Inclusive Early Education in the Gulf context: An Assessment of Quality of Practices by School Leaders

The 2022 World Conference on Early Childhood Education resulted in the Tashkent Declaration, which emphasized the need for an extension of early childhood education to vulnerable children, such as those living with a form of disability. A Gulf country, United Arab Emirates (UAE), participated in the world conference and committed towards practicing inclusive education. In this study, ecological system model was operationalized as conceptual framework to understand the quality of inclusive practices from the perspective of 151 early childhood education school leaders who completed the quality scale of inclusive school (QU!S–S). The data were subjected to computation of confirmatory factor, t-test, analysis of variances, and regression analysis. The study provides support for the hypothesized structural validity of the QU!S–S, and demographics provide additional insight into inclusive practices. It concludes with a call on policymakers in the UAE to reflect the tenets of the ecological system model in future early school inclusive policy.