Attitudes represent an individual’s subjective attitude towards phenomena that they believe to be important and that affect their actions and, in turn, people’s actions affect the world around us. There are no biological predispositions for the formation of attitudes; these are rather the result of the social construction of people, i.e. the individual’s continual formation of notions about the world. We accept and form attitudes on the basis of knowledge, experience and societal norms. They are formed as complex components of the human psyche and exhibit different levels of strength with regard to different phenomena. They are affected by various external factors, which can lead to a shift in attitudes.
Discussions in education have long been shaped by the attitudes of professional staff, students and parents regarding inclusive education. Attitudes are an important factor in the process of inclusive education, as they affect the actions of professional staff, parents and students and thus also affect the shaping of a modern inclusive school and society.
Inclusion in education represents the idea of one school for all children, whereby changes in culture are also important. An inclusive school requires respect for different needs, cohabitation without exclusion in the sense of equality, justice, democracy and solidarity.
This Master’s Thesis compares the attitudes held by teachers on inclusive education of special needs children. The study included two groups of primary schools, i.e. with regard to the continuum of educational programmes that they offer. The first group are primary schools that implement only programmes with an equivalent educational standard, while the second group comprised primary schools that offer not only programmes with an equivalent educational standard but also the Adapted educational programme with a lower educational standard and the Special educational programme.
The theoretical part utilises international and national literature to present the concept of attitudes related to inclusive education. The paths to the formation of attitudes and conditions for changing them are presented. The results of individual studies on teachers’ attitudes on inclusive education are summarised.
The empirical part analyses research data that were obtained from questionnaires filled out by teachers. The results have shown that teachers’ attitudes in both groups of primary schools do not differ substantially, which means that the implementation of different continua of programmes in primary schools does not result in substantially different attitudes of teachers on inclusive education.
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