Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research

ISSN: 0031-3831 (Print) 1470-1170 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/csje20

Attitudes of Teachers Towards Inclusive Education

in Finland

Timo Saloviita

To cite this article: Timo Saloviita (2018): Attitudes of Teachers Towards Inclusive Education in
Finland, Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, DOI: 10.1080/00313831.2018.1541819

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2018.1541819

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SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2018.1541819

Attitudes of Teachers Towards Inclusive Education in Finland

Timo Saloviita
Department of Teacher Education, University of Jyvaskyla, Jyvaskyla, Finland

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Positive teacher attitudes are essential for success when children with Received 28 February 2018
special educational needs (SEN) are placed into mainstream classrooms. Accepted 23 October 2018
The present study surveyed teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion by using
KEYWORDS
a large national sample and Teachers’ Attitudes towards Inclusion Scale Inclusive education; teacher
(TAIS). A total of 1,764 Finnish basic-school teachers participated in the e- attitudes; Finland; self-
mail survey. They included 824 classroom teachers, 575 subject teachers efficacy; work orientation;
and 365 special-education teachers. The classroom teachers scored below survey; special education;
and the subject teachers significantly below, the neutral midpoint of the disability
scale. The special-education teachers’ mean scores were above the
midpoint. About 20% of teachers were strong opponents of inclusion, and
8% were strong advocates. The attitudes towards inclusion had only weak
associations with variables other than the teacher category. Teachers’
work orientation and self-efficacy had low associations with their attitudes
towards inclusion. The results illustrate the attitudinal climate of teachers
towards inclusion and indicate the existing potential for policy change.

Introduction
Inclusive education, as originally defined by the Salamanca Statement (UNESCO, 1994), refers to school-
ing in which all children, including children with severe disabilities, have access to regular classrooms
with the help of adequate support. The principle turned the old way of thinking upside down. The change
meant that children’s own readiness was no longer considered the primary issue in their acceptance into
mainstream education as was the case when the topic was discussed in terms of “integration”. Demands
to adapt were now turned toward schools, which were expected to become more welcoming towards chil-
dren with differing abilities. This policy had been fully adopted in Italy already during the seventies, but
because of language barriers its policy change was not very well observed in other European countries
(Associazione TREELLE, Caritas Italiana, Fondazione Agnelli, 2011).
Since the early 1990s, the new principle of inclusive education has been incorporated into many
countries’ laws. It has also begun to appear in the statements and programmes of numerous inter-
national organisations, such as the European Commission (2010), the Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) (2005) the Council of the European Union (2010), and
UNESCO itself (UNESCO, 2015). It was even incorporated into the Convention on the Rights of
People with Disabilities (CRPD) (United Nations, 2006). Over the years, however, the principle
has lost much of its original edge. From being a clear-cut outcome, inclusion has increasingly turned
into an ambiguous “process” (Booth & Ainscow, 2000) or is left totally undefined, as was the case in
the CRPD (United Nations, 2006).

CONTACT Timo Saloviita timo.saloviita@jyu.fi Department of Teacher Education, University of Jyvaskyla, P.O. Box 35,
Jyvaskylan yliopisto 40014, Finland
© 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
2 T. SALOVIITA

