ABSTRACT

The early childhood workforce needs to be prepared to support children with disabilities within the inclusive preschool classroom. Early childhood personnel standards and requirements include competencies for supporting children with disabilities and their families. Teacher preparation programs should ensure that preservice teachers engage in coursework and placements that prepare them to teach in inclusive preschool classrooms. Existing qualitative studies exploring the inclusive preschool preparation experiences of preservice teachers provide insights into these experiences. Yet, a synthesis of these findings does not exist. Hence, a qualitative metasynthesis was conducted to provide insight to the field of early childhood teacher preparation in regards to preschool inclusion. Qualitative findings from 11 peer-reviewed studies were analyzed, synthesized, and interpreted to understand the experiences of preservice teachers and highlight what they learned from these experiences and the resulting impact on their dispositions and confidence in regard to inclusive preschool. Suggestions for early childhood preservice preparation programs and future research are discussed.

摘要

幼儿劳动力需要准备好在包容性的学前教室中支持残疾儿童。幼儿人员标准和要求包括支持残疾儿童及其家庭的能力。教师准备计划应确保职前教师参与课程作业和实习，为他们在包容性学前班教学做好准备。探索职前教师包容性学前准备经验的现有定性研究提供了对这些经验的见解。然而，这些发现的综合并不存在。因此，进行了定性综合，以提供有关学前包容性的幼儿教师准备领域的见解。分析了 11 项同行评审研究的定性结果，综合和解释，以了解职前教师的经验，并强调他们从这些经验中学到的东西以及由此产生的对他们对包容性学前教育的态度和信心的影响。讨论了对幼儿服务前准备计划和未来研究的建议。