Israeli high school teachers’ perceptions and attitudes towards a pedagogy of inclusion

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate attitudes of teachers towards a pedagogy of inclusion in their classroom, focusing on differences between teachers in schools with lower socioeconomic status (SES) populations and those in schools with more affluent students, and between homeroom as opposed to subject teachers. Our study population consisted of 214 teachers from Jewish secondary schools (7th through 12th grade) in Israel's state school system. The schools surveyed were classified by socioeconomic level (high, intermediate, or low). The study demonstrates that teachers in low-SES schools report more inclusive attitudes and behaviour than do teachers in high-SES schools. Another key finding was that homeroom teachers self-report greater inclusiveness than do subject teachers. This finding is very important for the Israeli high school system, since subject teachers constitute roughly 70% of its teaching personnel, whereas students engage with homeroom teachers, on average, no more than 10% of their time in school. In the context of exclusive practices, we found a lack of differentiation between various types of behavioural problems: teachers responded to aggressive or disruptive behaviour in the same manner as they would handle disengagement, truancy, or learning avoidance. Finally, with regard to the form of punishment imposed by schools, a common response encountered in this study was the withholding of remedial instruction in response to problematic behaviour.

Keywords:

• inclusive education
• social exclusion
• socioeconomic status
• academic achievement
• homeroom teachers
• subject teachers

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge with thanks the small research grant from the Oranim Research Authority that made the field-work possible. In addition, the authors wish to thank Snait Ayalon for assistance in the statistical analysis of the survey data, Mira Kadosh for coding the survey data, and Karen Gold for translation and editing of the manuscript. We also wish to gratefully acknowledge the insightful comments of the anonymous reviewers.

Notes on Contributors

Michal Razer is a Senior Lecturer in the Graduate Faculty of Oranim Academic College of Education, where she heads the M.Ed. programme in Inclusive Education as well as the Shaveh Center for Equity and Social Inclusion. She has published extensively on inclusive education and in-service training in inclusion, in addition to developing and leading school intervention programmes to enhance inclusive practices in education.

David Mittelberg is an Associate Professor of Sociology in the Graduate Faculty of Oranim Academic College of Education, and a member of the administration of the Shaveh Center for Equity and Social Inclusion. He has published extensively on ethnicity, migration, gender equity, inclusive education, tourism, and kibbutz education, and chairs the steering committee of Oranim's International School.

Michael Motola is a Lecturer in the Graduate Faculty and the Faculty for Social Sciences and Humanities at Oranim Academic College of Education and heads the college's B.Ed. programme in Informal Education. His teaching and research interests include inclusive education, youth at risk, philosophical and psychological discourse in education, and contemplative education in teacher-training programmes.

Noa Bar-Gosen is a Graduate of the M.Ed. programme in Inclusive Education at Oranim Academic College of Education, where she is a Teaching Fellow. She is a doctoral student at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland, and teaches humanistic studies at Afikey Yarden Elementary School, Jordan Valley, Israel.

Notes

1. A Hebrew acronym for Measures of School Effectiveness and Growth. The MEITZAV standardised achievement tests are intended to examine to what extent elementary and junior high school students meet requirements based on the curriculum in four core subjects: science and technology, English, mother tongue (Hebrew/Arabic), and mathematics, at two grade levels (fifth and eighth). Tests are administered in mother tongue competency in the second grade as well.

2. The PISA is an international study conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which Israel joined in 2010. The study was launched in 2000, and takes place once every three years. Its goal is to examine to what extent 15-year-old students are ‘ready for adult life’, that is, they have acquired general thinking and comprehension skills and understanding in a way that allows them to cope well and effectively with their environment. The study tests literacy levels in three disciplines: reading, mathematics, and science. Each study cycle focuses on one of these three areas (though the two others are also measured). In the 2009 PISA study, the emphasis was on reading literacy.

3. Israel has different school systems for Arabic and Hebrew speakers. There are also separate school systems for religious and non-religious Jews. Non-religious schools belong to the Jewish state-school system.

4. These training programmes were conducted by facilitators with expertise in psychology, pedagogy, and organisational behaviour, who worked with school staff at all levels for a period of up to four years. As part of the training, the facilitators led workshops in which teachers, administrators, and other school staff presented difficult practice situations and discussed how they could handle them more effectively.

5. Schools in Israel are ranked by the RAMA by SES (high, intermediate, or low). These categories were created to analyse the gaps in scholastic achievement between schools of various socioeconomic levels. The rankings in this study are based on the RAMA 2012 report.