Attitude of parents’ towards inclusion of children with disabilities: A Literature Review

Bharti8

Individuals from diverse backgrounds and abilities are included in all threads of life-social, educational, employment and community living.

All children and adult are recognized as “one” even though they are not the “same”

Diversity and differences are celebrated

Inclusion is when:

Human right issue Valuing diversity Education for all in a school for all Togetherness Breaking barriers Positive self-esteem and identity Full participation

Main elements of inclusion

According to Michael F. Giangerco, “Inclusive Education is a set of values, principles and practices that seeks more effective and meaningful education for all students, regardless of whether they have exceptionality label or not.”

Inclusive Education

Students Parents/legal guardians Policy makers Administrators Teachers-general and special Relative service providers International and local NGOs Support network

Stakeholders and inclusion

Parents are delegated the responsibility to act in the best interest of their children. It has been observed globally that inclusive education was initiated by the parental movement of children with disabilities.

Parents hope and expect that physical integration, ‘being there’, will lead to social* and academic participation of their child in the peer group

(*Scheepstra, Nakken, & Pijl, 1999)

Parents and inclusion

Children develop attitudes by being exposed to, and adopting, the attitudes of their parents (Katz & Chamiel,1989).

Parents’ attitudes and behavior influence their children’s, which is then carried over into later life (Holden, 1995). This theory indicates that parents who do not support inclusive education might negatively influence the formation of their child’s attitudes and behavior.

Parental support and involvement, moreover, is regarded as being greatly important in

facilitating inclusive education (Palmer, Fuller, Arora, & Nelson, 2001).

For effective implementation of inclusion both groups of parents of children with and without disabilities to have positive and supportive attitude towards inclusive education.

Much as been highlighted in research regarding the benefits and roles of teachers in inclusive settings; however, a comprehensive empirical review of parents’ attitudes towards inclusive education is still emerging.

This review study was an attempt in this direction.

To delve into:

Attitudes parents towards inclusive education and if attitudes of parents of children with and without disabilities differ

Related variables that might have influenced their attitude towards inclusion

Purpose of the study

A comprehensive search was performed using ‘EBSCOhost Complete’ to search for relevant articles which included-ERIC, M EDLINE, PsycARTICLES and SocINDEX.

Following key terms were used with parental attitude: ‘inclusive education’, ‘mainstreaming’, ‘inclusion’, ‘special needs students’, ‘special educational needs’, ‘impairment’, ‘disorders’, ‘handicapped’, ‘disabled’, and ‘disabilities’.

Method

Contained empirical data Implemented standardized measurement to examine

parents’ attitudes Articles published between 1999 and 2010 were

selected Participants of the study were parents of children with

and without special needs

Selection of studies

Initial search resulted in 350 articles After going through the articles, 308 didn’t meet the

criteria either: they were not empirical or didn’t focus on parental attitude and included other caregivers or didn’t use standardized instruments

Second phase included 23 articles Final data consisted 11 articles

Outcome of the search process

Attitude of parents towards inclusion was sub-grouped as:

a) Attitude of parents of children with disabilities

b) Attitude of parents of typically developed children

c) comparing attitudes of parents of children with and without disabilities

Discussion

The overall picture of parents’ attitudes towards inclusive education is positive

Of the eleven selected studies, five revealed neutral attitudes of parents towards inclusive education, while the other six reported positive parental attitudes

Parents of children with disabilities did not show clear positive attitudes especially when it came down to their child

Interestingly, parents of typically developing children on the other hand held more positive attitudes towards inclusive education.

None of the studies showed negative outcomes Studies comparing both groups of parents showed that

all parents held positive attitudes towards inclusive education.

Parents also indicated that inclusive education has risks for both groups of children

Age Gender Socio-economic status Educational level Awareness and experience with inclusion Nature of disability

Variables related to Parental attitude

With regard to parent characteristics: neither age nor gender seemed consistently related to attitude

Balboni and Padrabissi (2000) showed that younger parents do not hold different attitudes than older ones.

Likewise, Kalyva et al. (2007), who also established that the age of parents was not related to their attitudes.

The former study highlighted more positive attitude of father and the later study highlighted more positive attitude of mothers.

Parents with a higher SES, higher education level and more experience of inclusion hold more positive attitudes compared to parents with a low SES, lower education level and less experience with inclusion

Results of studies of Balboni and Padrabissi (2000) and Stoiber et al. (1998) indicated that parents with higher income had more positive attitude towards inclusion

Several studies such as Leyser and Kirk (2004) and Tafa and Manolitsis (2003) concluded that the education level of parents is related to their attitudes.

Research showed that both groups of parents - with and without a child with disabilities - became more positive when they had more experience with inclusive education (Padrabissi,2000; Manolitsis, 2003; Palmer et al.,1998)

It was highlighted that nature and severity of the disability influenced parental attitude towards (Leyser and Kirk, 2004; Rafferty et al.,2001; Manolitsis, 2003)

With regard to the child’s type of disability, the results showed that parents are the least positive about the inclusion of children with behavioral problems and severe cognitive disabilities

Attitude of a general educator Adequate training of special educators Social impact on their child Insufficient teaching time and individual attention Lack appropriate support and resources Active learning and growth

Concerns-parents of children with exceptionalities

Developing inappropriate behavior Lowering standards Disruptive teaching

Concerns-parents of typically developing children