Teachers’ Attitudes towards Roma Students Inclusion

Abstract

Education of Roma students is matter of discusions, questioning and reaserach for a long period of time. The scope of this paper is the research on teachers’ attitudes in class teaching on educational inclusion of Roma students. The research participants are teachers from 20 Croatian  counties (N=293) who voluntarily filled in the survey especially designed for this research and which statements refer to teachers’ perception of Roma population, educational inclusion of Roma students and the role of teachers and Roma parents in educating Roma children. The research results indicate slightly positive teachers’ attitudes towards the education inclusion of Roma children. The respondents emphasize that the role and the responsibility of Roma parents in education of their own children is significant, however, the least positive attitudes concern the greater teachers’ engagement in the process of education of Roma students. Such results are in line with previous research and confirm how teachers are not aware of the importance of their role in education of vulnerable groups  in general, in this case Roma students. There are no significant differences in teachers’ attitudes when it comes to age, qualification, years of service and previously created contact between the examinee and Roma students.