Within the framework of implementing inclusive education in primary schools, various questions arise concerning the role of teachers’ personal resources in their everyday practices in heterogeneous classrooms. Teachers’ professional personalities as well as their intentions concerning inclusive teaching are considered to be important prerequisites for successful learning environments. Therefore, we examined the relevance of primary school teachers’ personal resources, such as their attitudes towards inclusion and their perceived collective self‐efficacy beliefs concerning inclusive teaching, in terms of their everyday practices in heterogeneous classrooms on the basis of the ‘Theory of Planned Behaviour’. We investigated N = 290 primary school teachers’ everyday practices according to their attitudes towards inclusion, their collective self‐efficacy beliefs concerning inclusive education, their perceptions of school management’s expectations and their intentions regarding inclusive education. The results of our study indicate that primary school teachers’ everyday practices in heterogeneous classrooms are significantly predicted by their intentions regarding the implementation of inclusive education and by their attitudes towards inclusive education but not by their collective self‐efficacy beliefs or by their perceptions of school management’s expectations. Specifically, the effect of teachers’ attitudes on their everyday practices in heterogeneous classrooms is significantly mediated by their intentions regarding the implementation of inclusive education.
This study examined the psychometric properties of the German version of the Teacher Inclusive Education Self‐Efficacy Scale (TIESES). Five hundred and nineteen teacher education students from Austria and 765 teacher education students from Germany participated in the study. Results of a multiple‐group confirmatory factor analysis (for the two countries) confirmed a single factor structure of the scale with partial scalar measurement invariance. Regression analysis showed that self‐efficacy when implementing inclusive education was explained by the motivation to deal with inclusive education during their studies, previous experience with inclusive education in internships, study interest and the country in which the students went to university.
Following the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, questions concerning the joint education of students with and without special educational needs remain to be answered. Currently, there is a need for knowledge about the necessary conditions for a successful implementation of inclusive education. Thus, the aim of the present study is to identify conditions for the implementation of inclusion that are seen as necessary by primary school principals. Therefore, 32 primary school principals were interviewed. The results of the interview study reveal that factors like personnel, financial and material resources as well as building infrastructure in primary schools are seen as important requirements for the successful realisation of inclusive education. Apart from that, the importance of attitudes towards inclusion and sociopolitical conditions for the realisation of inclusion became apparent. Further conditions, which are mentioned from the interviewed principals’ point of view, are related to teacher training, appropriate class sizes and, for example, opportunities for exchanging information. The results of the study indicate that there are essential obstacles as perceived by primary school principals that can impede the implementation of inclusion in primary schools.
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