Educators’ perceptions of inclusive education for learners with physical disabilities in mainstream classrooms

ABSTRACT: While the practice of inclusive education has recently been widely embraced as an ideal model for education, the acceptance of inclusive education practices has not translated into reality in most mainstream classrooms. Even though education policies in South Africa stipulate that all learners should be provided with the opportunities to participate as far as possible in all classroom activities, the implementation of inclusive education is still hampered by a combination of a lack of resources and the attitudes and actions of the educators in the classroom. The main purpose of this paper is to develop a deeper understanding of educators’ personal understanding of the barriers to learning and how their understanding relates to their consequent actions to implement inclusive education in mainstream classrooms. A qualitative research approach was used to establish their perspectives and to frame questions regarding their perceptions and understanding. The findings, in this paper, indicate that the way in which educators understand the diversity of learning needs is based on the training that they received, which focused on a deficit, individualised approach to the barriers that encounter learning and development.
KEYWORDS: barriers to lea