A Chinese contextual study of factors influencing the acceptance of students with autism by mainstream school teachers and non-autistic peers

With the gradual increase in autism diagnosis rates in recent years, the progress of inclusive education in mainstream schools has drawn increasing societal attention. This paper aims to understand the main factors influencing the acceptance of students with autism by elementary school teachers and their non-autistic peers in China. We used a questionnaire survey to collect data and performed dimensionality reduction through exploratory factor analysis. The results indicate that for teachers, positive factors include “interest and resilience development,” “academic enablers,” and “behavioral-emotional stability,” while negative factors include “concerns about academic-social support,” “concerns about safety support,” and “concerns about sensory-physiological support.” For non-autistic peers, positive factors include “reciprocal social willingness,” “perceived low risk,” “justice-oriented motivation,” and “proactive support orientation,” while negative factors include “concern about classroom climate changes,” “concern about learning performance,” “perceived emotional distance,” and “perceived social detachment.” Through an exploratory approach, this paper identifies the main factors influencing acceptance within the Chinese educational and socio-cultural context, which can serve as a reference for improving inclusive education practices.