Pre-Service Teachers’ Attitudes towards Inclusive Education in Tanzania

Abstract

The inclusion of children with special needs in regular classrooms is becoming more prevalent and as a result researchers have started to examine its success as well as the attitudes of teachers. The attitudes of teachers have impact on the implementations of successful inclusive education. In the present study, pre-service teachers attitiudes towards inclusive education were investigated. Six hundred forty one full time preservice teachers  from two TeacherTraining Colleges participated in this study. Their attitudes were measured by attitude scale in a 4 Likert point.The study found that some preservice teachers had positive attitudes and others have negative attitudes towards inclusive education. The majority of participants (80.2%) had  negative attitudes towards  inclusive education while  19.2 percent had positive attitudes. T-tests revealed that males were more positive than females (p.04 levels) towards inclusive education. Furthermore, the participants who reported to have contacts to people with disability were more positive to inclusive education than those who had no contact. The results of this study are important because the understanding of pre-service educators’ attitudes is vital for the successful implementation of inclusive education.

Keywords: Inclusive education, attitudes, special needs and pre-service teachers