Franklin Delano Roosevelt said that “the test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” According to the World Economic Forum (2021), income disparity is at the top of global risks in the coming years. The development of income inequality is a growing concern worldwide, particularly since the Great Recession. This study is based on available data on the Gini coefficient of equivalized disposable income from 2005 to 2019 for the 27 European Union countries. We found that the indicator’s value demonstrates a reasonably even distribution of income (not exceeding 40%) in all European Union countries, except Bulgaria. We used the FORECAST ETS function (Excel for Microsoft 365) that is based on the AAA version of the Exponential Smoothing (ETS) algorithm to conduct our analysis. We grouped the EU 27 countries to investigate income equality behavior. According to the interval’s median of the sample’s standard deviation, we selected Italy, Spain, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria for further investigation. We conclude the absence of general trends in the inequality of income distribution in society due to the financial crisis factors. The research presents exploratory insights into income inequality in the European Union.
The introduction of inclusive education is an important factor in the development of society. The teacher plays special role in this context, the motivational readiness of teachers to work in an inclusive environment is important. The analysis of educational programmes showed that graduates of pedagogical majors are subject to equally high requirements for their psychological readiness to work with children with special educational needs. However, the educational components aimed at the formation of psychological readiness for the studied quality are not fully represented. Therefore, the aim of the study was to experimentally compare the motivational and value aspects of the psychological readiness of future teachers majoring in Special Education and Educational, Pedagogical Sciences to work in an inclusive educational environment. The research involved the method of T.I. Ilyina “Study of Educational Motivation in High School”, the Inclusive Education Questionnaire, V.V. Boyko’s Communicative Tolerance Test were used. Statistical analysis of the data was performed using the Mann-Whitney U-test, Fisher’s φ-test. As a result it was determined that students majoring in Special Education have a higher level of psychological readiness to work in an inclusive educational environment than students majoring in Educational, Pedagogical Sciences. To sum up, it is necessary to strengthen educational programmes for teacher training with the components of inclusive education, as well as to include inclusive-oriented topics in the general professional subjects. We consider the study of cognitive and activity aspects of psychological readiness of future teachers to work in the inclusive education as a prospect for further research.
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