Attention to diversity and the inclusive school: the attitudes of pre- service teachers

Abstract

The design and development of inclusive practices is seen as one of the fundamental action
areas in building a school for everyone. Both actions depend to a large extent on teachers’ attitudes, since these can be modified by the training they receive. The aim of this study is to find out whether there are any differences in attitudes between future infant and primary and future secondary school teachers, and then analyse whether the existence of such differences affects the impact that training may have on them. The sample comprised 46 and 50 students enrolled in the final year of the Degree in Preschool and Primary Education and the Master’s in Secondary Education respectively, in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alicante. A descriptive and non-parametric (Mann-Whitney U test) study was carried out with the help of SPSS .21 data analysis software. It can be deduced
from the results that, generally speaking, teachers in training have positive attitudes towards diversity and the principle of inclusion, although attitudes are not so clear-cut in the more controversial areas. They also believe that training has a favourable impact on increasing awareness and interest in the subject. However, the degree students have slightly more positive attitudes than the master’s students, and there are statistically significant differences when it comes to considering diversity as an element of richness and the impact that the course has on interest in training on the subject. Our conclusion is that it would be best to continue to work to change attitudes in this area and on these courses – especially the master’s – and to qualitatively evaluate the differences between the groups studied.