Promoting inclusive education has proven to be a challenge. In many countries, segregated edu-
cation has not decreased or has decreased only on a small scale (European Agency for Development
in Special Needs Education [EADSNE], 2012a). However, the idea of inclusion has gained victories
in other fields. In particular, it has stimulated research on the reorganisation of schools to become
more welcoming to diverse student bodies (EADSNE, 2012b). In this research, positive teacher atti-
tudes have been identified as one of the main issues (|EADSNE, 2003, 2012b; UNESCO, 2009, p. 19).
It has been concluded that “inclusion largely depends on teachers’ attitudes towards learners with
SEN, their view of differences in classrooms and their willingness to respond positively and effec-
tively to those differences” (EADSNE, 2003, p. 15). The importance of teacher attitudes actually
may seem self-evident. If a teacher does not want a particular child in her classroom, it is difficult
to see how any amount of extra resources or training could save the placement from being a failure.
The mere existence of resources, such as knowledge or assistance, alone cannot determine the out-
come. It is also necessary for the teacher to use these resources to attain a determined goal.
Because of their importance, teachers’ attitudes towards integration or inclusion have been
studied extensively for decades (Avramidis & Norwich, 2002; Chazan, 1994; de Boer, Pijl, & Min-
naert, 2011; Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1996). Most often, these studies have been performed in the Uni-
ted States, but it is notable that they have appeared all over the world, including in developing
countries. This wide interest may well reflect the active role of the United Nations and UNESCO
in promoting inclusive policies worldwide. The difference of local circumstances and regulations
around the world naturally can make the results difficult to compare. However, surprisingly similar
results concerning the terms of inclusive education have repeated across different countries.
Aside from simple ad hoc measures, many studies have used psychometrically advanced attitude
scales with such acronyms as SACIE-R, ORI, ATIES, ORM, CIES and MTAI (Saloviita, 2015). A pro-
blematic issue in most studies has been their small sample size. Most have relied on less than 200
participants, and only a few have reported larger sample sizes than one thousand.
One of the main issues of interest in these studies has been the overall level of acceptance of
inclusive education among teachers. Scruggs and Mastropieri (1996) reviewed 28 surveys conducted
from 1958 to 1995 in the U.S., Australia and Canada, mainly among general-education teachers.
They found that approximately two thirds of the teachers had positive attitudes towards the basic
idea of inclusion. A somewhat smaller majority expressed readiness to accept children with SEN
into their classrooms. Similar percentages have emerged in subsequent studies. However, the overall
acceptance of inclusion seemingly has not grown. An investigation that reviewed studies from 1999
to 2008 did not find any study in which positive responses would exceed 70% (de Boer et al., 2011).
The stabilisation of the distribution of teacher attitudes towards inclusion was already confirmed by
Scruggs and Mastropieri (1996), who found no changes in teacher attitudes between 1958 and 1995.

Explaining Teacher Attitudes

Several studies have conducted more targeted analyses to explain teachers’ attitudes. Here, only
studies made with in-service teachers are reviewed. As to the effect of gender, at least 10 studies
found no difference between male and female teachers (e.g., Avramidis, Bayliss, & Burden, 2000;
Chhabra, Srivastava, & Srivastava, 2010). About the same number of studies has shown that female
teachers feel more positively towards inclusion than male teachers (e.g., Alghazo & Naggar Gaad,
2004; Alquraini, 2012; Bowman, 1986). Only two studies, both conducted with high school teachers,
found that male teachers felt more positively toward inclusion than female teachers (Bhatnagar &
Das, 2014; Ernst & Rogers, 2009).
In studies, teachers’ ages have had either no association with their attitudes towards inclusion
(Chhabra et al., 2010; Gyimah, Sugden, & Pearson, 2009; Kalyva, Gojkovic, & Tsakiris, 2007) or,
three times more often, younger teachers have felt slightly more positively towards inclusion than
older teachers (e.g., Ahmmed, Sharma, & Deppeler, 2014; Bornman & Donohue, 2013; Cornoldi,
Terreni, Scruggs, & Mastropieri, 1999).
 SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH 3

