Introduction

In the context of inclusive education worldwide, the past two decades have witnessed many countries’ attempts to provide equitable and high-quality education for all learners, especially for those with a recognized disability and/or special educational needs (SEN) (Mendoza and Heymann, 2024; Yada et al., 2022). Of all the ongoing endeavors toward greater inclusion, educators, being at the frontline of driving inclusion success, have been viewed as fundamentally key change agents (Mendenhall et al., 2021; Wray et al., 2022). How to stimulate teachers’ intentions to implement inclusive practices has thus garnered an abundance of attention from both scholars and practitioners in the field of special and inclusive schooling (Ahmmed et al., 2014; Almalky and Alrabiah, 2024; Opoku et al., 2021a).

Teacher intention to implement inclusive practices does not emerge naturally. It is dependent on loads of organizational and individual antecedents that are congruent with the kernel of inclusive schooling (Mendoza and Heymann, 2024; Opoku et al., 2021a). Previous scholarly work has revealed two organizational requirements for motivating and sustaining teachers’ change intentions, i.e., principal leadership and school climate (Billingsley et al., 2018; Pedaste et al., 2024; Yin et al., 2022). Firstly, principal leadership, especially transformational principalship, may act as a pivotal contributor to motivating teachers’ behavioral intentions as it shapes organizational conditions, school culture, and teachers’ psychological states (Lambrecht et al., 2022; Ninković et al., 2024). Principals’ transformational leadership practices could enable inclusive practitioners to form inclusive beliefs and implement inclusive practices by establishing inclusive working climates (Óskarsdóttir et al., 2020; Poon-McBrayer and Wong, 2013). Moreover, by establishing an inclusive school ecology where teachers could spontaneously work together interactively and collectively devote themselves to catering to students’ diverse learning needs, transformational principalship is promising to strengthen teacher efficacy toward inclusive schooling (Fu et al., 2021; Wang and Zhang, 2021). Such efficacious beliefs toward inclusion have been highlighted as the foundation of teacher intention to teach inclusively among numerous individual factors (Kiel et al., 2020; Mendoza and Heymann, 2024; Opoku et al., 2021a; Woodcock et al., 2022).

Previous researchers often examined the predictors of inclusive education intentions at the individual teacher level, such as teachers’ attitudes, concerns, or self-efficacy toward inclusion (Ahmmed et al., 2014; Opoku et al., 2021b; Sahli Lozano et al., 2021; Sharma et al., 2018; Yan and Sin, 2014), with a rare empirical exploration of other enablers on an organizational level. However, individuals’ behavioral change intention as a psychological development state appears to rely on their comprehensive evaluation of the situation or circumstance (Mendoza and Heymann, 2024). How teachers comprehend contextual cultures, perceive situated school climates, and identify the characteristics of uncertain work challenges all exert significant effects on their potential behavioral intentions (Yin et al., 2022). Therefore, it is vital to research teachers’ intentions to teach inclusively in a broader organizational context. Meanwhile, there is an apparent lack of academic explorations regarding the potential mechanism of how inclusive educators convert external organizational conditions into internal change intentions to implement inclusive education.

Both organizational and individual factors in inclusive schools could hardly escape the influence of the cultural and contextual forces, and teacher behavioral intentions to implement inclusive change would be no exception (Almalky and Alrabiah, 2024). Yet, most findings of teacher intention in implementing inclusion have been limited to few geographical (i.e. especially Europe and North America) areas (Almalky and Alrabiah, 2024; Miesera et al., 2019; Opoku et al., 2021a; Sahli Lozano et al., 2021). The policy, cultural, and contextual concerns of the Chinese cultural countries (e.g., China, Singapore, Vietnam, etc.) elicit the necessity for this study. The schooling context in mainland China, where this study was conducted, has displayed several distinctive contextual features. First, the Chinese government has launched an inclusive model called “Learning in Regular Classrooms” (LRC) since the 1980s, as an indigenized response to the international trend of inclusive education (Qu, 2022). Through the past four decades of development, LRC has changed its early focus on enrollment for students with disabilities to a more inclusive mandate of quality education for all. The latest data showed that almost half of students with disabilities attended mainstream schools through LRC (Ministry of Education, 2024). In this context, school leaders need to recognize the necessity of inclusive education, reforming the way of school management, and leading teachers to respond to students’ diverse and unique learning needs. Frontline teachers need to build behavioral intentions to implement inclusive change, innovate their pedagogies, and ultimately transmute into inclusive teaching activities (Wang and Zhang, 2021).

