Teacher in an Inclusive Classroom: Relationship between Attitudes towards Inclusive Education and Job Satisfaction

Abstract

Inclusive education as education, as the right to co-educate children with special educational needs in the regular classroom, is a global framework for the transformation of general education systems. At the same time, critical studies show that the degree of real inclusion of schools is increasing slowly. The objectives of this study were factors that determine the teacher’s attitude to inclusive education.The article presents an analysis of teacher’s job satisfaction and its relationship with attitudes towards inclusive education.  The empirical base of the study was data obtained from a survey of 119 school teachers in the city of Tyumen. The study of attitudes towards inclusive education and satisfaction with work of teachers was carried out using the author’s questionnaire. With the help of factor analysis, three factors of the teachers’ attitude to inclusive education were identified: teachers see inclusion as a pedagogical resource (24.8% of the total variance); problems (23.8%); risks (14.1%). Cluster analysis made it possible to identify homogeneous groups of teachers who have their own dominants in relation to inclusion: romantics, realists and critics.  A four-factor structure of job satisfaction was also found: safety and security, organization of the work process, satisfaction with remuneration, involvement in work. It has been established that teachers rate the factor “safety and security” in their work the lowest. Cluster analysis made it possible to identify three groups of teachers: satisfied with their work; satisfied with remuneration for work; not satisfied with work. The most vulnerable are teachers who fall into the third cluster group: due to the low assessment of satisfaction with all factors, they will be inclined to assess inclusion from the standpoint of problems and barriers.  Correlation analysis established direct statistically significant relationships between teachers’ assessment of inclusion as a pedagogical resource and job satisfaction; the strongest relationship can be traced in the assessment with the indicator “satisfaction with the organization of the work process”.