Some subjective and objective prerequisites to educational integration of handicapped children.

The success of educational integration of handicapped children is dependent upon, inter alia, the attitudes of social groups involved in the integration (subjective prerequisites) and from certain characteristics of the schools in which they are being integrated (objective prerequisites). In the latter case, an investigation was carried out on the attitudes of teachers at regular and special schools, of handicapped and non-handicapped school-children and the parents of both samples of children by means of the Lickert-type questionnaires, and the data processed by means of the multivariate analysis method. In the case of regular school teachers, an analysis was made also of the relationship between their concept of integration and their attitude towards the educational role of the school as an institution and towards their socioeconomic status. The objective prerequisites of integration were estimated by investigating in loco the conditions in regular schools, and through interviews with the responsible school staff. The factor analysis of the random samples investigated enabled factors to be extracted which, in respect to the integration, proved to be favorable to unfavorable. Some of these factors are of a general nature, in the sense that they refer to all the children, whereas other factors are specific, i. e. they refer to the type of disability. An examination of the objective prerequisites of integration produced findings which could lead to a suitable policy in preparing objective conditions for integration. The whole of this investigation was carried out within the framework of a research project of the Faculty of Defectology in Zagreb, lead by Prof. Dr. Franjo Tonković.