This study was purposed to investigate characteristics of social interaction in inclusive preschool classrooms by teacher's attitude toward inclusive education. The result of this study may imply the importance of teacher's attitude in implementation ...
This study was purposed to investigate characteristics of social interaction in inclusive preschool classrooms by teacher's attitude toward inclusive education. The result of this study may imply the importance of teacher's attitude in implementation of effective early childhood inclusive education.
The subject were teachers and young children with and without disabilities in 6 inclusive classes. The 6 classes were selected based on the teacher's attitude toward the inclusive education. Three teachers from 3 classes had positive attitude toward the inclusive education and the teachers from the other 3 classes had relatively negative attitude toward the inclusive education. For the purpose of this study, interactions among the teacher, children without disabilities, and children with disabilities were observed and the frequency of interactions among them were measured.
The results obtained from this study were as follows:
First, the number of attempts to interact with the child with disability by teachers and the number of teacher's responses to attempts for interaction by the child with disability were greater in the classes of teachers with positive attitude toward the inclusion, compared with the teachers with negative attitude toward the inclusion.
Second, the number of positive attempts to interact with the peer with disability by typically developing children was greater in the classrooms of teachers with negative attitude toward the inclusion than in the classrooms of teachers with negative attitude toward the inclusion. Whereas, the number of negative attempts to interact with the peer with disability by typically developing children was greater in the classrooms of teachers with negative attitude toward the inclusion than in the classrooms of teachers with positive attitude toward the inclusion. The numbers of positive and negative responses of typically developing children to the peer with disability presented similar patterns to the attempts for interaction among classrooms of teachers with different attitudes toward inclusive education.
Third, the teachers with positive attitude toward the inclusion interacted with the child with disability in the way to expand the child's play, promote the child's interactions with typically developing peers, and facilitate prosocial behavior of the child with disability. Wheres, the teachers with negative attitude toward the inclusion didn't effectively intervene interactions between children with and without disability and didn't facilitate learning and play activities of the child with disability.
Finally, the children of the classes of teachers with positive attitude toward the inclusion presented spontaneous interactions with the peer with disability and facilitated learning activities of the peer with the peer with disability and facilitated learning activities of the peer with disability. Whereas, the children of the classes of teachers with negative attitude toward the inclusion tended not to interact with their peer with disability.
Even though they tried to interact with him/her, their presented inappropriate and negative interaction.