Teachers’ attitudes to inclusion regarding challenging behaviour

ABSTRACT

Inclusion regarding challenging behaviour is one of the most demanding challenges for teachers. How schools succeed with inclusion regarding challenging behaviour can therefore be a good indicator of how they succeed in developing an inclusive practice in general. This paper addresses this with a rapid review of how mainstream teachers attribute challenging behaviour and what impact these attributions have on inclusion in schools. To identify the relevant literature, extensive database searches based on specific inclusion criteria were made in June 2020. This combined search generated 341 articles. 328 articles were rejected because they did not meet the inclusion criteria. An inductive thematic analysis was then conducted for the remaining 13 articles, which revealed the following categories: (1) ‘lack of qualities and skills to be included’, (2) ‘mission impossible’, (3) ‘teachers as lifelong learners’, (4) ‘an inclusive ethos’ and (5) ‘leading towards inclusion’. The main finding was that teachers like students, can be seen as lifelong learners. The findings also indicated that ‘placement’ still seems to be the foundational concept in teachers’ understanding of inclusion. We therefore ask whether other dimensions should replace that conceptual hub to accelerate the revision of thinking of inclusive practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Rapid review
• inclusion
• challenging behaviour
• placement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.