Religious and secular students' sense of self-efficacy and attitudes towards inclusion of pupils with intellectual disability and other types of needs.
Religious teacher trainees feel more confident and willing to include students with intellectual disability than secular peers, with special-education training tipping the scale even further.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers asked teacher trainees how ready they felt to teach students with disabilities.
They compared religious college students with secular peers. Special-education majors answered the same questions.
Everyone filled out a survey on self-efficacy and willingness to include pupils with intellectual disability or severe emotional disturbance.
What they found
Religious trainees scored higher on confidence and on willingness to include these students.
Special-education majors scored highest of all. The pattern held for both disability groups.
How this fits with other research
Xie et al. (2026) later showed the same link in China: when school leaders give emotional support and training, teacher self-efficacy rises and inclusion attitudes improve.
Ahrens et al. (2011) found the opposite trend among Chinese middle-school students, who were reluctant to include peers with intellectual disability. The gap shows teacher attitudes can differ sharply from student attitudes.
Sievers et al. (2020) extended the question to university faculty and found similar attitude surveys are now used in higher-education settings.
Why it matters
You can’t boost inclusion if the adult in the room feels helpless. Start by raising self-efficacy: give clear scripts for teaching students with intellectual disability, celebrate small wins, and pair new staff with confident mentors. Faith-based or not, special-education training is the strongest predictor of positive attitudes—so push for dual certification or extra coursework for any teacher who will share a classroom with these learners.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: The aim of the present study was to investigate whether Judaism's positive attitudes toward people with disabilities would influence greater willingness towards inclusion of such people in regular classes and a greater sense of self-efficacy in working with them. METHODS: The present authors compared religious (n = 175) and secular (n = 420) Jewish students at a teacher's college with regard to these variables. The authors used the Regular Education Initiative questionnaire, which investigates teachers' self-efficacy and attitudes towards including pupils with different types of disabilities in regular education. They analysed the results according to the college students' major and the type of disability (five types at three levels of severity). RESULTS: The results indicate that religious students are more willing than non-religious students to consider the inclusion of people with four types of disabilities and have a greater sense of efficacy for dealing with all types of disabilities. The hypothesis that the milder the disability, the higher would be the teacher's sense of self-efficacy and her/his willingness for such children to be included in a regular class was sustained. The religious special education students were the only ones who exhibited willingness to include pupils with intellectual disability, and moderate and severe emotional disturbances. Students who majored in special education scored higher than all their counterparts on both measures. The results also sustain the hypothesis that there would be a positive correlation between both measures. CONCLUSIONS: To facilitate inclusive education amongst teachers and students, the present authors recommend an intervention programme designed to help students acquire knowledge and strategies about inclusion. They also suggest enriching this programme with Jewish religious sources, which reflect positive attitudes toward people with disabilities.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2002 · doi:10.1046/j.1365-2788.2002.00424.x