691, in the factor 'pro-inclusive attitudes'. Still regarding factor (1), differences with statistical significance were found in the variable 'specific training in special educational needs/special education ("NEE/EE")'. Regarding factors (2) and (3), the variable 'teaching venue' foretells positive attitudes. The variables 'students per class' and 'educational stage' showed differences with statistical significance among the groups that constitute the sample |
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