Poder, traducción e ideología

The layout and format of the educational staff and pupil questionnaires were modelled in accordance with the recommendations of writers on research methods, such as Robson (2011) and Cohen, Manion, and Morrison (2007). The final versions of the questionnaires for these two cohorts, delivered for the data collection in the fieldwork, can be found, respectively, in Appendices III and IV.

3.5.2.1 Questionnaire for Educational Staff

The questionnaire for the educational staff consists of one section measuring staff’s perceptions on school ethos on inclusion. A high score indicates an inclusive perception of school ethos whereas a low score suggests a less inclusive. In particular, they were asked to respond to each statement on a 4-point Likert Scale, expressing level of agreement with the statement (from 1, strongly disagree, to 4, strongly agree). A 4-point Likert scale was used due to its advantage of reducing the social-desirability bias (Garland, 1991). Of the 26 items for the measurement, seven were reversed (i.e. 3, 10, 11, 14, 21, 23, 24). The ethos questionnaire for educational staff is an adjusted version of one used for pupils. The rationale was to triangulate pupils and educational staff’s perspectives on ethos and identify any differences. The inclusive ethos scale for educational staff contains 26 items covering two main constructs: the first is behaviour management encapsulated by 12 items pertaining to: a) consistency, b) clarity, c) behaviour management strategies, d) responsibility, e) beliefs about reducing exclusions and f) fairness in the school rules. The second construct measures inclusion and involves 14 items referring to: a) beliefs about inclusion, b) respect between staff and pupils, c) access to decision making (or autonomy), c) school encouragement, d) encouragement from others, e) praise of pupils’ academic attainment, f) praise of pupils’ academic effort, and g) access to equal opportunities. A detailed organisation of statements within educational staff questionnaire can be found in (Appendix II).

3.5.2.2 Questionnaire for Pupils

The questionnaire for pupils contained 56 items systematically informed by existing measures (see Table 3.3), and consisted of three sections, as follows: school belonging, inclusive ethos and social relations. A detailed organisation of statements within the questionnaire is given in Appendix I. The pupils were asked to respond to each statement on a 5-point Likert Scale, expressing level of agreement (from 1, strongly disagree, to 5, strongly agree). The choice of a 5-point Likert scale was so as to reduce the task difficulty (Krosnick & Presser, 2010), as the pupils were being asked to complete a relatively long questionnaire. Of the 56 statements, twelve were reversed (i.e. 7, 28, 30, 32, 33, 35, 48, 50, 51, 53, 54, 56). The main reason for altering item wording is to minimise extreme response and acquiescent biases. Misinterpretation of negatively worded items, neglecting to reverse the score on the part of respondents, as well as miscoding on the part of researcher are some of the disadvantages of altering items (Weems, 2007). Section I: School Belonging

The school belonging to an institution consists of nine items, and is defined by five variables, namely, liking, participation in activities, liking to express one’s opinion, equality, and the value of school. A high score suggests a strong sense of belonging while a low score a weak one.

Section II: Inclusive Ethos

The inclusive ethos scale contains seventeen items, and consists of two main constructs. The first dimension measures behaviour management with six items relating to a) consistency, b) clarity, and c) fairness of school rules. The second dimension measures inclusion and involves eleven items covering: a) school’s values of students, b) access to decision making (autonomy), c) school encouragement, d) encouragement from others, e) praise of pupils’ academic attainment, f) praise of pupils’ academic effort and g) access to equal opportunities. Most of the items in this section are adjusted items taken from the school ethos questionnaire developed by Hatton (2013) to explore educational staff perceptions of practices in school as well as beliefs about inclusion and exclusion. A high score indicates that the pupil perceives the school as being inclusive while a low score suggests a less inclusive.

Section III: Social Relations

This section contains thirty items and examines pupils’ social relations with teachers, teaching assistants, and pupils. The scale of pupils’ social relations with teachers is covered by ten items, and measured by four constructs: 1) pupils’ beliefs about their teachers, 2) pupils’ behaviour towards their teachers, 3) pupils’ perspectives about teachers’ beliefs about them and 4) pupils’ perspectives about teachers’ behaviour towards them. The items pertaining to this scale were either developed by the researcher or taken from pre-existing scales as they were, or slightly modified.

Similar constructs to those for pupil-to-teacher relations were defined for pupil-to-TA relations, which contains 10 items. The first five pertain to measuring pupils with SEN’s relations with their individual TA, and the other five items are about measuring pupils’ relation with TAs in class, the: 1) pupils’ beliefs about their TAs, 2) pupils’ behaviour towards their TAs, 4) pupils’ perspectives about TAs’ beliefs about them, 5) pupils’ perspectives about TAs’ behaviour towards them. All items involved in this scale were inspired by/drawn from pre-existing pupil-to-teacher relation scales. Pupils with no SEN, or those who did not work individually with a TA were advised to skip the first five statements. The instructions can be found in Appendix IV. In the same vein, pupil-to- pupil relations contain 10 items for four constructs: 1) pupils’ beliefs about their peers, 2) pupils’ behaviour towards their peers, 3) pupils’ perspectives about peers’ beliefs about them, e) pupils’ perspectives about their peers’ behaviour towards them. A high score means a positive perception on social relations while a low score indicates a negative one.