Re-Designing Pre-Service Teacher Education Courses: An Inclusive Curriculum in New Times.

N

17

Attitude Measures; Attitudes toward Disabilities; Disabilities; Disability Discrimination; Elementary Secondary Education; Foreign Countries; Higher Education; Inclusive Schools; Mainstreaming; Preservice Teacher Education; Preservice Teachers; Rating Scales; Social Attitudes; Social Bias; Teacher Attitudes

Australia; South Africa

This paper outlines a collaborative research project between six teacher training universities in Australia and South Africa which investigated preservice teachers' acceptance of and social interactions with people with a disability. Preservice teachers (n=2,850) were asked to complete a 20-item Interactions with Disabled Person Scale and twelve accompanying items about a range of demographic characteristics. Results found preservice teachers who had already completed a previous postgraduate degree in another field of study exhibited slightly higher levels of discomfort than did those who had not undertaken any other study since leaving school. Conversely, those who had taken an elective unit on special education as part of the preservice course indicated less discomfort than those who had not done so. Only 124 of the preservice teachers had undertaken any compulsory units on children with special needs; however, the levels of discomfort for those who had completed a compulsory unit were actually greater than the levels indicated by preservice teachers who had not undertaken any compulsory units. The need to undertake extreme caution in the development of compulsory units to ensure that the outcome is not an increase in discomfort on interactions with people with disabilities is discussed. (Contains 24 references.) (CR)

1999

ED425583