Among the attitudinal variables, the most frequently studied has been teachers’ self-efficacy. Fol-
lowing Bandura’s (1997) theory, “self-efficacy” has been defined as teachers’ confidence in their indi-
vidual and collective capability to influence students’ learning (Klassen, Tze, Betts, & Gordon, 2011).
Among the scales used to assess this construct, the most frequently applied in inclusion studies is the
“Teacher Efficacy to Implement Inclusive Practices Scale” (TEIP) created by Sharma, Loreman, and
Forlin (2012). The results have confirmed the positive correlation of TEIP scores with teachers’
inclusive attitudes. The correlation coefficient has been near the value of r = .40 for in-service tea-
chers (Aiello, Pace, Dimitrov, & Sibilio, 2017; Kuittinen, 2017; Yada & Savolainen, 2017) but only
r = .05 to .09 for preservice teachers (Saloviita, 2015). Another instrument, the “Teachers’ Sense of
Efficacy Scale” (TSES) by Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy (2001) measures teachers’ self-
efficacy in more general terms. It has been used in at least one study, but in contrast to TEIP, no
association was found between the TSES scores and the attitudes towards inclusion in a sample of
preschool preservice and in-service teachers (Sarı, Çeliköz, & Seçer, 2009).
Other frequently studied variables have included teachers’ training in special education, their
work experience with students with SEN, and their amount of prior contact with people with disabil-
ities. The latter variable has found to be associated with more positive attitudes towards inclusion
(Boyle, Topping, & Jindal-Snape, 2013; Subban & Sharma, 2006; Wilkerson, 2012). The training
effect has consistently correlated positively with inclusive attitudes (e.g., Ahsan, Sharma, & Deppeler,
2012), as has work experience in most cases (e.g., Sharma, Forlin, Loreman, & Earle, 2006). However,
the surveys have used quasi-experimental designs which are not able to confirm causal links. It could
be that those teachers who are already positively inclined towards inclusion also participate more
willingly in training and have more relevant experience.
Some environmental variables have also indicated positive associations with teachers’ attitudes
towards inclusion. The clearest connection has been found with the type of the child’s disability. Tea-
chers are most positive to include children with mild impairments and most negative to accept stu-
dents with severe intellectual disabilities or behavioural problems in their classrooms (e.g., Bowman,
1986; Cook, 2001; Forlin, 1995; Lifshitz, Glaubman, & Issawi, 2004; Moberg, 2003). Most often, this
finding has been understood to express a lack of teacher training or a lack of other resources, such as
administrative support, adapted study materials or classroom assistants (Bowman, 1986; Cook,
2001). However, a problem remains why these resources should be so constantly lacking everywhere.
Another less-than-clear issue is the role of resources (Chazan, 1994; Minke, Bear, Deemer, &
Griffin, 1996). Only one-third of teachers, on average, believed themselves to have access to all
the necessary resources for successful inclusion to occur (Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1996). Lack of
resources has been the problem usually mentioned also in more recent studies (Goodman & Burton,
2010; Gunnþórsdóttir & Jóhannesson, 2014; Sharma & Desai, 2002).
This assertion has usually been taken at face value. However, teachers’ opinions do not necessarily
mean that the resources are actually lacking. After all, there is no precise measure against which to
assess the assumed shortage of means. It probably varies strongly from teacher to teacher. Teacher’s
claim of lacking resources might be just a socially acceptable excuse for not admitting children with
SEN into their classrooms, a solution possibly made on some other reasons.
In an international comparison, Bowman (1986) found that teachers in those countries where the
law required inclusion felt most positively towards this practice. It is, thus, possible that teachers’
opinions also reflect the official policy of each country.
Teacher attitudes are strongly associated with teacher categories, so special-education teachers
have usually been the most positive group (Engelbrecht, Savolainen, Nel, & Malinen, 2013; Forlin,
Douglas, & Hattie, 1996; Hernandez, Hueck, & Charley, 2015; Moberg, 2003; Pearson, Lo, Chui,
& Wong, 2003). School principals have also been more positive than teachers (Boyle et al., 2013;
Center & Ward, 1987), and primary school teachers have been more positive than secondary school
teachers (Alvarez McHatton & McCray, 2007; Chiner & Cardona, 2013; Larrivee & Cook, 1979;
Savage & Wienke, 1989).
4 T. SALOVIITA

