Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs  Volume 16  Number s1  2016
doi: 10.1111/1471-3802.12144

229–235

ATTITUDES TO NORMALISATION AND
INCLUSIVE EDUCATION
Tomomi Sanagi
Chiba University

Key words: Teacher’s image, normalisation, inclusive education, conjoint analysis.

The purpose of this paper was to clarify the featuresof teachers image on normalisation and inclusive
education. The participants of the study were bothmainstream teachers and special teachers. One hundred and thirty-eight questionnaires were analysed.
(1) Teachers completed the questionnaire of SD(semantic differential) images on normalisation. The
responses were subjected to principal factor analysis
with promax rotation. The results indicated that teachers image to normalisation was composed of fivefactors. (2) The questionnaire that consisted of 11
items on inclusive education for conjoint analysis wasevaluated by the teachers. (3) The participants weredivided into three groups with cluster analysis by the
results of teachers image on both normalisation andinclusive education. The results indicated that teachers who had a showy image on normalisation
regarded repudiation of separated learning opportunities as a symbolic image of inclusive education
practice. On the other hand, teachers who had a positive image on normalisation regarded resource room
system as a symbolic image on inclusive education.

Introduction
The growth of interest in inclusion has been landmarked
by a number of key events (Ainscow, 2002; Garner,2009). We could ﬁnd many deﬁnitions about a concept ofinclusive education (cf. Cigman, 2007; Clough and Corbett, 2002; Dyson, 2005; Loreman et. al., 2015; Rieser,
2005; Vlachou, 1997). Sanagi (2011) reviewed somestudies and deﬁned the key essence of inclusive educationas ‘expanding process of including diversity of educational needs’. Teacher’s recognition about inclusive education is essential for good practice. It seems, however,there are not so appropriate as situation.Sanagi (2014)
conducted an investigation in Japan and pointed out thatmany teachers had regarded a concept of inclusive education as ‘type of group (group organisation)’ and ‘size ofgroup’, though these factors were not directly related tothe concept of inclusive education. These keywords symbolise an existence of special education settings. Sanagi
and Matsumoto (2015) also pointed out that teacher’s
image on inclusive education were so different from eachother and difﬁcult to achieve a consensus as one concept.
ª 2016 NASEN

Needless to say, we should share the appropriate concept
of inclusive education for constructive and effective practice of inclusive education.
The idea of normalisation is also a key concept in education and social welfare area. There are no teachers who do
not know this term in Japan. There are, however, few studies to have made it clear the teacher’s image on the relationship between inclusive education and normalisation.
Teacher’s image on normalisation and the relationship ofthese two ideas are open to debate in view of the fact thatteacher’s recognition of the concept will affect an effective
practice for children with special educational needs.
The purpose of this study was to clarify the teacher’s
image on normalisation and the relationship between theimages on inclusive education and normalisation.
MethodOne hundred and thirty-eight mainstream and specialteachers were participants of this study.
We used a set of questionnaire that consisted of 34 items
for analysing SD image on normalisation and 11 items forconjoint analysis on inclusive education. The questionnaire on normalisation image was a ﬁve-point SD scalestyle. Items of the questionnaire are described in Table 3.
In the other questionnaire, for analysing teachers’ images toinclusive education, the author sets four factors in conjoint
analysis (Table 1) – factor A: Inclusivity Image; factor B:
Group Organisation; factor C: Group Size; factor D: Diversity Image. Factors A and D were closely related to inclusive
education image. On the other hand, factors B and C were
not directly related to inclusive education image. These factors were on special settings for pupils with special educational needs and/or general school environment. The reason
why I mixed these factors related to inclusive education
image or not was that it is a good way to clarify whether theteacher’s image on inclusive education is appropriate or not.
That is, if teachers would answer their image on inclusive
education as factors B and C like as Sanagi (2014, 2015), itmeans that teachers have not appropriate image on inclusive
education.

