Conference Agenda

People with intellectual disabilities (ID) continue to face situations of stigmatization and inequality across social, educational, and occupational contexts, which contributes to the persistence of negative attitudes toward this group (Tavor & Akirav, 2023). Such attitudes act as a barrier to social inclusion and restrict access to genuine opportunities for participation. Moreover, research has shown that negative social attitudes have a direct impact on the psychological well-being of people with intellectual disabilities, affecting dimensions such as self-esteem, self-concept, and perceived personal competence (Ankori et al., 2023; Himmelberger et al., 2022; Nowakowska & Pisula, 2021).

From a psychosocial perspective, attitudes are conceptualized as relatively stable predispositions that integrate cognitive and affective components and guide the ways in which individuals evaluate and respond to different social objects (Triandis, 1971). Although these dispositions tend to show some resistance to change, numerous studies have demonstrated that attitudes toward intellectual disability can be modified through planned interventions, particularly when these combine rigorous information with meaningful experiences of social interaction.

Among the factors most consistently associated with positive attitudes toward intellectual disability is the level of contact with people with intellectual disabilities (Kármán et al., 2022; Ruano & Galán-Casado, 2024). However, the literature emphasizes that contact is not automatically effective; rather, it must occur under structured conditions and be explicitly oriented toward attitudinal change in order to generate positive effects (Vasileiadis et al., 2021).

Interventions in which people with intellectual disabilities themselves assume a central and active role therefore constitute a particularly valuable strategy, both for their empowerment and for broader social awareness-raising (Nowakowska & Pisula, 2021). Furthermore, this type of program yields benefits not only in terms of attitudinal change among participants without disabilities, but also for the people with intellectual disabilities who actively take part in these interventions (Nowakowska & Pisula, 2021; Rodríguez Herrero et al., 2023).

A recent systematic review examining programs aimed at changing attitudes toward people with intellectual disabilities (Beunza-García et al., 2025) confirms the importance of implementing intervention programs, as all of the initiatives reviewed showed positive outcomes in terms of attitudinal change. In particular, social interactions and interventions combining information with structured and planned contact with people with intellectual disabilities emerged as the most effective strategies for improving attitudes toward this group (Nowakowska & Pisula, 2021; Vasileiadis et al., 2021; Watkins & Colgate, 2016).

Within this context, the We are Accesible program is positioned as an intervention based on first-person experience and shared reflection on social accessibility. The aim of the present study is to analyze the outcomes of this program in relation to changes in attitudes toward people with intellectual disabilities, as well as to explore its potential impact and transferability to other educational and training contexts.

This study responds to the recent arrival of Ukrainian refugees in the Czech Republic and the ongoing public and professional discourse surrounding inclusive education. As schools increasingly serve linguistically and culturally diverse student populations, teachers’ attitudes play a critical role in shaping inclusive classroom practices and educational outcomes (Moberg et al., 2019; Pivarč, 2024; Woodcock & Anderson, 2024). Grounded in the tripartite ABC model of attitudes—encompassing affective, behavioral, and cognitive components— (Duckitt, 1992; Katz & Stotland, 1959; Newcomb et al., 1966), the study aims to examine the construct validity and reliability of a newly developed research instrument assessing primary school teachers’ attitudes towards both inclusive education and pupils of Ukrainian background.

The research instrument consists of two theoretically aligned scales. The first scale measures attitudes towards inclusive education and is inspired by the widely used Multidimensional Attitudes Toward Inclusive Education Scale or shortened MATIES (Mahat, 2008). However, the instrument was substantially modified to reflect the specific features of the Czech educational context; therefore, it is treated as a newly developed instrument rather than an adaptation. The second scale focuses on teachers’ attitudes towards pupils of Ukrainian background and was constructed using the same theoretical framework to ensure conceptual consistency across both measures. Both scales retain a three-dimensional structure corresponding to the ABC model and employ four-point Likert-type items.

