Abstract
Attitudes about inclusion are extremely complex and vary from teacher to teacher and school
to school. This article explores the attitudes of teachers about inclusion of special needs
children in their secondary schools in general education. This study adopted a descriptive
survey research design, with 60 teachers as participants from selected secondary schools in
Oyo State, Nigeria. Four hypotheses were postulated at the significant level of .05. The
instrument, a questionnaire with question items on demographic information like gender,
marital status, professionalism and teaching experience has a general reliability coefficient
alpha of .83. A t-test method of analysis was the main statistical method used to test the 4
generated hypotheses. The findings revealed that the attitude of male teachers is 39.4, while
that of female teacher is 43.3, thus, the t-test analysis shows that the calculated t-test is
2.107, which is greater than the critical t (t=1.960). This implies that female teachers have
more positive attitude towards the inclusion of special needs students than their male
counterparts. Furthermore, the results reveal that significant difference exists between
married and single teachers in their attitude towards special need students. And that
professionally qualified teacher tends to have a more favourable attitude towards the
inclusion of special need students than their non-professional qualified teachers. It was
recommended that teachers should attend seminars and conferences to improve their
knowledge about ways of practicing and accepting inclusion for a better tomorrow for our
special needs children in Nigeria.
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