Abstract
Inclusive education is a major challenge for educational systems. In order to better understand the background to teachers’ attitudes toward inclusive education and given that personal values underlie and support attitudes, this research seeks to investigate the link between these two constructs. We tested this relationship in two pre-registered studies in which 326 (Study 1) and 527 teachers (Study 2) completed scales on attitudes, values (Studies 1 and 2), and social desirability (Study 2). Our statistical analyses partially support our hypotheses. Thus, self-transcendence and openness to change were positively related to teachers’ attitudes toward inclusive education (Studies 1 and 2), while results regarding self-enhancement were mixed (i.e., related in Study 1 but not in Study 2). Conservation values were not related to teachers’ attitudes toward inclusive education. Although these results require further development, notably regarding causality, they provide a new framework for understanding teachers’ attitudes and open up new perspectives for training teacher in order to enhance the implementation of inclusive school policies.
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(data transparency): Data and material are available here: https://osf.io/frqve/?view_only=1de2d0cdd493418fab7ed3a26b014164
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Notes
It should be noted that the model actually defined ten lower-order values (namely autonomy, stimulation, hedonism, achievement, power, security, conformity, tradition, benevolence and universalism). However, since examining the influence of each of these lower-order values is beyond the scope of this paper, they will not be extensively presented here (for a thorough review, see Schwartz et al., 2012).
It should be noted that in accordance with new research practices, the studies presented here were pre-registered (van 't Veer & Giner-Sorollac, 2016) and sample size calculations were performed a priori in order to enhance the robustness and reproducibility of the results. Data and material are available here: https://osf.io/frqve/?view_only=1de2d0cdd493418fab7ed3a26b014164.
Although the main analysis was conducted on the mean scale score, an exploratory analysis examined whether the hypothesized links between values and attitudes can be found for each dimension separately (see supplementary material).
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This study was partly funded by the « Caisse Nationale de Solidarité pour l’Autonomie (CNSA)» (Grant no. IReSP-17-AUT4-08).
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Anne-Laure Perrin, Mickaël Jury and Caroline Desombre. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Anne-Laure Perrin and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Perrin, AL., Jury, M. & Desombre, C. Are teachers’ personal values related to their attitudes toward inclusive education? A correlational study. Soc Psychol Educ 24, 1085–1104 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-021-09646-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-021-09646-7