Special Education in Finland

Finland has a population of about 5.5 million people. Local municipalities, supported by the state
subsidy, were responsible for the organisation of basic education. The Finnish basic school contains
grade levels one to nine, educating children ages 7–15 years old. The first six grade levels are
mainly taught by classroom teachers, who have master’s degrees in education. Grades 7–9 are
taught by subject teachers with master’s degrees. Their degree includes one year of pedagogical
studies. Because there is a separate master’s degree programme for special education teachers, it
is not seen important to include special educational contents to the training of classroom or subject
teachers. Therefore, both groups are only shortly introduced to this field. The need for more
knowledge to meet individual differences is regularly stressed by state authors (e.g., Ministry of
Education, 2007a, 2007b) but without positive response from the side of teacher training
institutions.
Finland has a basic school system with a large sector of segregated education. The number of
special schools has steadily decreased, but the portion of students transferred to special-education
classrooms, mostly residing in mainstream schools, is one of the greatest in Europe (EADSNE,
2012a; Statistics Finland, 2016). As yet, there has not been any official policy to change the situation
and the principle of inclusive education is lacking from the school legislation (Act on Basic Edu-
cation, 1998).
Special education is defined by law as an instruction given by special education teacher (Decree on
Basic Education, 1998). It is divided into two different types. With so-called “part-time special edu-
cation”, students visit special-education teachers individually or in small groups, from one to several
hours a week. The proportion of basic-school students participating in part-time special education
was as high as 22.7% during the 2015–2016 school years (Statistics Finland, 2016). It has been argued
that this high amount of part-time special education would be behind Finland’s success in PISA
comparisons (Kivirauma & Ruoho, 2007). This suspicion, however, has remained highly speculative.
In the Finnish context the term “a child with special educational needs (SEN)” has been changed
to an expression “a child with a need for special support”.
These children are identified through a pedagogic process which usually ends up on a decision
made by a school principal (Act on basic education, 1998).
The second form of special education includes the official transfer of the child into “special sup-
port”. This entitles the student to get instruction from a special-education teacher as well. Designat-
ing a student “special support” usually means transferring him or her to a special-education
classroom. These classrooms are mostly located in mainstream schools. During the 2015–2016
school years, 7.3% of students were designated “special support” (Statistics Finland, 2016).

Aims of the Study

In Finland, a few studies have been performed on basic school teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion
(Engelbrecht et al., 2013; Moberg, 1997; Saloviita & Schaffus, 2016). The results show that Finnish
teachers’ overall scores have been near the neutral midpoint of the scales, indicating a generally
lower acceptance of inclusion than that obtained in many other western countries (Avramidis &
Norwich, 2002; Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1996). The results in the Finnish studies are usually given
in means and deviations, or the sample sizes have remained small. It was, therefore, considered jus-
tified to conduct a large-sample study with results presented in percentages.
The present study was intended to survey the attitudes of Finnish basic school teachers in order to
estimate the intellectual readiness of teachers toward inclusive education. The instrument chosen for
the measurement was the “Teachers’ Attitudes towards Inclusion Scale” (TAIS), which has been
shown to have good psychometric qualities (Saloviita, 2015; Saloviita & Tolvanen, 2017). The
scale should not be mixed with another inclusion scale with a slightly different name but same acro-
nym (Monsen, Ewing, & Boyle, 2015).
 SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH 5

To measure teachers’ self-efficacy, the TSES (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001) was
employed. Teachers’ work orientation, a dimension not previously investigated in this context,
was chosen as another independent variable for the study. Work orientation is a concept originally
introduced by John Goldthorpe, Lockwood, Bechhofer, and Platt (1969) to denote the meaning of
work for a person. Here, it was measured using a scale obtained from an international study on
work orientation (Turunen, 2010). Additionally, some demographic variables were entered to
explain teacher attitudes.

Methods
Participants
A total of 1,764 teachers participated in the study. The criteria to be included in the study sample
were active teacher’s position in the basic school in the Finnish-speaking community and the avail-
ability of teacher’s e-mail address in the internet pages of the school. The sample size was also limited
based on the criteria described later.
From the original sample of 1,858 responses, 55% were qualified classroom teachers, with 44%
currently working in this position; 41% were qualified subject teachers, with 31% currently work-
ing in this position; and 22% were qualified special-education teachers, with 20% currently work-
ing in this position. Many teachers had double qualification. Of the respondents, 4% had no
teacher qualification, and 5% currently were not working as teachers. The latter group was
excluded from the study. Of the 1,764 remaining participants, 79% were women, and 21%
were men. Their mean age was 47 years old, and they have been teaching for 18 years on
average.
Counted from the total amount of teachers in basic schools in the year 2016 the participants
included 8% of all classroom teachers, 9% of all special education teachers and 7% of all subject tea-
chers. The number of female teachers was near the level of 80% in all groups (Finnish National
Agency for Education, 2016). Other missing-data comparisons could not be made.

