Current Status and the Role of Inclusive Education Web sites for School Teachers and Parents

Background/Objectives: This study investigates the potential impacts of inclusive education in day care center, and reviews issues about supporting services including web sites as a community of knowledge. Methods/Statistical Analysis: Literature review method is applied to investigate the expected effects and barriers of inclusive education and promoting factors for improving educational excellence such as teachers' attitude and efficacy toward disabled children, supporting services for disabled children. Some Korean and international web-sites for inclusive education as the community of knowledge are also examined. Findings: Most teachers agree to the value and effectiveness of inclusive education but a teacher efficacy level required to guide and lead children with disabilities in the actual field is relatively low. The lack of disability-related knowledge and skills, know how of classroom management strategies, lack of faith in the educational effectiveness of interventions was reported as barriers. Promoting factors for effective inclusive education include positive attitude and efficacy toward disabled children, efficient supporting services for disabled children, and the cooperation system among general nursing teachers, special education teachers and therapists. In order to build the partnership, portal sites in the form of knowledge community is needed. But in reality, it is not easy to operate inclusive education portals with profitability, some of which are examined in the paper. Budget support from government or non-profit organizations is essential for effective operation of portal sites. Improvements/Applications: The results can be applied to derive various policies for reducing burden of teachers and improving the efficacy of teachers working in the inclusive education field.