Examining the relationship between classroom teachers' awareness of inclusive education and their in-classroom practices

Inclusive education is an approach that accepts that each individual is valuable, meets their interests and needs, and aims to reveal their true potential. It is an education process that supports disadvantaged individuals to exist in society without being excluded, meets their educational needs and embraces everyone. Teachers are the ones who will reflect and implement the philosophy of inclusive education in educational environments. The aim of the research is to examine the relationship between classroom teachers' awareness of inclusive education and their classroom practices. In other words; it was aimed to determine whether the relationship between classroom teachers' awareness of inclusive education and their classroom practices is significant. The population of the research consists of 1450 classroom teachers working in public schools in Alanya and Manavgat districts of Antalya province in the 2023-2024 academic year. 319 classroom teachers selected with a simple random sampling model constitute the sample of the study. This study was conducted with the relational screening model, one of the quantitative research methods. During the data collection process of the research, "Teacher Awareness Scale in Inclusive Education" and "Inclusive Education Teacher Classroom Practice Scale" were used. In the analysis of data; Firstly, descriptive analyzes were carried out and then parametric tests; independent groups T test, one-way analysis of variance "ANOVA" and regression analysis were used. As a result of the research, it was determined that classroom teachers' inclusive education awareness levels and in-class practice levels were quite high. As a result of the regression analysis, it was concluded that classroom teachers' awareness of inclusive education predicted their levels of inclusive education classroom practice by 51% and that there was a high, positive, significant relationship between inclusive education awareness levels and classroom implementation levels.