Inclusive education a “rhetoric” or “reality”? Teachers' perspectives and beliefs

•The official rhetoric on inclusive education has only minimal effects on classroom practices.•A recurrent theme in the study was the idea of a “special education teacher” for a “special education student”.•Deeply ingrained social factors such as “religion” and “teaching to test” have hindered the implementation of inclusive education policies.•Systematic structural barriers such as “lack of training opportunities” emerged as a major concern.

The aim of this interpretive study was to examine the perceptions and beliefs of general education teachers in Delhi, India, about the inclusion of students with disabilities (SWDs) in regular education classrooms. In this study, with hermeneutic phenomenology as its methodological framework, 15 semi-structured interviews of public school teachers in Delhi were conducted. Each interview, lasting from 30 to 45 min, was recorded and transcribed. The data were analyzed using a constant comparative method. The following conclusions were drawn: (1) Sociocultural ideologies on disability have affected the education of SWDs, and (2) systematic institutional barriers have led teachers to accept inclusion only “in theory.”