Examining the attitudes, perceptions, and concerns of Kenyan teachers toward the inclusion of children with disabilities in general education classrooms

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2012-05

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Since the government of Kenya made inclusive education as apolicy requirement in the provision of education to all children including those with disabilities, educators have explored ways of making this requirement a reality. All children with disabilities should be educated with non-disabled children of the same and to have access to the general education curriculum. The philosophy of inclusive education aims at enabling all children to learn in the regular education classrooms. It is widely believed that the successful implementation of any inclusive policy is largely influenced by the teachers being positive about the expectations. Grounded in Positioning Theory, this study was conducted to examine the attitudes, perceptions and concerns of Kenyan teachers toward the inclusion of children with disabilities in the regular education classrooms. The study participants were 142 Primary School teachers from 10 schools in a school district in Western Kenya deliberately selected from schools identified as actively implementing inclusive education programs. A concurrent mixed methods design was used to collect, analyze and intepret data for this study. The overal findings indicate that the teachers have a positive attitude towards inclusion of children with disabilities in regular classrooms. However, the teachers also identified what they considered as obstacles to successful implementation of the inclusive philosophy.

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