I agree that NU may convert the Contribution to any medium or format for preservation purposes without changing the content. I certify that the submission is my original work and that I have the right to grant the rights under this license. I also certify that my submission does not, to the best of my knowledge, infringe anyone's copyright.
The phenomenon of inclusive education was seen through the lens of Lev Vygotsky's (1980) social constructivist theory, which together with UNESCO's guidelines on inclusion (2009) formed the basis of this study's conceptual framework. This study can inform policies regarding the implementation of inclusion by state institutions and school administrations and fills a gap in inclusive education in Kazakhstan.
Introduction
The Salamanca Declaration led to the implementation of inclusion in schools around the world (UNESCO, 1994), resulting in the implementation of inclusive schools internationally. The central phenomenon of this study is teachers' attitudes and beliefs towards inclusive practices as the most important factor in the process of successful implementation of inclusion policies in Kazakhstan. A conceptual framework has been developed to better monitor the implementation process in the context of the school.
Considering the above issues, the research tries to analyze the teachers' pedagogy and teaching methods to elicit their attitudes towards the inclusion policy and the way it is implemented in the school. This thesis presents an overview of the concept of inclusion in the context of international research and inquiry in the context of Kazakhstan.
Literature review
More attention should be paid to the difference in the semantic meaning of the terms "attitude" and "readiness" to teach in inclusive settings. For example, according to the interpretation of the term "children with special needs", the authors of Conceptual approaches to the development of inclusive education in the Republic of Kazakhstan (2015) specify that this term is different from the one used by international agencies when referring to it. According to a review of key challenges for policymakers as presented at the 48th International Conference on Education (ICE), changing attitudes was identified as a major step required for sustainable improvement (as cited in UNESCO, 2009).
According to the research results, women have a more positive attitude or are naturally more tolerant towards the issue of inclusion. It will be interesting to see what is now more consistent in the context of Kazakhstan in the process of integrating the concept of inclusion into the mainstream of schools.
Methodology
It is one of the 30 schools in the country that are considered to provide inclusive education. Part of the interview one questions were about their general attitudes, definitions of inclusion and epistemology. However, most of the informal conversations were not recorded, but the notes and comments were taken.
In some parts of the interview, some prompts were used to keep the respondents on track. The second part of the interview was about their experience in classes in an inclusive school. Another function of the observations was to give the research a more targeted focus to clarify the subject.
The notes I took were in the form of recounting the actions and words I observed in class. This approach provides more reliability in the analysis of attitudes that can therefore be better described. More information was obtained during informal observations in the school cafeteria or in the meeting rooms and corridors of the elementary school.
The research excluded all photographs of children, as they were not the subject of the research. The main focus was on the phenomenon of inclusion in and out of the classroom, so the main data were field notes and observations. Thus, data collection methods were carefully planned and selected to avoid potential limitations of research methodology, such as researcher bias and subjectivity.
Findings
It is clear that teachers are aware of the main concept of inclusion as defined globally. Most teachers are willing to accept children as they are and help them do better in class. Most of the planned tasks are either unfinished or only partially completed due to lack of time.
Further in the second interview, she explained that she prefers more active teaching methods despite the disadvantages of producing a noisy and messy classroom. You spend half the day with them, and if you are a real teacher, you know what to teach everyone in the class. They consider these changes not to correspond to the level of the students in their school and prefer to teach in the more familiar and comfortable traditional way they used before the introduction of the new curriculum.
Part of the curriculum is assessment, which is described and incorporated into lesson plans. In other words, teachers prefer to have another person in the classroom to deal with the student with special needs while the teacher teaches the other children. In response to the question about challenges, teachers communicated that one of the challenges of inclusiveness and its success.
As the school principal recalls, one of the parents claimed "my son is not stupid; teachers just can't find a way. This is another macro-level problem that was identified as an obstacle to successful policy implementation. Some of the teachers were completely unsupported in the classroom and later went so far as to say that they had very little hope for the future of children with additional educational needs.
Discussion
However, there was no adaptation or modification of the lessons to meet their individual needs. In general, most of the professionals working in the school agree that, by law, the children identified as having special educational needs should have a chance to receive the attention of their teachers and have the right to receive a youth education. The results of the class observations helped to complete the understanding of what the school community defines as an inclusive school.
It was noted that only some of the teachers were motivated to communicate informally with the students with additional needs and their parents, or to provide any extra support to help the student succeed. Another significant identifier of the teachers' understanding and attitude towards inclusion is the language they use to address the children during and after the lessons. As one of the respondents said 'I don't believe in their future as they are disabled', it is clear that teachers are used to labeling children mainly according to their disabilities and special needs.
These examples from the current study highlight the importance of the teacher in any educational setting. The study teachers displayed documents available to them to support individual students, such as Individualized Education Plans (IEPs), and students. The literature suggests that keeping records of student progress is an effective strategy for becoming an effective teacher (Dyson & Kaplan, 2005).
In class, most of the teachers completely fail to follow their lesson plans in terms of time, activities and materials used. Contrary to what most of the studies report (Avramidis, Bayliss, & Burden, 2000; Avramidis & Norwich, 2002; Rutar, 2012), teachers do not need to be specially trained to teach in inclusive classes where there are children with severe disabilities is not. . The discussion of the findings shows that teachers are unaware of the difference between integration and inclusion.
Conclusions and Recommendations
Additionally, choir response and individual performances before the board are believed to cause more stress for the students in the classroom. There are teachers who try to encourage all children in the class to participate, but most of the lessons observed were traditional. After analyzing the findings of this study, some recommendations have been developed to contribute to the development of inclusive education in Kazakhstan.
Last but not least, the continuous participation of the administration in the cooperation process will help to develop mutual trust between all stakeholders of inclusive education. The biggest limitation of the study is the chosen research design, as it is based on attitudes and beliefs that are difficult to measure despite all attempts to be as objective as possible. After finishing my thesis and being completely immersed in the collected information, I realized that the field of inclusive education is very relevant today.
The attitude of student teachers towards the inclusion of children with special educational needs in regular school. Attitudes and readiness of teachers towards inclusive educational practices in one secondary school in Kazakhstan: An ethnographic study. DESCRIPTION: We invite you to participate in a research study on the investigation of teachers' attitudes towards inclusive educational practices and the process of their implementation in schools in the Almaty region.
Your name in the data will be coded and will not be associated with any part of my written research report. Project title: Teachers' Attitudes and Willingness Towards Inclusive Education Practices in One Secondary School in Kazakhstan: An Ethnographic Study. Thank you for taking the time to participate in the interview, which is part of my thesis master's program.
The following questions will help me learn more about your attitude towards inclusive education in Kazakhstan and the process of its implementation in your school. Positioning in the class - teacher in the center, in front of children, raw, inclusive children are in the.
