Abstract:
The current study aims to investigate special school teachers and regular primary school teacher’s expectations, perceptions and beliefs around Special education in New Zealand. Regular primary schools as well as special schools were randomly selected, based on their geographical location in the Auckland region, to participate in the research. Primary school level teachers, who have experience teaching in Special education for a period of no less than six months in the past, were the target participants of the study. These teachers participated in a short questionnaire that asked for various details on their teaching background and teaching resources in their class. Interested participants were then invited to participate in a semistructured, in-depth interview with the researcher focusing on their expectations, perceptions and beliefs in several more main topics in Special education. Grounded theory was used as a tool to analyse, interpret and understand the qualitative data presented. The results indicated there are slight differences in expectations of teachers in special schools to teachers in mainstream settings in regular schools around the areas of expectations and goals for the special needs student, the effectiveness of mainstreaming special needs students and also the behaviours and expectations of the special needs student in the mainstream setting of the classroom. Teachers from both school settings also gave responses that indicated their unanimous belief of a lack of training for teachers in the Special education sector in New Zealand, and also the lack of resource funding or support from the government or outside institutions for effectively teaching a special needs student in the classroom. These results lead to conclusions that further research is needed in New Zealand around: teacher expectations of special needs students’ achievements and goals, of the current mainstreaming and inclusion policies, of service training, of funding and resource support in this field. Addressing such areas for research would help to explore whether teachers’ expectations and perceptions have positive or negative relationships with the learning and development of the special need student or others, and also whether there is a model to provide solutions to the issues noted.