Data Collection
Data were collected in 2015 by 33 volunteering pre-service teachers who were divided into 19 groups.
Each group included between one and three people, participating through a scientific methodology
course. The participants used their own samples for their personal-study requirement. Each group
was given a sample of Finnish municipalities. The groups systematically collected teachers’ e-mail
addresses from the schools’ official websites and sent them an e-mail that contained a link to the
inquiry. The cover letter stressed that participants would remain anonymous. One reminder was
sent to all recipients.
The municipalities participating in the study were selected from the list of all Finnish municipa-
lities, excluding the few Swedish-speaking communities in order to avoid the need to translate the
survey. In all, 137 municipalities were chosen out of the total amount of 317 municipalities. The
selection was made in alphabetical order and stopped when the needed amount of responses was
obtained. Each group had to collect at least 50 replies. In some cases, the teachers’ addresses were
not available on the school’s website. In this case, they were excluded from the study. A total of
26% of teachers who were approached returned the survey.

Survey Instrument
The questionnaire contained questions on several demographic background variables. They included
gender, age, teacher category, main degree subject, formal qualification, present occupation, and
years of teaching. Additionally, three scales measuring teachers’ attitudes were used.
6 T. SALOVIITA

Teachers’ Attitudes Towards Inclusive Education Scale (TAIS). Teachers’ Attitudes towards Inclus-
ive Education Scale (TAIS) is a one-dimensional scale having good to excellent psychometric prop-
erties (Saloviita, 2015). The scale was originally developed to measure teachers’ attitudes towards
inclusive education, as defined in the Salamanca Statement (Saloviita, 2015). It consisted of 10
items measured by a five-point Likert scale, ranging from “strongly disagree” (scored “1”) to
“strongly agree” (scored “5”), with a neutral midpoint scored “3”. To calculate the sum total, the
scoring of six items was reversed. Thus, higher scores indicate more positive attitude towards
inclusion. The reliability of the scale has varied between α = .81–.90 in various samples (Saloviita,
2015). The factor structure of the TAIS scale was shown to be one-dimensional in the Finnish
samples, which distinguishes it from other published scales measuring attitudes towards inclusion
(Saloviita, 2015). The items on the scale encompassed four content areas: inclusion as a value,
expected outcomes, the child’s rights and the teacher’s workload. This versatility in content adds
construct validity to the scale. The items are presented in Table 1.

Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES). Teachers’ self-efficacy was measured by using a 12-item
short form on the Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001).
The scale is a measure of teachers’ evaluations of their own likely success in teaching. The scale
has three factors: efficacy for instructional strategies, efficacy for classroom management and
efficacy for student engagement.

Work Orientation. Teachers’ work orientation was measured by using the work-preferences
scale applied in the large international study “World Values Surveys and European Values
Studies” (Turunen, 2010). The scale consists of eight items describing various work goals
and was scored as to their importance through a five-point Likert scale. According to Turunen
(2010), the scale contained three components: intrinsic work goals including an item “a job that
is interesting”; material work goals including “good pay”; and societal work goals, including
“helping others”.

Data Analysis
The results were analysed by using descriptive statistics, t- tests, F-tests and Pearson product
moment correlations. A stepwise regression analysis was conducted to explain attitudes towards
inclusion, with several teacher-related factors used as independent variables. For this purpose, the
categorical variables were transformed into dummy variables. Because of the high sample size, stat-
istical significance was easy to obtain. Therefore group differences were compared using the effect
size measure Cohen’s d, as well.

Results
The mean value of the TAIS scale was 28.0 (SD = 8.2), which was just below the neutral midpoint
of 30. The difference to midpoint was statistically significant, t(1666) = –9.86, p < .000. The dis-
persion of the scores was large, with thicker tails relative to normal distribution as confirmed
by the value of kurtosis (−.553). The skewness of −.108 and its standard error of .06 indicated
that the distribution deviated from normal distribution and had a prominent left tail with low
values. This meant that normality was distorted because of the relative overrepresentation of
low scores. The reliability of the TAIS scale was α = .90. Its one-dimensionality was confirmed
by a confirmatory factor analysis published separately (Saloviita & Tolvanen, 2017). The means
and standard deviations of single items and corrected item/total correlations are provided in
Table 1.
 SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH 7

