Collaboration between General and Special Education Teachers in Inclusive Classrooms: A Review of the Literature

Teaching in inclusive classrooms is challenging for teachers, therefore, collaboration is considered one of the main elements for inclusive education to be effective for all students. This paper aims to conduct a literature review of how general and special education teachers implement collaborative practices to meet all students' needs in mainstream schools. Peer-reviewed academic papers and dissertations on collaborative practices were reviewed. The literature review offers an analysis of studies that address how teachers collaborate in the context of inclusive classrooms. The resultant discussion indicates that teachers recognize the value of collaboration but they highlight insufficient and limited collaborative behavior. The review also shows that there is a difference between studies regarding the implementation of collaborative practices and this can be interpreted by the different school cultures in each research. Nevertheless, this paper illustrates a variety of obstacles, which hinder the teachers' partnership and pinpoint the need for specific factors as training, positive attitudes, communication, and more time for the collaboration between teachers to be successful. Finally, this review demonstrates the need for additional research to fill the remaining gaps concerning the development of methods to overcome constraints impeding successful collaboration. Keywords: inclusive education, collaboration, general – special education teachers, obstacles. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/12-6-04 Publication date: February 28th 202

Collaboration between In-Service School Teachers and Families in the Context of Inclusive Education: A Review of the Recent Literature

Collaboration between teachers and parents of children with and without disabilities is one of the key essential elements to ensure effective inclusive education. The purpose of this literature review paper is to examine international empirical studies published in peer-reviewed journals and Greek dissertations from 2015-2020. It focuses on collaboration practices between in-service educators and parents in the context of inclusive education in primary and secondary schools. Particularly, the article pinpoints the way teachers and parents collaborate, the factors that enhance successful collaboration, and finally the obstacles that hinder effective cooperation. The analyses showed various levels of parental involvement depending on the type of school studied. More specifically, in exemplary schools, teachers and parents seem to build effective collaborative relationships as they apply holistic collaborative and communicative practices. In the other schools studied, communication is usually limited to mandatory meetings, the main subject of which is the behavior of students. Moreover, the review illustrates a variety of barriers that hinder teacher-parent partnerships with the predominant obstacle being lack of time. Subsequently, it highlights the need for specific factors that strengthen successful collaboration between parents and teachers. Finally, this review indicates the need for additional research to explore specific strategies that educators and families could promote to achieve effective collaboration. Keywords: Inclusive education, collaboration, teacher-family, obstacles. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/12-6-05 Publication date: February 28th 2021

Teachers’ Attitudes towards Inclusive Education at Greek Secondary Education Schools

[EN] Advocates of inclusive education believe in the right of all learners to education and the many benefits it delivers. Teachers’ attitudes and beliefs toward inclusive education are instantly reflected in their classroom activities and practices. This research will concentrate on special and general education teachers in Greek secondary schools. It will investigate their attitudes toward inclusive education and how these attitudes alter as a consequence of variables such as age, gender, teaching experience, and inclusive education training. Quantitative, main, and correlational research was obtained between groups using a non-experimental technique. The sample was taken from 307 educators, who were almost equally divided between general and special education. The SACIE-R questionnaire was used to assess teachers’ attitudes toward inclusive education. The outcomes of the research demonstrated that attitudes toward inclusive education were impacted by the kind of special education received, as well as age and general education teaching experience. Furthermore, positive attitudes were impacted by gender, but negative sentiments and concerns were influenced by general education and special education teaching experience. Finally, the study revealed low levels of negative sentiments, medium levels of concerns, and high levels of favourable attitudes toward inclusive education