Abstract:

Today, in the global and planetary level, there is a quite obvious impact of the social inclusion, as a leading idea of a contemporary democratic society, on the pedagogical theory and practice in terms of starting orientation and key guidelines of both pedagogical reflection and educational activities. In the scientific-theoretical discourse, such an influence results in the pedagogy of diversities, which basic postulate is that every child can and should learn based on his/her individual capacities and needs, in his/her natural environment, together with other children in the respective inclusive context. In practice, every specific society identifies and tracks changes in education policy through the adoption of new legislation, as well as through the application of pedagogical innovations and creation and other presumptions in order to have as complete implementation of the educational inclusion as possible, i.e. to provide implementation of the equal right to education and access to education for all, without any discrimination and exclusion.

Over the last fifteen years, the Republic of Serbia has guaranteed the equal right to education and access to education for all and everyone, without discrimination and exclusion by the relevant laws and regulations, which is a necessary, but insufficient condition for the implementation of inclusive education. The success of educational inclusion implies other factors as well, such as changes in the people's awareness, and related practical steps of all relevant actors: governments and local authorities, local communities, teachers, parents, peers from the regular population. The key outstanding issues are the following: How to exercise the proclaimed right? How to make inclusive education a reality? How to reach the set objective, which implies that all the children get involved and participate in the school life, are educated together and treated equally? In an effort to contribute in searching for the answers to the mentioned questions, teachers and associates from the Department of Pedagogy, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad, implemented the long-term research (2011- 2014) within the project "Inclusive Education: From Pedagogical Concepts to Practice".

The central part of the paper describes and analyzes preliminary results of the research on the teachers’ attitudes towards the inclusion of children with developmental disabilities into regular educational groups or school classes. Besides indicating gradual positive changes in their attitudes, and strengthening motivation for professional development in the field of educational inclusion, still there is presence of particular prejudice, certain resistance, and lack of information on inclusion, despite increasing the number of professional developmental programs and various teaching subjects at all levels of studies at universities in Serbia, which prepare future teachers.

Based on the obtained results, it has been concluded that there are grounds for cautious optimism, as follows: in the Republic of Serbia there have been achieved visible, significant initial results and identified challenges and obstacles in practice of inclusive education which has yet to be overcome.

Keywords:

Inclusive education, teachers’ attitudes, children with developmental disabilities.