COMPARISON OF TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA AND EUROPEAN UNION

Abstract

The goal of this study is to compare the attitudes of teachers from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH) and teachers from five European Union (EU) countries (Austria, Croatia, Italy, Slovenia and Germany) towards the inclusive education of students with special educational needs. The sample for this study is comprised of 110 teachers from Bosnia and Herzegovina and 110 teachers from EU. The attitudes were examined by using a questionnaire that was adapted from the Index for inclusion. The final interview protocol consisted 20 questions, which had an excellent internal consistency, Cronbach’s alpha of 0.98. A Chi square test was performed to test the differences in attitudes. The results of this study indicated highly positive attitudes towards inclusive education of EU teachers and positive attitudes of BIH teachers. EU teachers had more favourable attitudes than teachers in BIH on 18 of 20 questionnaire items.
These findings were discussed in the light of previous BIH and international researches. The paper ends with a discussion for the challenges and possibilities for improvement of the inclusive education in BIH.