Examining the factors that affect classroom teacher's attitudes towards the mainstreamed students

In recent years, applications of maintsreaming have been gaining great importance in our country. The most two important factors in a successful mainstreaming education is the teacher and the student with special needs. Special education is an understanding that aims to make students with a physical disability or a mental disability to be able to gain the competencies for surviving on his/her own with the help of different educational programmes and methods. Mainstreaming education is a special education application that children with special needs are educated with their peers with no disabilities and providing acquisition of skills by interacting and assisted education. The success of mainstreaming education applications depends only on the cooperation of the parents, teachers, school administration, guidance and psychological counseling service and the students. It has to be taken into consideration that mainstreaming education is not only about teachers' efforts but also a group work. Beyond any doubt, teachers have an important effect on the success of mainstreaming education with their attitudes and behaviors. The purpose of this research is to determine the factors that affect the classroom teacher's attitudes towards mainstreamed students and to offer further suggestions for carrying out a more effective mainstreaming education. The research was carried out with the participation of 40 classroom teachers working in public schools in İstanbul in the academic year of 2014-2015. In this research, the interview technique was used which is a quantitative research method. As a data collecting tool, with a specialist view, the researcher used "Teacher Information Form" which consists of closed-ended questions for acquiring demographic informations of classroom teachers and "Interview Questions" which consists of open-ended questions. The implementation was carried out with the volunteering classroom teachers face to face. The acquired data was evaluated with the content analysis. At the result of the research, it was found that the physical conditions of the school and the classrooms, the number of students per class, the people who were responsible and supportive in the process of mainstreaming education decreased the workload of classroom teachers and increased their motivation. According to research findings, types of students' disabilities have an effect on the attitudes of classroom teachers towards maintsreaming education. In addition, classroom teachers with an understanding and information about the mainstreaming education have more positive attitudes towards the children with special needs. Creating an appropriate educational environment for mainstreaming education and providing supportive services for making teachers feel not alone in this process may affect mainstreaming applications positively. Key words: Mainstreaming, Special Education, Requirement, Obstacle, Disability