Nineteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

The study investigates caregivers’ knowledge of inclusive education in early childhood centres in Osun State. It also considers the attitude of caregivers toward the implementation of inclusive education in the study area. It further examines the relationship between the caregivers’ knowledge of inclusive education and their attitudes towards its implementation in the study area as well the influence of variables such as caregivers’ educational qualification and years of experience on their attitude towards the implementation of inclusive education in early childhood education centres in Osun State. The study adopted a survey research design. The population for the study comprised all preschool teachers across the three senatorial districts in Osun State. The sample size for this study consisted of 450 caregivers selected using multistage sampling procedure. An instrument titled ‘Caregivers Knowledge and Attitude Towards Integration of Inclusive Education Questionnaire (CKATIIEQ) was employed. The results among others show that that a significant relationship was found between caregivers’ knowledge of inclusive education and their attitudes towards its implementation (χ2 (n = 448) = 31.22, df = 2, p < .05). Results further reveal that there was no significant influence of caregivers’ educational qualification (χ2 (n = 448) = 2.036, df = 2, p > .05) and caregivers’ years of teaching experience χ2 (n = 448) = 6.577, df = 4, p > .05) on their attitude towards the implementation of inclusive education. The study concludes that knowledge of inclusive education of caregivers in early childhood education in Osun State was partial.