Percepción y necesidades de formación sobre la inclusión educativa en Educación PrimariaEducación Física y otras áreas

Abstract

Background: UNESCO defines inclusion as the process of identifying and responding to the diversity of needs of all students through increased participation in learning. Furthermore, it goes beyond integrating students into the system, it implies a modification of the educational context and in the way of influencing the specific training of teachers to meet the needs of students. Therefore, this right is absolutely necessary to guarantee equal opportunities for students, thus eliminating possible situations of discrimination and incorporating these new responsibilities into teaching tasks. Thus, teachers must design actions to adapt resources and the school environment, rethinking the educational response and attending to individual differences. A key aspect of this process is teacher preparation, which is essential in inclusive environments to achieve a higher quality education for each student. Thus, teacher preparation should be oriented towards the development of critical educational professionals and educational professionals who actively collaborate. However, it would be desirable not only to approach the contents from a theoretical perspective but also to have the opportunity to extrapolate them in a practical way in order to generate more meaningful learning in future teachers and thus assign them tools that will help them face the challenges of the future. This leads us to the concept of attitude, defined as a position or orientation of thought, which translates into a particular way of thinking, acting or reacting, and is composed of three dimensions: cognitive (beliefs), affective (feelings) and behavioral (actions). Objectives: The main objectives of this work were to analyze the perceptions held by teachers and future teachers in the Community of Extremadura, in relation to their preparation (both initial and permanent) and their attention to diversity. Methods: 7 cross-sectional studies were carried out with a total of 1149 teachers and 245 prospective teachers in the region of Extremadura. During the studies, the following variables were collected: 1) scores of the Questionnaire for the Evaluation of Teaching Preparation for Inclusion (CEFI-R); 2) sociodemographic variables for the characterization of the participants; and 3) dichotomous questions on their initial and continuous preparation in attention to diversity. Results: this Doctoral Thesis showed the good general perception of teachers in the different educational stages and future teachers regarding attention to diversity, although they expressed a certain need for continuous training. The population of future teachers analyzed showed no gender differences in their perception of their readiness to deal with diversity care. On the other hand, no differences were found in terms of CEFI-R scores between specialist and non-specialist teachers, with both groups expressing the need to improve their continuous preparation in relation to educational inclusion. Physical Education teachers, on the other hand, expressed being aware of the importance of educational inclusion and pointed out that the preparation received, either initial or continuous, was not sufficient to face the reality of the sessions in a real environment. In relation to gender, it was observed that female primary school teachers showed better perceptions of their readiness for inclusion than male teachers, which could be influenced by the large difference in the number of female teachers. Likewise, those centers of a private-subsidized nature have greater continuous training needs in terms of attention to diversity on the part of their teaching teams. Finally, teachers with permanent positions seem to have better preparation and perceptions in reference to educational inclusion.