The Impact of Teacher Attributes on Intentions to Practice Inclusive Education in Secondary Schools in Ghana

ABSTRACT

Advocacy for inclusive education has been connected with the United Nations’ global poverty alleviation guidelines, the Sustainable Development Goals, which appeal to countries to extend universal access to education, from primary to secondary schooling. In the Ghanaian context, the implementation of inclusive education in secondary schools has been under-explored. In this study, we adopted Ajzen’s theory of planned behaviour as a framework to explore demographic variables which could impact on teachers’ intentions to practise inclusive education in secondary schools. We recruited 457 teachers from five districts in one region in Ghana. T-test and analysis of variance were used to ascertain the association between demographic variables and intentions. We found no significant differences between participants based on school resourcing or location. However, participants in private schools had attitudes that were more positive, they felt they received more support, had higher self-efficacy, and were more willing to include children with disabilities in their classrooms than teachers in public schools. Also, we found a difference between participants on units of study taken in inclusive education during pre-service training and their level of confidence to practise inclusive education. The need for teacher educators to embed more inclusive teaching practices in all courses at teacher training institutions is discussed, as well as other study implications.

KEYWORDS:

• Ghana
• inclusive education
• secondary schools
• teachers
• theory of planned behaviour

Acknowledgments

This article was language-edited by a freelance language editor, Anthony Sparg. He has edited at least 45 academic journal articles in the field of education. He has an MA cum laude in African Languages (isiXhosa), an MA cum laude in Linguistics and a Higher Diploma in Education.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.