General Education and Special Education Preservice Teachers' Attitudes Toward Inclusion

Richard A. Shade is a projessor of special education at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Roger Stewart is a professor at Boise State University in Boise, Idaho. he philosophy and practice of incluT sion of students with disabilities into general education classrooms have been reinforced for the last 30 years by litigation (Ross, DeYoung, & Cohen, 1971; Singletary, Collings, & Dennis, I978), by legislation (e.g., the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 and its amendments); the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1990, and by the advocacy movement (Bilken, 1974; 1976). Although federal law does not mandate full inclusion, its practice is influenced by (a) state commissioners of education, who interpret trends, (b) school district administrators who apply state regulations, and (c) general and special education teachers who implement inclusion programs at the local level on a daily basis. Each year more schools adopt inclusion models in which students with disabilities receive special education services in general education classrooms (McLeskey, Henry, & Hodges, 1999). Will (1986) brought inclusion to the forefront when the Regular Education Initiative (REI) was first presented. RE1 placed most students with mild disabilities in general classrooms to be taught by general educators. The special educator changed from primary educator to consultant teacher. One of the major problems with this initiative was its lack of a clear definition (Jenkins, et. al., 1990). “It [REI] is now part of our jargon with little consideration of its meaning and the assumptions it embraces” (Pugach & Johnson, 1988, p. 6). Gersten and Woodward (1990), Glatthorn (1990) and other researchers believe the intent is to place the responsibility for educating all students on the general classroom teacher. To do that requires major changes in teachers’ attitudes and expectations. However, all parties are not necessarily accepting the trend enthusiastically. Loucks-Horsley and Roody (1990) state, “Teachers may feel challenged, hopeful, and desirous of what can be accomplished, but they may also feel frustration, burden, fear, lack of support, and inadequacies about their ability to teach children with different kinds of problems” (p. 54). Coates (1989) reported that general education teachers disagreed with the fundamental tenets of REI. The teachers that Coates studied