229

Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 16 229–235

Table 1: Factors and levels for questionnaire (conjoint
analysis)
Factor A(Inclusivity Image)(Level 1) put a pupil into a mainstream
Items(Level 2) expanding environment

Factor C (Group Size)

Factor D (Diversity Image)Co-operative –(Level 1) repudiation of separated(Group Organisation)

Factor1

Factor2

Factor3

Factor4

Factor
5

0.862

0.502

0.538

0.004

0.367

Balanced accordance

includes a pupil
Factor B

Table 3: Factor analysis – teachers’ normalisation
image:

Unco-operative

learning opportunity(Level 2) resource room system

Good – Bad

0.753

0.610

0.379

0.118

0.367

(Level 3) homogeneous group setting

Sympathetic –

0.725

0.401

0.362

0.013

0.417

0.717

0.509

0.546

0.016

0.376

(Level 1) individualised lesson

Unsympathetic(Level 2) a small group

Warm – Chilly(Level 3) a large group

Equal – Unequal

0.694

0.367

0.310

0.081

0.425

(Level 1) pupil with disability in a group

Harmonic –

0.690

0.494

0.284

0.100

0.238

Bright – Dark

0.679

0.635

0.382

0.075

0.290

Superior –

0.679

0.358

0.472

0.124

0.501

0.670

0.374

0.486

0.229

0.098

0.645

0.626

0.549

0.052

0.429

0.615

0.366

0.242

0.048

0.215

0.568

0.350

0.472

0.413

0.230

0.410

0.108

0.193

0.245

0.316

0.512

0.795

0.260

0.067

0.366

Likes – Dislikes

0.584

0.747

0.607

0.071

0.369

Sprightly – Tired

0.456

0.739

0.272

0.172

0.290

Interesting –

0.462

0.711

0.621

0.117

0.250

Happy – Sad

0.658

0.695

0.398

0.042

0.378

Intimate –

0.405

0.682

0.176

0.120

0.105

0.648

0.656

0.404

0.042

0.368

(Level 2) various attribution in a group

The total number of factor levels was 10 (two factor A
levels + three factor B levels + three factor C levels +two factor D levels). With the full concept method of
conjoint analysis procedure, each item for the questionnaire should be combined factor levels of those four
factors. That is, it yields 2 9 3 9 3 9 2 = 36 combination. We used orthogonal layout and ﬁnally 11 question
items were extracted for questionnaire.

Nonharmonic

Inferior
Inclusive –Exclusive
Pre-possessing –Exasperating
Compatible –Incompatible

ResultPositive –SD image to normalisation (semantic differential method;
ﬁve-point scale)
Teachers evaluated 34 items on normalisation with ﬁvepoint scale. High-average items are summarised in Table 2.
Table 2 shows that teacher’s image on normalisation isseemed to be similar to the inclusive education image. It
is worthwhile to note that terms such as ‘inclusive’,‘equal’ and ‘harmonic’ were involved.

Negative
New – Old
Familiarity
Joyful –Mournful

Uninteresting

Factor analysis of normalisation images
The responses to 34 items about normalisation image were
subjected to principal component factor analysis with promax rotation (Table 3).
Table 2: High average items of SD images towards
normalisation
Mean

