Shaping Inclusive Classrooms: Key Factors Influencing Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Inclusion of Students with Special Needs

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 Shaping Inclusive Classrooms: Key Factors Influencing Teachers' Attitudes Toward Inclusion of Students with Special Needs

 

The study investigates factors influencing Israeli teachers' attitudes toward including students with special needs in mainstream classrooms following recent reforms.

Inclusion of students with special needs in the mainstream education is an important educational aim. This is also a widely studied topic, including in Israel, very often from teachers’ perspective, and rightfully so as teachers are responsible to the inclusion process while maintaining all other goals and duties.

The introduction covers much of the relevant literature, although some sources, including ones from Israel could have been integrated.

The methodology section is clear, although the rationale for including teachers who teach very different grades, and including only teachers who undergone training is not explained.

The discussion is integrated well and find the use of ecological model is useful.

My main concern is that the findings of the study, in its current state, bring very little new understandings to the field.

Firstly, the discrepancy between general positive stated attitudes with practical reservations have been found in many studies and reports, including in Israel

In the same manner, most of the themes identified in the current study, such as lack of adequate training and preparation, insufficient institutional support, fear of negative outcomes, the need for professional training and class size challenges, lower acceptance towards severe disabilities or certain disabilities were previously discussed.

Additionally, while it makes sense to explore the impact of the 2018 reform and could bring a unique angle to the study, the findings did not address this issue. For example, participants could have been asked about how their reality change from before to after the reform, not only in terms of increase n numbers of integrated children with special needs, but also the experiences of teachers regarding school and parents’ expectations, and whether there is a change in how children without special needs regarding inclusion.

As noted before, participants included teachers who work with different age groups (kindergarten teachers, high school teachers, elementary and middle school teachers), which obviously have very different realities and challenges. Integration in kindergarten and high-school are completely different and the analysis should recognise and address these differences. This could be something to delve in and which may bring a unique viewpoint to the study.

In the same manner, while the researchers stated in the introduction that they will address cultural diversity in terms of their attitudes towards inclusion, which could have been an interesting angle, it was not presented in the findings and not discussed later on.

The fact that the participants took part in an inclusion training raises questions regarding the sample and the reason for this selection, rather than for convenience reasons, if examining the training was not part of the study. Examining their pre and post training attitudes could have been interesting.

I think the paper will benefit greatly from finding more innovative angles to the issue at hand. It might be that the ecological framework could serve as a theoretical framework and guide the analysis highlighting the connections between contexts (but this is only one idea and not neccessarily a requirement for revisions)

Author Response

Dear reviewer 

Please see the attachment.

Thank you 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors, thank you for your effort in researching a topic of interest such as this.

Some questions worth reviewing are listed below:

• It is important to specify what criteria were used to select the sample. How was it decided to select these participants and not others? Were the 40 teachers the only ones who attended the aforementioned training workshop? This is not clear.
• It would be appropriate to present some type of table that more graphically reflects the relationship between the initial research dimensions used to organize the interviews and the codes, themes, and subthemes that emerged in the results.
• A list of limitations of this study should be included, such as the size and type of sample used, the fact that it was only applied to teachers who have received training on the topic, etc. 
• It would have been interesting to include some authors known for their long careers in research on inclusive education in various contexts. 
•  It would be advisable to review the format of some of the bibliographic references, especially those referring to book chapters.

Best regards.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Please see the attachment.

Thank you 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for paying attention to the suggestions in the review. You have managed to incorporate many of them and I find the manuscript improved. In particular, the added reference to the changes in inclusion over the years, and to the differences between teachers of different age groups have added depth

Some reservations I still have include:

It is still not entirely clear to me what the novel contribution of the study is above other studies. May need to highlight it more and describe the gaps in the literature better.

If the reform is the novelty you are referring to, it is not reflected in the findings and teachers do not address issues that refer to the changes (assumingly many of them taught also before the law). Can you find some indications for the impact of changes?

The reference to Israel’s diverse population may not be helpful as part of the introduction given that you have not explored it in the findings. Perhaps better leave only in the limitations.

Some of the items which led to the themes seem close- seemed a little close for example: were large classrooms discussed only as conceptually hindering inclusion (which let to key theme 3) but not in the personal experiences questions (which led to theme 4)? if this is so, it should be discussed.

Please check the references again. For example, Shapira & Dolev discussed diversity related to intercultural relations and not special education.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1

Please see the attachment.

Best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,
Thank you very much for accepting my suggestions and including the necessary modifications to improve the paper,
Best regards

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2

Thank you for your positive feedback on our revised manuscript. We appreciate your constructive suggestions during the review process, which have helped us improve the quality and clarity of our paper. Your guidance has been valuable in refining our work.