Teachers’ attitudes, concerns, and competences regarding the inclusion of students with special educational needs in mainstream primary schools in Slovenia

Prosen, Simona (author), Smrtnik Vitulić, Helena (author)

The article presents the attitudes, concerns, and perceived competencies of Slovenian teachers regarding the inclusion of students with special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream primary schools. The 126 participating teachers self-assessed these topics using a questionnaire specifically designed for the study. The findings indicate that teachers are generally supportive of inclusive practices. However, their attitudes vary considerably depending on the type of SEN: teachers are generally in favour of the inclusion of students with long-term illness, physical disabilities, autistic spectrum disorders, emotional and behavioral difficulties, and specific learning difficulties, but have significant reservations about the inclusion of students with blindness and visual impairment, deafness and hearing loss, speech and language disabilities, and intellectual disabilities. These attitudes are consistent regardless of the teacher’s length of professional experience. Teachers described several concerns regarding inclusion and reported different levels of competency for teaching students with different types of SEN. Finally, the results of the study show a clear connection between teachers’ perceived higher competence and their more positive attitudes towards inclusion. The study highlights critical gaps in inclusion implementation in Slovenia and provides further suggestions for teacher training and professional development, particularly in relation to students with SEN.

• Language: English
• Keywords: special educational needs, inclusion, teacher, attitude, mainstream schools
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: PEF - Faculty of Education
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: Str. 79-91
• Numbering: Vol. 40, no. 2
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-177780
• UDC: 376
• ISSN on article: 1917-7844
• DOI: 10.52291/ijse.2025.40.23
• COBISS.SI-ID: 263662595
• Publication date in RUL: 07.01.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: International journal of special education
• Publisher: Sped
• ISSN: 1917-7844
• COBISS.SI-ID: 520608537

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: redno izobraževanje, odnos učiteljev, skrbi, kompetence, osnovnošolsko izobraževanje, osebe s posebnimi potrebami