Erika Marie Pace

In-service teachers’ attitudes, concerns, efficacy and intentions to teach in inclusive classrooms: an international comparison of Australian and Italian teachers

Abstract The paper examined whether in-service teachers from Australia to Italy differ in terms of their attitudes, concerns, efficacy beliefs and intentions to include learners with disabilities in their classrooms. An attempt was also made to determine predictors of the participants’ intentions to include learners with disabilities in their classrooms. Participants for the study consisted of 153 Australian and 156 Italian in-service teachers. Results revealed that Italian teachers had significantly more positive attitudes, lower degree of concerns and higher level of intentions to implement inclusion in their classrooms. In both countries, attitudes and efficacy emerged as significant predictors of participants’ intentions to include learners with disabilities in regular classrooms. Reasons that could explain differences in the teachers’ beliefs from the two countries are explained using historical-cultural and legal frameworks prevalent in Australia and Italy. Implications of the findings for policy-makers, university teachers and researchers are presented that may have relevance in guiding the implementation of inclusive education in Australia, Italy and beyond.

Inclusion and teacher education for special needs in Italy and Hungary

The present work stemmed from the collaboration between the University of Salerno (Italy) and the University of West Hungary and is part of a project aiming at implementing a unified educational training system whose core elements are initial teacher training, the organization of apprenticeship phases, and continuous professional development. Despite the clear and substantial differences between the school systems of the two countries, the aim that seems to unite the Italian and the Hungarian educational policies is the realization of truly inclusive school contexts within which teacher training takes on a leading role as teachers are the real guarantee that the process of inclusion in the educational and didactic field will be fully realized. With this aim, in both countries there is an ongoing debate about the need of a new teacher professionalism able to face the heterogeneity of today’s school contexts