Standofﬁsh
Comfortable –Uncomfortable
Free – Unfree

0.374

0.645

0.364

0.131

0.053

SD

Active – Inactive

0.591

0.597

0.464

0.239

0.289

0.234

0.562

0.258

0.190

0.063

Inclusive – Exclusive

4.28

0.80

Cheerful –Sympathetic – Unsympathetic

4.25

0.75

DismalSensitivity

New – Old

4.24

0.78

Co-operative – Unco-operative

4.20

0.77

Keen – Dull

0.365

0.299

0.771

0.165

0.316

Good – Bad

4.06

0.76

Sensitive –

0.376

0.364

0.657

0.111

0.186

Positive – Negative

4.03

0.76

Insensitive

Warm – Chilly

4.02

0.81

Careful –

0.350

0.219

0.628

0.058

0.397

Equal – Inequal

3.96

0.98

Careless
Hot – Cold

0.419

0.301

0.600

0.288

0.243

Harmonic – Nonharmonic

3.93

0.92

Compatible – Incompatible

3.91

0.95

230

ª 2016 NASEN

Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 16 229–235

Table 4: Average scores of SD image to normalisation

Table 3: Continued
Factor1

Items

Factor2

Factor3

Factor4

Factor5

Showiness
Showy –

0.007

0.149

0.144

0.712

GroupsN

Average

SD

Factor 1

X

46

3.59

0.57

Balanced accordance

Y

60

4.10

0.44

0.090

Conservatively

Z

32

4.45

0.36

Total

138

4.01

0.57

Quiet – Noisy

0.009

0.074

0.070

0.643

0.004

Factor 2

X

46

3.21

0.45

Lively – Lonely

0.164

0.257

0.207

0.573

0.043

Familiarity

Y

60

3.53

0.44

Excited – Calm

0.165

0.157

0.089

0.527

0.071

Z

32

3.93

0.57

Total

138

3.52

0.54

Factor 3

X

46

3.08

0.48

Sensitivity

Y

60

3.38

0.51

Sincerity
Sincere –

0.343

0.162

0.343

0.033

0.629

Insincere
Fair – Foul

0.312

0.316

0.270

0.008

0.523

Z

32

3.42

0.52

Beautiful –

0.254

0.126

0.228

0.317

0.494

Total

138

3.29

0.52

Factor 4

X

46

2.98

0.46

Showiness

Y

60

3.23

0.45

Z

32

2.92

0.39

Ugly
Major Factor Method: promax rotation with Kaiser Criterion
KMO = 0.880

Bartlett P < 0.001

Table 3 shows that teacher’s image on normalisationconsisted of ﬁve factors, that is, Factor 1 – Balanced
Accordance; Factor 2 – Familiarity; Factor 3 – Sensitivity;
Factor 4 – Showiness; Factor 5 – Sincerity. The Kaiser–
Meyer–Olkin (KMO) index is enough high (KMO =0.880). The P-value of Bartlett’s test is less than 0.001.
Classiﬁcation of teachers’ images with cluster analysis
Teachers’ images on normalisation and inclusive education
were classiﬁed into three groups using cluster analysis. The
number of teachers in each group is shown as Figure 1. Eachgroup consisted of both mainstream and special teachers.
Average scores of SD images about normalisation
Average scores in each factor by groups were shown in
Table 4. Nearly all highest average scores are found inGroup Z (Factor 1: F(2, 135) = 33.334, P < 0.001; Factor 2: F(2, 135) = 21.531, P < 0.001; Factor 3: F(2,135) = 6.257, P < 0.01; Factor 4: F(2, 135) = 6.340,
P < 0.01; Factor 5: F(2, 135) = 6.112, P < 0.01). It indicates that this group has most positive images of normalisation. On the other hand, Group X teachers expressed
the lowest average scores in their images towards normalisation among the groups.
Figure 1: Number of teachers (n = 138)
70
60
50
30

㪞㫉㫆㫌㫇㩷㪯
㪞㫉㫆㫌㫇㩷㪰
㪞㫉㫆㫌㫇㩷㪱

20

46

40

㪝㫀㪾㪅㩷㪈㩷㪞㫉㫆㫌㫇㫊㩷㩿㫅㪔㪈㪊㪏㪀
㪋㪍
㪍㪇
㪊㪉
60

32

Total

138

3.07

0.46

Factor 5

X

46

3.16

0.42

Sincerity

Y

60

3.46

0.54

Z

32

3.49

0.51

Total

138

3.37

0.51

All average scores differed signiﬁcantly in each factor (P < 0.001) (exception: Group Y-Z in Factor 3, Group X-Z in Factor 4 and Group Y-Z
in Factor 5).

Conjoint analysis for the images of inclusive education
In this section, the results of conjoint analysis on teacher’s images towards inclusive education will be shown.
The relative importance in Figures 2-1, 3-1 and 4-1 indicated what factor in the conjoint analysis was estimatedas close to inclusive education image. For example, we
can ﬁnd that teachers recognised ‘group organisation (factor B)’ as their close factor to inclusive education image
in Figure 2-1. On the other hand, ‘diversity image (factor4)’ was not taken into consideration by teachers in theirimage on inclusive education in Figure 2-1.
The ﬁgures about utility scores show what factor level
contributes to teacher’s image on inclusive education(Figures 2-2 to 2-4, 3-2 to 3-4, and 4-2 to 4-4). For
example, the factor level ‘resource room system (Figure 2-3)’ in factor B (group organisation) contributed tomake teachers’ image on inclusive education than otherfactor levels (‘repudiation of separated learning opportunities’ and ‘homogeneous group setting’).
Group X. Figures 2–4 show the result of conjoint
analysis by each group.

