Profiles of attitudes toward inclusive education among Chinese in-service teachers: their relationships with demographic factors and organizational commitment

• Published in: Frontiers in psychology Vol. 15; p. 1391862
• Main Authors: Deng, Yuhao, Yuan, Wei, Zhang, Li-fang, Xie, Zhengli
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Frontiers Media S.A 15.05.2024
• Subjects: attitudes toward inclusive education; Chinese in-service teachers; latent profile analysis; organizational commitment; Psychology; special educational needs; organizational commitment; latent profile analysis; special educational needs; Chinese in-service teachers; attitudes toward inclusive education
• ISSN: 1664-1078; 1664-1078
• DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1391862

The increased diversity of students (e.g., students with special educational needs) has presented teachers with unprecedented challenges. Teachers' attitudes toward inclusive education play a crucial role in teachers' organizational well-being. However, existing studies mostly explored attitudes toward inclusive education based on a variable-centered approach. This study used a person-centered approach to identify teachers' attitude profile membership and explored the relationships of attitude profiles with demographic factors (i.e., gender, years of teaching experience, subject taught, and in-service training) and organizational commitment. Nine hundred and seventy-two in-service teachers from forty-nine inclusive education schools in Beijing responded to the Revised Multidimensional Attitudes toward Inclusive Education Scale and the Organizational Commitment Inventory. Latent profile analyses, multinomial logistic regression, and univariate analysis of variance were used to analyze data. The results revealed four attitude profiles: , , , and . Years of teaching experience and in-service training were significant predictors of teachers' latent profile membership. Teachers belonging to the profile showed the highest levels of maladaptive commitments to inclusive education schools. Teachers belonging to the and the behavior avoidance profiles showed higher levels of adaptive commitments. However, teachers belonging to the profile had the lowest levels of adaptive commitments. The theoretical contributions, practical implications, and limitations are discussed.