Table 1. Full texts of the items in the TAIS scale, corrected item/total correlations, means and standard deviations (N = 1764).
Item r M SD
1. Children with special educational needs learn best in their own special education classes where they .72 2.57 1.13
have specially trained teachers. R1 (expected outcomes)
2. The children with emotional and behavioural problems should be educated in mainstream classrooms, .54 2.58 1.11
with the provision of adequate support. (inclusion as a value)
3. It is the right of a child with special educational needs to be placed in a special education classroom. R1 .63 2.10 .99
(rights of the child)
4. Children with attention deficit/hyperactive disorder (ADHD) should be admitted in mainstream .58 3.20 1.08
classrooms with adequate support. (inclusion as a value)
5. Teachers’ workload should not be increased by compelling them to accept children with special .66 2.68 1.23
educational needs in their classrooms. R1 (workload of the teacher)
6. The best result is achieved if each child with special educational needs is placed in a special education .73 2.82 1.17
classroom that best suits him/her. R1 (expected outcomes)
7. The students with special educational needs should be educated in mainstream classrooms as much as .72 3.19 1.14
possible. (inclusion as a value)
8. Integrated children with special educational needs create extra work for teachers in mainstream .58 2.57 1.12
classrooms. R1 (workload of the teacher)
9. A child with special educational needs should be transferred to a special education classroom in order .72 3.03 1.09
not to violate his/her rights. R1 (rights of the child)
10. The learning of children with special educational needs can be effectively supported in mainstream .70 3.29 1.13
classrooms as well. (expected outcomes)
1
Note. The scoring of items marked with R was reversed.

Attitudes by Teacher Category

The classroom and subject teachers scored under the neutral midpoint of the TAIS scale while the
special-education teachers scored above it. In all cases, the difference to a neutral midpoint was stat-
istically significant. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated that the overall comparison
between teacher categories was statistically significant. Post hoc Bonferroni correction tests
confirmed that all teacher categories differed from each other. The special-education teachers scored
the highest and subject teachers the lowest while classroom teachers ranked in between (Table 2).
The difference in terms of Cohen’s d was high between special-education teachers and subject tea-
chers (d = .78), moderate between special-education teachers and classroom teachers (d = .52) and
small between classroom teachers and subject teachers (d = .23).
The distribution on disagreements (strongly disagree or disagree) equalling the answer “no” and
agreements (strongly agree or agree) equalling the answer “yes” is given across item and teacher
categories in Table 3. The biggest difference between the opinions of special-education teachers
and classroom teachers was observed in item No. 9: “A child with special educational needs should
be transferred to a special-education classroom in order not to violate his/her rights” (d = .96). Tea-
chers were further divided into three groups based on their total score on the TAIS scale. The
groups were “opponents” (scoring 20 or less), “neutral group” (scoring 21–39) and “supporters”
(scoring 40 or more). Table 4 shows the relative percentages of teachers in each group across tea-
cher categories.

Gender
Gender differences were measured by using a t-test. A statistically significant difference was observed
between men (n = 355) and women (n = 1,312) in their TAIS scores; t(1,665) = 3.74, p = .000 with an

Table 2. Attitudes of teachers towards inclusive education as measured by TAIS.

Teacher category N Mean SD df F p
Sum total 1667 28.02 8.21 2, 1664 61.25 .000
Classroom teacher 783 27.74 8.17
Subject teacher 539 25.92 7.60
Special ed. teacher 345 31.92 7.85
8 T. SALOVIITA

Table 3. The agreements and disagreements in percentages for the TAIS items by teacher category.
Subject Class Special Total
N=
N = 575 N = 824 N = 385 1,764
Item (shortened) No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes
1. Children with SEN learn best in special-education classes (R) 18 66 29 53 41 42 28 55
2. Children with EBD should be in mainstream classrooms 60 22 60 25 46 37 57 27
3. It is the right of a child with SEN to get into an SE classroom 6 75 11 74 18 67 11 73
4. Children with ADHD should be in mainstream classrooms 35 40 29 49 22 61 29 49
5. Teachers’ workload should not be augmented (R) 25 61 33 52 50 40 34 53
6. The best result is achieved if a child with SEN is placed in an SE class (R) 25 50 35 44 56 29 36 43
7. The education of students with SEN should be arranged in the mainstream 42 40 34 51 20 70 33 52
8. Integrated children with SEN create extra work for teachers (R) 21 62 25 59 43 40 28 56
9. A child with SEN should be in an SE classroom so as not to violate his or her 27 38 37 35 60 20 38 33
rights (R)
10 Children with SEN can be effectively supported in mainstream classrooms 40 45 30 57 20 71 31 56

