The purpose of the study was to determine differences in self-determination between high school students with and without disabilities and to determine the influence of three predictors of self-determination in vocational education: gender, group and grade point average. Research was done by comparing students with the method of pairs. The results show that students with disabilities have a lower level of self-determination than their peers; significant predictors of self-determination are group and grade point average. Results reveal important fields of intervention for self-determination development, especially for students with disabilities in vocational education. This is also the first study of student self-determination in Slovenian vocational education with specific cultural and education background.

The article presents a study whose aim was to learn the attitudes of teachers of upper elementary grades from mainstream schools to education including students with disabilities. It was also an attempt to learn their opinions on the chances and limitations of implementing inclusive assumptions in educational practice as well as their needs and expected support in the performance of professional tasks related to teaching students with disabilities. The study involved 145 teachers of grades 4-8 of elementary schools. The following research tools were used: The Scale of Teachers’ Attitudes to Inclusive Education, developed on the basis of the Survey of Attitudes Toward the Inclusion of Students with Special Needs by M.A. Winzer (Polish adaptation by W. Pilecka & J. Kossewska), and a survey questionnaire for teachers. The obtained results show that many teachers approach skeptically the new solutions in education for students with disabilities. Their ambiguous or negative attitude to inclusive education corresponds to the sense of lack of proper preparation to teaching students with disabilities and a critical assessment of the state of readiness of mainstream schools (both in formal and social/mental terms) to the implementation of educational inclusion assumptions.

Social and political transformations inevitably cause changes in people’s mindsets and result in conversion of a national educational system. Ukraine, as a post soviet country, is still trying to put away its totalitarian past and adopt the latest human rights policies that have been successfully functioning in the “developed” world for several decades. This study evaluates the quality of inclusive education in Ukraine, specifically focusing on services provided to families of students with disabilities whose views and opinions are often neglected by governmental officials responsible for creating inclusive environments.