Font Size: 

Background: Inclusive education is one of the methods to give equal opportunities for students with special needs in order to gain education like students without special needs. Based on the 1945 Constitution Article 31 paragraph 1 and Law Number 20 Year 2003 concerning the national education system, that every Indonesia citizen has the same opportunity or right to obtain the education. But to be able to prepare quality inclusive education, there needs to be good cooperation between various parties, particularly teacher and children without special needs that will frequently make direct contact with the student with special needs. Students without special needs attitudes and acceptance towards students with special needs will affect the quality of interaction. The student without special needs who have positive attitudes and acceptance will show a willingness to interact and play together with students with disabilities. It will affect the participation of students with disabilities in daily activities in the kindergarten setting.  Eventually,  students with special needs will have many opportunities to be involved in various activities or games in the inclusive kindergarten. The attitude and acceptance of student without special needs of students towards the student with special needs can also be influenced by the quality of interaction between teachers and students. This is because teachers often also function as role models, especially for young children in socializing and interacting with friends around them. When the teacher shows a positive way of interacting, the child will also have a positive perception when building interactions and socializing with friends or others. Therefore, a warm and positive interaction between teacher and student will increase the willingness of student without disabilities to make interaction and play together with the student with special needs. So there needs to be a study to examine whether there is an association between the quality of teacher and child relations and acceptance of children without special needs towards children with special needs.

 

Methods. This study involved 30 inclusive kindergarten teachers and 120 inclusive kindergarten students without special needs age 5-6 years old, who ever made contact with student with special needs. Accidental sampling were used as a method to select the samples. This quantitative study used questionnaire as instrument to collect data. The instruments that used in this study were Student-Teacher Relationship Scale-22 Item (STRS) by Sette, Zuffiano, Lucidi, Laghi, Lonigro, and Baumgartner, and Acceptance Scale for Kindergarten-Revised (ASK-R) by Favazza, Philipsen, and Kumar. This study used Pearson Correlation as a statistical method to examines the association between teacher-student relationships and peer acceptance toward student with special needs age 5-6 years old in inclusion kindergartens settings.

 

Results: On going data collection

 

Conclusions:. On going research

 

Added-Values: Most research about the associations between peer acceptance and teacher-student relationship used students in elementary or secondary schools as samples and conducted in environmental settings that are not inclusion. However, this study can fill this gap by targeting samples in early childhood and in inclusion environment settings. Contribution to the society: This study is expected to contribute by giving school leaders and teachers better understanding about how significant the association between the interaction between teacher and student and the level of acceptance of students with special needs. Students will perceive their teacher as a role model and interact openly and positive with other students. This will certainly contribute to students with special needs to be able to participate more in school activities. Eventually, the indicators and targets of education for the students with special needs will be more easily achieved.