effect size of d = .22. Female teachers felt slightly more positively towards inclusion than male tea-
chers. Of the men, 26.4% belonged to the most critical group, scoring 20 or less, while 18.1% of
women belonged to this group. When the analysis was extended to teacher categories, the differences
disappeared with the exception of special-education teachers. Among them, females remained more
positive than men. However, the statistical power of the comparison was compromised because of
the small number of men in this group (N = 44).

Age and Years of Teaching

The age of the teacher was weakly correlated with the sum total of the TAIS scale, r = −.09, p < .01,
and the amount of years teaching, r = −.08, p < −.08, indicating that younger teachers were some-
what more positive towards inclusion. The total scores were further compared across the decennial
age groups of 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 or more. The TAIS scores decreased systematically in each older
age group, but the differences were not large.
The association of age with attitudes towards inclusion was analysed separately in teacher cat-
egories using the above age-group classification. Statistically significant F-values were achieved
among classroom teachers, F (4, 770) = 3.853, p = .004, and special-education teachers, F (4, 335)
= 3.97, p = .004, but not among subject teachers.

Teacher Qualification and Major Subject

The number of unqualified teachers was notable only among special-education teachers, of whom
7% (N = 25) were unqualified. These teachers were more negative of inclusion than qualified
special-education teachers, t(343) = 2.75, p = .006 with d = .57. No similar differences were found
among other teacher categories.
Subject teachers’ degree majors were classified into: a) languages; b) science and mathematics; c)
arts, crafts and physical education; and d) humanities. No differences in TAIS scores were observed
between these groups, F(3,474) = .492, p = .688.

Table 4. Teachers classified on the basis of their TAIS score.

Neutral Supporters Total
Teacher category N Opponents % % % %
Classroom teacher 783 20.6 73.2 6.3 100.1
Subject teacher 539 26.3 70.5 3.2 100.0
Special education teacher 345 9.3 73.3 17.4 100.0
Sum total 1667 20.1 72.3 7.6 100.0
 SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH 9

Sense of Efficacy and Work Orientation

The correlations between the TAIS, TSES and work-orientation scales remained close to zero, even
when the correlations often were statistically significant. This was because of the study’s large sample
size. The correlation between TAIS and TSES was r = .096, p = 0.000. Equally, the correlations
between TAIS and all three factors of the TSES scale remained low. The correlation of TAIS with
instructional strategies was r = 0.069, p = 0.005, with efficacy for classroom management r = 0.051,
p = 0.037, and efficacy for student engagement r = 0.114, p = 0.000. No statistically significant corre-
lations were found when the analysis was conducted in three teacher subcategories.
Associations with work orientation were still smaller, with societal-work orientation having a
correlation r = 0.060, p = 0.014; material work orientation r = –0.012 (n.s.); and inner work orien-
tation r = –0.033 (n.s.). Separate analyses in three teacher categories did not produce any statistically
significant results.

Regression Analysis
A stepwise regression analysis was conducted in which gender, age, teacher category, sense of efficacy
and three types of work orientation were entered as predictors for TAIS scores. VIF values remained
near the value 1, indicating low multicollinearity. Only the material work orientation dropped off
from the final model, which achieved the value of R = .314 and R Square = .098, indicating that
the model explained about 10% of the total variance of the dependent variable.

