Abstract

The aim of this study is to develop a scale of social acceptance for determining the social acceptance levels of special-needs students, participating in inclusion practices. The target population of the research is 8th grade students of all primary schools in the provincial center of Burdur in the 2008 to 2009 academic year and the target study group is the total 304 students of 8th grade of the 7 primary schools randomly designated among all schools. Of the scale of social acceptance developed after the study with the aim of determining whether the target study group is sufficient, the value of KMO and Bartlett’s coefficients has been calculated and the results have been found suitable for the factor analysis. At the end of the principal components’ analysis for the purpose of obtaining info about the scale’s validity, it was observed that the scale of social acceptance has a 3-factored structure and the total variance percentage expressed by these factors was found to be 46.666%. The first of the three factors constituting the scale is described as “Social Skills”, the second “Student Behavior” and the third as “Peer Attitude”. Cronbach alpha reliability co-efficient of the scale of social acceptance is found out as 927.

Key words: Inclusion, social acceptance, scale of social acceptance, special needs student.