The Attitude of Parents and Teachers to Inclusive Education in Russia and Kazakhstan: A Comparative Analysis

This article focuses on the attitudes of teachers and parents in Russia and Kazakhstan to inclusive education. We argue that parents and teachers are important actors in school inclusion and their attitudes are crucial in promoting inclusive education. Using data from a mass survey of parents and teachers in Russia and Kazakhstan, we describe their attitudes and identify their multi-component and hierarchical structure using factor analysis. Our analysis reveals no significant difference in the attitudes of teachers and parents between Russia and Kazakhstan. We explain this by the common Soviet legacy in social policies and the similarity of the regulations for inclusive education in the two countries. We also reveal a significant heterogeneity of attitudes within countries. In both countries, parents generally express anxiety about educating their children in an inclusive school but among the parents in Kazakhstan this anxiety is more pronounced. Teachers in Kazakhstan express greater uncertainty about the inclusive education and their own readiness for inclusion. The polarization of attitudes, however, is more pronounced in Russia.