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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1448935

Academic outcomes of inclusive education in typically developing children

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 University of East Sarajevo, East Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • 2 Faculty of Special Education and Rehabilitation, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
  • 3 University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The fact that inclusive education has existed in Bosnia and Herzegovina for twenty years opens the question of how it affects typically developing children, among other things. This paper aims to examine the differences in general knowledge and mathematics of typically developing students with regard to whether they attend classes that include students with intellectual disabilities or not, as well as to determine the relationship of their knowledge with teachers' characteristics and the inclusiveness of schools they attend. The sample included 331 students from 18 regular elementary school classes. The sample was divided into two subsamples -respondents who attended classes that included students with intellectual disabilities and respondents who attended classes that did not include any students with disabilities. The Peabody Individual Achievement Test -revised was used to assess general knowledge and mathematics, while My Thinking About Inclusion Scale, Bender Classroom Structure Questionnaire, Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practices, and Inclusive Process Evaluation Scale were used for assessing the teacher and school variables. No statistically significant difference was found between the two subsamples. The schools' inclusiveness was related to better achievements of all respondents, mainly in terms of work organization. The examined teachers' characteristics established different relationships with academic achievements in different subsamples. Attending classes with a student with intellectual disability did not negatively affect the academic achievements of other students in class. The school's inclusiveness in terms of work organization was positively related to the academic achievement of all students, while the relation of teachers' characteristics with students' achievements is a complex phenomenon that requires further research. Given the results obtained, to achieve better academic outcomes, teachers in classrooms attended by students with intellectual disability should be encouraged to use metacognitive and individualized teaching strategies. Furthermore, school principals and school administration would contribute to the success of all students by organizing the school on the principles of inclusion.

    Keywords: Knowledge test, Intellectual Disabilities, Mathematics, General knowledge, school inclusiveness, teacher characteristics

    Received: 14 Jun 2024; Accepted: 11 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Bakoč, Brojčin, Banković, Glumbić and Djordjevic. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Mirjana Djordjevic, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

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