Attitudes towards Disability and Burnout among Teachers in Inclusive Schools in France

Western countries have placed a lot of importance on school inclusion policies in the last decade. Strong promotion of these policies encourages teachers to express egalitarian attitudes and behaviours towards all students. However, at the same time teachers may experience feelings of discomfort because of perceived difficulties and powerlessness in implementing the inclusion policy. The discrepancy between what teachers say and their internal discomfort can lead to burnout. The aim of this study was to test the relationship between a teacher's implicit and explicit attitudes towards disability and burnout. To this end, we used explicit self-reported measures of attitudes and burnout, and a specific paradigm to assess implicit attitudes towards disability (disability-IAT). Results showed that implicit attitudes were significantly more negative than explicit attitudes. The more positive the explicit attitudes, the less the individuals experienced exhaustion, whereas the more negative the implicit attitudes, the more exhausted the respondents felt. These results suggest teachers need to internalise positive feelings about inclusion to protect themselves against risks of emotional exhaustion.