Breaking Barriers: The Influence of Teacher Characteristics on Inclusive Education

Abstract

The effectiveness of inclusive education depends on the specific characteristics of the implementation context. Therefore, studying the role of teachers' characteristics on inclusion remains a significant concern worldwide. This research investigated the difference between the attitudes of secondary school teachers in Bangladesh regarding including students with intellectual disabilities based on their characteristics. Following a quantitative approach, an adapted survey questionnaire was used. The study purposively determined the participation of 55 general and special education teachers from 8 schools. Positive attitudes toward inclusion are more prevalent among female teachers, special education teachers, those who have previously completed a course in special education, and those who have had fewer students with intellectual disabilities in their classrooms, according to the findings. No statistically significant difference was observed in the teachers' attitudes according to their level of teaching experience and the subject matter they taught. Explanations of the findings are provided, along with recommendations.

Received: 29 December 2024 | Revised: 21 May 2025 | Accepted: 4 September 2025

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support this work are available upon reasonable request to the corresponding author.

Author Contribution Statement

Ashike Md. Nurudden: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Project administration. Happy Kumar Das: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – review & editing, Supervision, Project administration. Monjurul Islam: Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing. Md. Delowar Hossain: Validation, Writing – review & editing.