In this article, we report on a study that sought to examine the willingness of pre-service teachers to apply the inclusion policy for students with disability. The study considered the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1985, 1991) as a means to explain the willingness of pre-service teachers in general and of the subgroups to engage in inclusive teaching. Participants were 580 pre-service teachers enrolled in various types of programs in three different teacher education colleges in Israel. They completed a paper copy questionnaire with 55 items. It was constructed according to Theory of Planned Behavior (TBP) guidelines. It was found that the model, based on the TPB, explains the degree of willingness of pre-service teachers to engage in inclusive teaching. It emerges that attitudes toward inclusion, perceptions of social norms regarding inclusion, and a sense of the competence of pre-service teachers to teach inclusive classes explain most of the variance in the willingness to engage in inclusive teaching and serves as leading factors manifesting this willingness. The discussion is focused on the need to increase pre-service teachers' willingness by using this model.
This article sought to add the voice of the preservice teachers to the discourse by presenting their perceptions regarding the appropriateness of their training for teaching in inclusive-education frameworks. Preservice teachers completing their first (N = 18) or third year (N = 18) in the various types of teacher-training programs (early childhood, primary school, and high school education) were interviewed. The findings of the qualitative analysis revealed that the various training programs differed in terms of the scope of training for inclusion as well as in their approach to inculcating inclusive teaching. Findings indicated that preservice teachers preparing to teach in mainstream schools expected to receive better training for inclusive teaching than what is currently offered in their training programs. The interesting point is that these expectations develop during teacher training. A discussion of the findings highlights the need to introduce changes in the existing training programs to ensure that preservice teachers acquire and internalize the principles of inclusive teaching.
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