Prior to the main data collection, the instrument underwent qualitative pretesting to evaluate item clarity and response processes. Eight focus groups involving a total of 32 teachers from four primary schools were conducted to assess participants’ understanding of the items and the functionality of the response scale. Based on participant feedback, selected items were revised to better align with their intended meanings while preserving the instrument's theoretical structure. The quantitative phase of the study will involve a convenience sample of primary school teachers from 39 schools in one region of the Czech Republic, aiming to recruit at least 600 respondents. Data will be collected through school-based survey administration. Construct validity will be tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Internal consistency will be evaluated using McDonald’s omega.

The expected outcomes of the study include verifying the instrument’s construct validity and reliability, as well as empirically measuring the affective, behavioral, and cognitive components of teachers’ attitudes. Furthermore, the study seeks to examine potential correlations among these attitude components and across both scales, thereby contributing to a more nuanced understanding of the internal structure of teacher attitudes in the context of inclusive and migration-responsive education. By developing and validating a contextually sensitive instrument, this study seeks to contribute methodologically to research on teacher attitudes while also addressing an urgent educational issue in Central Europe. Understanding how teachers perceive inclusive education and pupils with recent migration experience is essential for informing teacher preparation, professional development, and policy initiatives that support equitable educational environments (Woodcock & Jones, 2020; Yada et al., 2018). As teacher perceptions are a primary determinant of inclusive classroom culture (Woodcock & Anderson, 2024), understanding these attitudes is vital in contexts like the Czech Republic, where practitioners often view 'top-down' inclusive reforms with skepticism or resistance (Štech & Smetáčková, 2023). The findings are expected to provide empirically grounded insights into the structure of teacher attitudes and to offer a reliable measurement tool for future research examining inclusion in rapidly changing educational contexts.

Research on teachers’ attitudes on the education of disabled students is prolific and explores two usually overlapping areas, teachers’ attitudes towards disability and attitudes towards the mode of education for these students. Considering the continuous prominence of this research, the limited critique of its purpose, focus and methods within the field is puzzling and worth exploring. In the field there is almost no engagement with Slee’s (2011) position that ‘most of this work is of questionable value and much of it is very predictable in design, creation and findings’ (p. 49) since it defines disability as the problem and the disabled person as the object of attitudes with a hierarchical pathologising depending on the category and severity of impairment, and it decouples attitudes conceptually from the actual contexts where they occur. This critique moves beyond the need for ‘better’ research to question its benefit.

This is more important in a time of increased pushback to the rights, protections, participation, and even survival of disabled people. The layers of this pushback are structural, such as policy reversal, funding cuts, increased bureaucratic processes, as well as discursive. At stake here are the minds, hearts and ultimately the behaviour of non-disabled people, it is about attitudes. The presentation establishes the starting premise that attitudes are both significant and problematic aiming to challenge the discursive construct of attitudes in the mostly ahistorical and acritical conceptualisation of attitudinal research in inclusive education. The genealogical approach allows to interrogate the apparent consistency and linearity of attitudinal research on inclusion by foregrounding alternative perspectives. It does that by examining the contextual circumstances of two seminal texts and locating them within their historical context.

The first text is the early study by Norris Haring, George G. Stern and William Cruickshank, Attitudes of educators toward exceptional children, published as a monograph in 1958 and reprinted in 1978. This study allows to locate the presentation within the historical context that attitudinal research emerged in the United States and the historical connectedness between categories of race, class, gender, and disability. The discussion is centred on race at the time of Brown versus Board of Education. The second text is Vic Finkelstein’s Attitudes and Disabled People (1980). Finkelstein, as a co-founder of UPIAS, the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation, which was foundational in the articulation of the Social Model of Disability in the UK, presents a powerful conceptual and methodological critique on attitudinal research on disability of the time, including the vested interests of professionals. The presentation discusses the centrality of vested interests, including the vested interests of researchers, in the field. This historical work is of significance for the field internationally as it allows us to look at the past to explore possibilities for the future. Considering the prominence of attitudinal research, with one third of all reviewed studies in Amor et al.’s (2019) systematic review being attitudinal studies, it is essential to critically engage with it, especially in a time that the rights of disabled people are under attack.