Regular and Special Education Principals’ Perceptions of an Integration Program for Students who are Intellectually Handicapped

Abstract

This study compared regular and special education principals’ perceptions regarding the effectiveness of their jointly run integration programs for students with intellectual handicaps. The study was conducted in an Australian state special education system which provides services for students with intellectual handicaps in Education Support Centres (ESCs) located in regular elementary and secondary schools. Both the ESC and regular school principals responded to a survey which addressed the amount and perceived quality of cooperation at both administrative and teaching levels, perceptions of the extent and type of integration, the extent of resource sharing, problems associated with implementation and the advantages of the programs. The study also sought to establish whether there were any differences between the regular education and ESC principals’ attitudes and whether differences occurred as a function of the rural or urban location of the programs. The results indicated that both regular and ESC principals held positive attitudes about the type and amount of integration occurring in their programs and the level of cooperation amongst the special and regular education personnel involved. No statistically significant differences were found between either the ESC and regular education principals, nor rural and urban principals regarding levels of cooperation. Principals most commonly reported relatively high levels of cooperation between the host schools and ESCs, the presence of mainly instructional type integration and a positive relationship between the programs.

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