100Group XGroup YGroup Z

Number of Teachers (n=138)ª 2016 NASEN

Figures 2-1 to 2-5 show relative importance and utility
scores on factor A to D of Group X. (See Table 1 forfactors in conjoint analysis) (Figure 2-1: relative impor231

Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 16 229–235

Figure 2: (2-1) Relative importance (n = 46). (2-2) Utility score (inclusivity image). (2-3) Utility score (grouporganisation). (2-4) Utility score (group size). (2-5) Utility score (diversity image)
50
45
40
35
30
25
20

37.88

15
10

26.71
20.29
15.13

5
0
inclusivity
image

group
organizaon

0.6

group
size

0.6
0.4

0.4
0.1812

0.2

0.2

0.372

0

0

-0.0048-0.2-0.2-0.1812-0.3671

-0.4

-0.4

-0.6

-0.6

repudiaon of
separated learning
opportunies

put a pupil with disability expanding environment
into a group
includes a pupil

resource room
systemhomogeneousgroup seng

0.6

0.6

0.4

0.4
0.2

diversity
image

0.14010.2

0.14010.034400-0.2802

-0.2

-0.2

-0.0344

-0.4

-0.4

-0.6

-0.6
individuala small grouppupil with disability in agroup

a large grouptance; Figure 2-2: factor A; Figure 2-3: factor B; Figure 2-4: factor C; Figure 2-5: factor D).
Group X was characterised as:• regards resource room system as the image on inclusive
education• deny a homogeneous group setting• individual and a small group is the close image ofinclusive education• had not so positive image to normalisation (Table 4)Group X was named as ‘denying a homogeneous and alarge group type’.

various abuon in agroup

• to deny strongly any kind of segregated setting andhomogeneous group setting in the inclusive education
image• had speciﬁc strong ‘showy’ images towards normalisation (Table 4)• had appropriate image about diversity

It seems that Group Y can be named as ‘strongly denying
separated learning opportunity type’ from Figures 3-3 and3-4.
Group Z. Figures 4-1 to 4-5 show relative importanceand utility scores on factor A to D of Group Z.
This type was characterised as:Group Y. Figures 3-1 to 3-5 show relative importanceand utility scores on factor A to D of Group Y.

• regards resource room system as the symbolic image

This type was characterised as:• had an image of individualised and separated learning• had images as a large learning group size oriented to• oriented individual settings more strongly than Groupon inclusive education

inclusive education

232

opportunities as inclusive educationXª 2016 NASEN

Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 16 229–235

Figure 3: (3-1) Relative importance (n = 60). (3-2) Utility score (inclusivity image). (3-3) Utility score (grouporganisation). (3-4) Utility score (group size). (3-5) Utility score (diversity image)
50
45
40
35
30
25
20

35.25

15
10
5

32.56
16.98

15.21

0
inclusivity
image

group
organizaon

0.6

diversity
image

0.6
0.4

0.4
0.15560.2

0.2

0.4463

0

0
-0.2

group
size

-0.2815-0.2-0.1556-0.1648

-0.4

-0.4
-0.6
-0.6

repudiaon of
separated learning
opportunies

put a pupil with disability expanding environment
into a group
includes a pupil

0.4

0.4
0.49070.2

0.16390.2
00-0.3648-0.2-0.1259-0.1639

-0.4

-0.4

-0.6

-0.6
individuala small groupa large group• to deny a large group in the inclusive education image• recognised the inclusive education issues as just about

pupils with disabilities• had overall positive images to normalisation• showed highest relative importance score at ‘grouporganisation’Group Z can be named as ‘individualised resource roomoriented type’ from Figures 4-1 and 4-5.
The number of this type was not so large; however, they
seemed to have had the most positive images towards
normalisation.
Discussion
The results indicated that teachers had various images
towards both normalisation and inclusive education. The
author found out that we could classify teacher’s attitudes
into some sub-types. Teachers who had a symbolic imageof inclusive education as ‘repudiation of segregated learning opportunities’ (Group Y), that is, their image on
inclusive education was that special schools and specialclassrooms/units will be closed, had an image on normaliª 2016 NASEN

homogeneousgroup seng

0.6

0.6

-0.2

resource room
systempupil with disability in agroup

various abuon in agroup

sation as something ‘showiness’. It seemed that this kindof view was derived from their knowledge of the special
school system in Japan. We have over a thousand special
schools in Japan (MEXT, 2014). It means that many
pupils with disabilities, except pupils with learning disabilities (speciﬁc learning disorders) or AD/HD, areschooling at special schools. It stands to reason that manyteachers easily recognise the standard style of traditional
special education was developed at special schools. It isreasonable to assume that teachers have something showy
image on normalisation because their understanding(misunderstanding) on inclusive education was to close
special schools and classrooms as a revolutionary andradical progress in the education system in Japan. It also
seems that their knowledge of normalisation consisted of
the image of closing special schools.
On the other hand, teachers whose image on inclusive
education (Group X) was related on resource room system and individual learning style with denying a homogeneous group setting recognised normalisation as not sopositive. It was likely that this was affected by the image
on ‘assimilation’.
233

Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 16 229–235

Figure 4: (4-1) Relative importance (n = 32). (4-2) Utility score (inclusivity image). (4-3) Utility score (grouporganisation). (4-4) Utility score (group size). (4-5) Utility score (diversity image)
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

46.39

23.68
15.62

14.31

inclusivity
image

group
organizaon

0.6

group
size

diversity
image

0.6
0.4

0.4
0.18230.2

0.5764

0.2
0

0

-0.2

-0.2
-0.1823-0.434-0.1424

-0.4

-0.4

-0.6
-0.6

repudiaon of
separated learning
opportunies

put a pupil with disability expanding environment
into a group
includes a pupil

0.4

0.4

0.2

0.14960.08330.045100-0.0833-0.2-0.2-0.1944
-0.4

-0.4
-0.6

-0.6
individuala small groupa large group

Teachers who had the most positive image on normalisation(Group Z) regarded resource room system as a symbolic
image on inclusive education like as Group X. The difference between Groups X and Z was on the notice of separated
education settings. The speciﬁc feature of Group Z teachers
was that their image on inclusive education was strongly
related to the individualised resource room system (Figure 4-2 and 4-3). This was probably because those teachersin Group Z confused inclusive education with normalisation
as the same idea, though those two were closely related.
In conclusion, teachers’ images on both normalisationand inclusive education were various and were affectedby the image on those two ideas.

Acknowledgements
This study was supported by JSPS KAKENHI (Grant in
Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research) grant number
26590255.
Conﬂicts of interest
The author have no conﬂict of interest directly relevant tothe content of this article.
234

homogeneousgroup seng

0.6

0.6

0.2

resource room
systempupil with disability in agroup

various abuon in a
group

Address for correspondence
Tomomi Sanagi,
Chiba University.
Faculty of Education, Chiba University, 1-33, Yayoi,
Inage, Chiba, Japan 263-8522
Email: sanagitomomi@gmail.com

References
Ainscow, M. (2002) ‘Using research to encourage thedevelopment of inclusive practices.’ In P. Farrell &M. Ainscow (eds), Making Special Education
Inclusive. From Research to Practice, pp. 25–38.
London: David Fulton Publishers.
Cigman, R. (ed.) (2007) Included of Excluded? The
Challenge of the Mainstream for Some SEN Children.
London: Routledge.
Clough, P. & Corbett, J. (2002) Theories of Inclusive
Education. London: Paul Chapman Publishing.
Dyson, A. (2005) ‘Special needs education as the way toequity: an alternative approach?’ In J. Rix, K.
Simmons, M. Nind, K. Sheehy (eds), Policy andª 2016 NASEN

Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 16 229–235

Power in Inclusive Education, pp. 121–9. London:Open University, RoutledgeFalmer.
Garner, P. (2009) Special Educational Needs. The Key
Concepts. London: Routledge.
Loreman, T., Deppeler, J. & Harvey, D. (2010) Inclusive
Education. Supporting Diversity in the Classroom.
Melbourne: Allen & Unwin.
MEXT(Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Scienceand Technology, Japan) (2014) Report on School
Basic Survey. (http://www.mext.go.jp/comp
onent/b_menu/other/__icsFiles/aﬁeldﬁle/2014/12/19/
1354124_1_1.pdf). Tokyo. Japan.
Rieser, R. (2005) ‘The struggle for inclusion: the growthof a movement.’ In M. Nind, J. Rix, K. Sheehy, K.
Simmons (eds), Inclusive Education: Diverse
Perspectives, pp. 174–92. London: David Fulton
Publishers.
Sanagi, T. (2011) A Design for Experimental Inclusive
School. Bulletin of the Faculty of Education, vol. 59,ª 2016 NASEN

pp. 1–6. Chiba, Japan: Chiba University (inJapanese).
Sanagi, T. (2014) What aspects of inclusive education areemphasized by teachers in Japan? The Clute InstituteInternational Business & Education Conferences (SanFrancisco), pp. 366-1.
Sanagi, T. (2015) Are there any differences between
mainstream and special schools teachers in the image
on inclusive education? The Clute InstituteInternational Business & Education Conferences(London).
Sanagi, T. & Matsumoto, Y. (2015) Teacher’s image on
Inclusive education -classiﬁcation using conjoint
analysis. International Conference for Academic
Disciplines 2015 (Las Vegas).
Vlachou, A. D. (1997) Struggles for Inclusive Education.
London: Open University Press.

235