Attitudes Towards Educational Inclusion Among Students of Pedagogical Universities

On the regular IL SIR seminar that took place on the 25^th of February, Maria Kozlova, Tatiana Ryabichenko, and Ekaterina Matveeva made a report on the topic of 'Attitudes Towards Educational Inclusion Among Students of Pedagogical Universities: Results of Qualitative Research.'

Qualitative stage of research included 13 interviews with students of pedagogical specializations. The interviews were aimed to reveal variating points of view on key topics of the research: inclusive education and corrective teaching, digital competence, distant learning among children with SEN, and others.

The research has shown that the acceptance of educational inclusion was only demonstrated by future specialists of the areas which by definition include individual work with a child or working in small groups. Future teachers of general profile are not ready to and mostly not interested in getting additional qualifications in educational inclusion. They tend to define it as the area of “special” competence of “special” colleagues, thereby misinterpreting both the educational inclusion and students interested in its development.

Above all, the speakers presented a methodological outline of quantitative stage of research. During the discussion that followed, the participants noted important ideas for future reflection on the subject.