University academic personnel’s vision of inclusive education in Spanish universities (Visión del profesorado sobre la educación inclusiva en la universidad en España)

Abstract

Inclusive education is a new pedagogical vision of the education system that fosters social cohesion and equality. There are numerous political initiatives to implement inclusive education in different educational stages, including university. However, the scope of these initiatives and the influence of the change agents, university faculty, are still not known. The objective of this study was to determine faculty’s perception of inclusive education at university. It also aimed to analyse which socio-labour variables were significantly related to the vision of inclusive education in university faculty. Three factors were determined: attitudes towards inclusive education, inclusive didactics and educational management for inclusion, as well as the total inclusive education scale. A total of 1,252 university academic personnel from 49 universities in Spain participated in this survey-based study. The results showed that a different level of inclusive education in the university faculty significantly correlated with socio-labour variables such as gender, age, previous experience with minorities, training, experience in research on diversity, size of the university and the field of knowledge in which they teach. The conclusions of this study include recommendations of continuous training in inclusive education in higher education, with the consequent implications on institutional policy.