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Intergroup Relations In Inclusive Classrooms: The Development And Validation Of The Intergroup Relations Classroom Environment Scale (Irces), Matthew P. Cunningham

LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations

Before the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975), most efforts to educate students with disabilities happened in isolation. Within the last 40 years, a growing number of districts and individual schools have experimented with inclusive models in hopes of successfully educating students with and without disabilities in the same classrooms; however, general education students still hold negative attitudes toward students with disabilities. The contact hypothesis of intergroup contact theory postulates that prejudicial attitudes toward out-groups can be alleviated if the following conditions are present in and around contact situations: equal status, cooperation, common goals, and institutional support. The purpose …