The second feature of Chinese cultures is large power differences between principals and teachers and strong respect for authority are ubiquitous in schools (Hofstede et al., 2010; Liu and Hallinger, 2021). Principals in Chinese schools enjoy absolute power in leading and deciding school affairs, and teachers also attach great importance to abiding by the principals’ expectations and requirements (Yin and Zheng, 2018). Therefore, without top-down transformational leadership directives regarding inclusive education from principals, teachers’ intentions to teach inclusively could hardly be truly aroused (Pedaste et al., 2024).

Another feature is China’s examination-oriented elitist education system. In Chinese schools, a dominant discourse characterized by standardized curriculum, test-driven instruction, and fierce competition for scores has been formulated (Deng et al., 2023). The reputations of schools and educators also ultimately hinge on their students’ success in the exam (Qu, 2022). This tends to be unfavorable for establishing inclusive cultures and climates in schools, as students with disabilities are usually less able to compete academically. Moreover, teachers are more likely to experience lower levels of efficacy in teaching students with disabilities and implementing inclusive practices, since both the attention and support that the school invests in inclusive practices are nowhere near enough in this utilitarian setting (Xie et al., 2022). These disadvantaging conditions might pose potential impediments to teachers’ intention to implement inclusive practices.

To sum up, this study seeks to explore the relationships between transformational leadership, school climate, teacher efficacy, and teacher intention in the inclusive education context within Chinese culture to yield new additions to the existing literature. Meanwhile, unlike most previous researchers who mainly discussed the individual predictors of teachers’ intentions toward inclusion (e.g., Almalky and Alrabiah, 2024; Miesera et al., 2019; Sahli Lozano et al., 2021; Sharma and Jacobs, 2016; Yan and Sin, 2014), this study integrated the facilitative organizational and individual factors that may encourage teachers’ inclusive education intentions. In this sense, manageable implications may be provided via the results, which could further inspire first-line educators’ willingness toward inclusion.

Literature review

Teacher intention to implement inclusive practices

Behavioral intention as an essential element that motivates humans to act their actions, refers to the extent of an individual’s willingness to engage in a specific behavior (Opoku et al., 2021a). Teachers’ intentions to teach inclusively are consistently believed as an essential prerequisite of inclusive pedagogy improvement and effective change toward inclusion (Almalky and Alrabiah, 2024; Miesera et al., 2019). To measure teacher intention for inclusive education, Mahat (2008) developed three subscales for evaluating teachers’ attitudes toward inclusion, including affective attitude, cognitive components, and behavior intention. Some scholars adopted the subscale of behavior intention and attempted to explore educators’ understanding and behavioral reactions to school-wide inclusive reform (e.g. Ahmmed et al., 2014; Yan and Sin, 2014). Meanwhile, Sharma and Jacobs (2016) designed a specific measurement to assess intention to teach inclusively. Sharma and his colleagues subsequently carried out a series of transnational investigations to compare professionals’ receptivity to inclusivity, concluding that social-cultural contexts to teachers’ inclusive beliefs count (Sahli Lozano et al., 2021; Sharma et al., 2018). Nevertheless, there has been a surprising paucity of studies concerning educators’ intentions to practice inclusion in Mainland China, where there is the largest inclusive schooling system.

Regarding the antecedents of teachers’ intentions toward inclusion, some influencing factors at an individual level have gained relatively much attention. For instance, Opoku et al. (2021a) conducted a literature synthesis on teacher intention to implement inclusion under the framework of the theory of planned behavior. They systematically analyzed 22 papers from 18 nations and further summarized three overarching predictors of teachers’ inclusive instruction behaviors: teachers’ attitudes toward inclusion, subjective norms (such as support from important others), and their self-efficacy beliefs. Additionally, teachers’ lower concerns about inclusive practices were reported to highly predict stronger intentions to teach inclusively (Sahli Lozano et al., 2021; Sharma et al., 2018). However, it should note that school inclusion is not merely a personal job for teachers, but a systematic reform for the whole school (Ainscow and Sandill, 2010; Billingsley et al., 2018). Researchers also observed that educators’ intentions toward inclusion are more inclined to be sparked by external momentum (e.g., leaders’ endorsement and society’s demands) instead of their intrinsic impulses (e.g., their attitudes or concerns about inclusive education) (Yan and Sin, 2014). In other words, when teachers perceive that inclusion has been a principal’s vision, school norm, or social preference, they tend to form intentions to employing inclusive practices (Pedaste et al., 2024), although their own attitudes toward inclusion may be relatively negative. This implies the necessity for understanding school contextual conditions as a prerequisite in exploring which individual variables have been influencing teacher intention. Yet, current literature rarely adopted a broader lens such as combining organizational and individual variables to explore teachers’ intentions toward inclusion.

