Faculty acceptance of special education teachers and successful mainstreaming programs: Implications for staff development

Statement of problem. Mainstreaming requires communication and collaboration between regular classroom teachers and special education teachers. In communicating, these teachers bring preconceived perceptions/attitudes of one another with them. Attitudes are emotionally charged ideas that lend predictability to our personalities and help us adjust to our environment. The understanding of perceptions is a first step in helping groups to accept one another. What is the relationship between mainstreaming and the acceptance of special teachers by other faculty members? There is a dearth of research in the area of attitudes/acceptance of special teachers by other teachers. This exploratory study closely examines this first step in the mainstreaming process. Methodology. Two sets of surveys were developed which assessed the relationship between successful mainstreaming and faculty acceptance of special education teachers. Twenty-three teachers from four elementary schools completed these surveys. Correlational research methods were used to compare variables between the surveys. Findings. It was found that more positive social acceptance/relationships between regular teachers and special teachers were associated with: (1) More positive attitudes toward special children. (2) More positive feelings on the part of regular teachers about the method in which they were selected for mainstreaming. (3) Better preparation of regular teachers for mainstreaming. (4) Higher levels of communication between these two groups of teachers. (5) More positive attitudes toward special education. Regular teachers reported that although they felt positively about the way they were selected for mainstreaming, they had negative attitudes toward their special students. High visibility of special teachers was associated with more success for mainstreamed students, more social acceptance, and more openness toward special children. Regular teachers with more special education credits were more positive about mainstreaming. However, regular classroom teachers with regular education credits earned beyond their master\u27s degree had more negative attitudes toward special children. Conclusions. The findings of this study raise some significant issues including negative attitudes toward special children, poor communication and social acceptance between special teachers and regular teachers, lack of preparation, and a feeling of uncomfortableness in teaching special children. A staff development project addressing these issues is presented