THE FAMILY UNDERSTANDING OF INCLUSION. THE CASE OF 20 FAMILIES

Turkey have been taking steps toward realizing inclusive education and legislations that ensure the rights of individuals with disabilities have been in effect. However, serious obstacles such as lack of resources, lack of personnel who are specifically trained in the field to practice inclusion, attitudinal barriers etc. still seem to maintain a gap between theory and practice. First, the terms "inclusion" and "mainstreaming" seem to be used interchangeably and what is being practiced commonly seem to be "mainstreaming" rather than inclusion. This in itself provides evidence for how far we are still from reaching the determined goals for the practice of inclusive education. Not much research about the implementation have been carried out to reach factual information for such a conclusion however.

The main goal of this research study is to review the current situation in terms of how inclusion is practiced in the field(based on observations with the knowledge of best practices) and how families of students with disabilities are perceiving inclusion as it takes place. We sought to understand whether inclusive practices in the field and the way parents are perceiving inclusion match. We also sought to review the way families are understanding their rights, their child’s rights in terms of access to education, and the possible factors that may be impacting the success of inclusive practices.

Qualitative research methods were used to collect and interpret data. Two different observation forms were developed and used for the observations; one to be used in class during instruction and the second one to be used during the home visit for the family interviews. 20 students with special needs who are receiving inclusive education were identified and observations of inclusive practices were conducted in each students' class. Then, families were contacted and asked to participate in our interviews. Observation forms were filled out, and interviews were recorded and transcribed in addition to notes jotted down during interviews. Data were coded and condensed into themes by writing summative paragraphs for each emerging theme. Finally, data collected from classroom observations and data collected from families compared and interpretive/summative paragraphs were written for the comparison of each situation.

The majority of the classroom observations revealed that inclusion is not being practiced successfully. In many cases, the special needs students were isolated among their peers and during instruction. Families seemed to have great hopes for inclusion. However, some of the families were not fully aware of their rights and had their own understanding of how inclusion should be carried out. Cultural factors, lack of awareness, lack of resources, and attitudinal barriers revealed to be some of the factors impeding the success of inclusion.

There is a gap between how inclusion is theoretically described and the way it is being practiced in the field. This study sheds light on this gap documenting the observed inclusive situations and the perceptions of families of special needs students.