Discussion
The results from the survey of Finnish basic school teachers shed new light on some issues regarding
teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion; meanwhile, many findings also confirmed results obtained
from previous studies. The differences between classroom, subject and special-education teachers
proved to be significant and large. The classroom and subject teachers’ sum scores remained
below the neutral midpoint, which contradicted the common findings of teacher surveys but
fitted with the earlier Finnish studies. The special-education teachers scored above the neutral mid-
point, which differs from an earlier study (Moberg, 2003) and possibly indicates a change of attitudes
in this group.
The more critical attitudes of subject teachers towards inclusion can be understood through their
perhaps greater emphasis on subject matter instead of student development. Subject teachers instruct
several student groups and have many times more students than the other two teacher categories.
Their students are also older on average and represent a larger variability of skills due to their age
level.
It is easy to understand that subject teachers just on these grounds could be less interested in
inclusive education than other teacher groups. The relatively high popularity of inclusion among
special-education teachers is more difficult to explain. Why they should be more interested in
inclusion than the other three teacher groups? Perhaps they, compared with classroom and subject
teachers, see more problems in the self-contained special-education classrooms. Inclusive education
has been criticised as causing extra work for teachers (Gunnþórsdóttir & Jóhannesson, 2014); it may
be that, for special-education teachers, inclusion does not signify a similar threat of additional work-
load as for classroom and subject teachers.
A conspicuous feature in teacher attitudes towards inclusion was its large variability. There was a
substantial minority of teachers who were strongly opposed and a smaller minority who warmly
advocated inclusion (Table 4). Despite a slightly negative general atmosphere, a small majority of
teachers agreed that the education of children with SEN can be effectively supported in mainstream
classrooms. A similar small majority also agreed that the education of these children should be
arranged to take place in mainstream classrooms as often as possible.
10 T. SALOVIITA

The distribution of percentages in different items surveyed provides a deeper understanding of

teachers’ opinions (Table 3). One can see, for instance, that even if teachers’ general attitude towards
inclusion is rather negative, a majority believes that children with SEN can be effectively supported in
mainstream classrooms. Also, only a minority believes that the best result is achieved by placing the
student in a special education classroom.
Correlation coefficients also provide interesting information (Table 1). For instance, the opinion
that inclusion does not create extra work for teachers correlated strongly (r = .58) with a positive view
of inclusion in general. This result seems to indicate that the workload considerations play a signifi-
cant role when teachers evaluate inclusion.
Teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion have not been found to be strongly associated with any of
the demographic variables thus far studied. In the present study, the teachers’ gender and age gave
results comparable to the majority of previous studies: female teachers were somewhat more positive
than male teachers (e.g., Avramidis et al., 2000), and younger teachers slightly more positive than
older ones (e.g., Ahmmed et al., 2014).
Attitudinal variables controlled for here included work orientation and self-efficacy. The tea-
chers’ work orientation did not show remarkable association with their attitudes towards inclusion.
The teachers’ sense of efficacy, measured by the TSES, had only a weak association with attitudes
towards inclusion. The latter result may look disappointing because it seems to imply that teachers’
own feelings on their likely general success had no association with their readiness to accept stu-
dents with SEN in their classrooms. In previous studies, teachers’ self-efficacy has been most often
measured by the TEIP scale (e.g., Aiello et al., 2017). It has been found to be moderately correlated
with attitudes towards inclusion. However, the question arises of its discriminant validity because
the TEIP scale contains some very similar items with the scales measuring attitudes towards
inclusion.
When eight predictive variables of this study were entered into a stepwise linear regression analy-
sis, the final model explained only 10% of the total variance of the TAIS scale. The result resembled
that of Leyser, Kapperman, and Keller (1994), who received a coefficient of determination of 9% in a
large international study. As predictor variables they used age, teaching experience, gender, training
in special education, experience with disabled students, and grade level.
A limitation of the present study was the low return rate, which could predispose its results to a
systematic error. This suspicion is mitigated by the observation that return rates have not had an
impact on outcomes in surveys on inclusion (Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1996). The use of a large
national sample speaks to the generalisability of the results. It also allowed the analyses to be
extended to the sub-samples with sufficient sample sizes.
The main contribution of the present survey was to outline the current state of mind among Fin-
nish teachers regarding inclusive education. The results indicate that, in Finland, the policy of inclus-
ive education quickly stumbles into attitudinal barriers among teachers, especially in the upper
grades of basic school instructed by subject teachers. However, a small minority of teachers warmly
approved of inclusion. This was especially true of special-education teachers, who have possibly
become more positive compared with a survey made some 15 years ago (Moberg, 2003). It is also
noteworthy that a small majority of all teachers accepted the basic idea that children with SEN
can be effectively instructed in mainstream classrooms. The results confirm that there is potential
for inclusive changes to occur in Finnish schools.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID
Timo Saloviita http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6723-3675
 SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH 11

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