A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE TEACHERS' EXPERIENCES AND
ATTITUDES TOWARDS DISABLED STUDENTS IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS
YANG ZOU
INSTRUCTOR: SARAH PANNONE
CLASS: EDUC 917-B01
LIBERTY UNIVERSITY
2ND JULY 2020
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Overview
The concept of inclusive education has diversified over time. The primary intent of the study is
to narrowly examine the teacher's experiences and attitudes by promoting student interaction and
embrace diversity. Also, teachers' experiences depend on the proper training they get, the level of
flexibility, and availability of resources that can be utilized in teaching students with new diverse
needs and learning styles. It is imperative to create a positive learning climate for inclusive
students to ensure diversity and integration of the curriculum. Teachers have to establish certain
practices that are more instructional for secondary school level about students with special needs.
The fact is that there are teachers with varied attitudes towards children with disabilities; thus, it
influences interactions and their perceptions in public secondary schools. The past experiences of
teachers have an impact on the attitudes towards inclusive students. There are times that teacher-
student communication is essential to the psychological aspect of disabled students. There are
teachers' who have perceived attitudes that are sympathetic or discriminatory. Disability in
inclusive education should be accepted as there are impacts of positive teachers' views on special
needs students'. One merit is that excellent performance, and improved psychological support is
evident as teachers' positivity influences behavioural change among other students towards
disabled children (Kandhari & Chowdhry, 2016). The target audience, as the teachers in public
secondary schools, have to embrace inclusion to promote diversity and acceptance of students
with special needs. Throughphenomenological research, design tends to explore how teachers in
an inclusive education setting experience do and interact with special needs students. The section
has a brief historical background of inclusion education, the concepts, and how it is related to
students with disabilities. Secondly, the content of the chapter will explain the social and
theoretical aspects, the problem statement, purpose statement, and significance of the study.
Thirdly, the elaboration of research questions which would assist in the descriptive analysis of
the research.
Historically, inclusion education has changed the perception of society in the past.
In the early 1990s, inclusion education began with separate classes, which was the norm.
Disabled students got access to learning but on a segregated level based on their disabilities.
Comparing the teacher's attitudes during the 1990s and the current education system varies on a
large margin. The progress of inclusive education in the past was quite different, as it was treated
as a special case related to the rights of disabled students. The lack of a flexible curriculum and
teaching practices decades ago led to discriminatory attitudes of society and teachers in
particular. Inclusion education is a model that accepts and allows different children with special
needs or disabilities to join a comprehensive education system. Recent researches regarding
inclusion differ from historical context as authors Armstrong et al., 2016 contend that an
