The role of the educational counselor in the inclusion and integration processes

The current study examined the attitudes and perceptions of educational counselors with respect to the inclusion of students with special needs in mainstream classrooms (mandated by the Israeli Special Education law), along with assessing their sense of self-efficacy, job satisfaction and stress. 101 elementary and middle school educational counselors filled out questionnaires on self-efficacy, job satisfaction, stress and mainstreaming perceptions. In addition, 11 semi-structured interviews were conducted in order to gain a deeper understanding of the ways they cope with inclusion. Significant differences were found between elementary school and middle school educational counselors in their attitudes toward inclusion, where elementary school counselors were more favorable, had a higher sense of self-efficacy and expressed more positive attitudes towards inclusion. Self-efficacy and job satisfaction were correlated. In general, educational counselors deal with a wide variety of stress factors and are aware of the difficulties inherent to social inclusion as compared to academic inclusion.