PERCEPTION OF STUDENTS WITH SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS FROM THEIR CLASSMATES IN MAINSTREAM CLASS

Abstract

Inclusive education is a process that is interesting for both studying and observing as it follows the logic and policy for the integration of people with different abilities. A lot of studies focus on examining this process in a mainstream educational setting. The growing numbers of schoolchildren with special educational needs creates the necessary prerequisites for studying different attitudes, interrelations among schoolchildren in a class as well as the role of the mainstream teacher in the process. The current study addresses some of these issues. An attempt is made to describe inclusive education as a multi-faceted process which brings together the children and schoolchildren with special educational needs and their teachers, classmates, peers from the informal community they are part of, parents. The interrelations which evolve among them in the process of learning at a mainstream school are of particular interest. The study attempts at showing the attitudes of mainstream schoolchildren to their classmates with special educational needs, the degree in which they are ready to build any relationship with them as well as the attitudes of the mainstream teachers to the schoolchildren with special needs and to inclusive education as well.