Transformational leadership as an organizational facilitator

As Ainscow and Sandill (2010) pointed out, leadership practice is an essential element in gearing education systems toward inclusive values and bringing about sustainable change. Transformational leadership (TL) is assumed as a significant organizational precursor of educators’ intentions to teach inclusively here, given that inclusive education in itself connotes momentous reforms and changes to school structures, cultures and practices (Poon-McBrayer, 2017; She and Wang, 2022). Burns (1978) defined TL as “the process through which leaders and followers help each other to advance to a higher level of morality and motivation” (p.21). Transformational principalship stresses that school leaders make endeavors for actuating and empowering followers, redesigning the organization structure toward instructional improvement and systematic reform, and establishing a supportive organizational climate (Ninković et al., 2024). In the context of school improvement, transformational leaders are devoted to the establishment of school cultures, the improvement of teaching quality, and the development of faculty and staff, which in turn increases educators’ confidence in achieving such reform. Empirical evidence has indicated that TL is pivotal for building a participatory, supportive, and inclusive organizational culture, so as to promote teacher commitment and pedagogical practices in the face of educational reform (Ninković et al., 2024; Zhang et al., 2022).

In the effective implementation of inclusive practices, transformational principals are in charge of creating school cultures for inclusion and social justice, developing partnerships and a shared inclusive vision, and building educators’ professional capacities (Poon-McBrayer and Wong, 2013; Óskarsdóttir et al., 2020). Adumbrated as gatekeepers to implement inclusion, leaders in inclusive schools are supposed to translate policy discourses into multifaceted programs that help achieve schoolwide efforts among teachers (Pedaste et al., 2024). Nonetheless, empirical studies concerning transformational principalship in the field of inclusive schooling have been in the initial stage in both China and other nations. A thorough search of empirical studies yielded extremely limited relevant research. Specifically, Poon-McBrayer and her colleagues carried out a series of qualitative academic attempts regarding school leadership in inclusive schools of Hongkong, which collectively concluded that the necessary step to overcome dilemmas facing principals when they led inclusive change was enacting transformational leadership activities and thereby increasing teacher commitment to inclusion (Poon-McBrayer, 2017; Poon-McBrayer and Wong, 2013). A recent quantitative study sampling Chinese LRC teachers also demonstrated that transformational principal leadership was positively directly related to both teacher attitudes and teacher efficacy toward inclusion (She and Wang, 2022). In addition, it was found that TL facilitated the more effective implementation of IEPs for SEN students by optimizing teacher collaboration structures (Lambrecht et al., 2022). Nevertheless, a structural understanding of the relationship between transformational principalship and inclusive practitioners’ motivation or intentions remains lacking. Hence, the current investigation hypothesizes that:

H1. Transformational leadership significantly and positively affects teachers’ inclusive education intentions.

School inclusion climate as an organizational facilitator and its mediating effect

Apart from leadership practice, inclusive cultures within school communities have also been reckoned to be an organizational drive to successful inclusion programs (Ainscow and Sandill, 2010; Fu et al., 2021). School inclusion climate (SIC) as a vital indicator representing inclusive cultures, refers to “shared visions, values, goals and practice norms that shape interpersonal relationships between the school leaders, faculty and staff, and students in inclusive schools” (Mitchell et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2020). Scholars have proposed multiple models of SIC. Emam and Hendawy Al-Mahdy (2022) proposed three aspects of SIC, i.e., teacher prosocial motivation toward inclusion, inclusive leadership, and academic excellence. Schwab et al. (2018) pinpointed that the measurement of SIC is composed of teacher support and care, and emotional experience. Schaefer (2010) identified five dimensions of SIC, i.e., integration of SEN students, special education teacher connection, teacher connectedness, principal leadership, and school-wide activities. Following this line, Zhou (2019) further conceptualized SIC as two main dimensions in the Chinese inclusive schooling context, i.e., principal support and school-wide inclusive practices.

SIC might be a mediating variable between the relationship of TL and teacher intention for inclusion. On the one hand, SIC is promising to be an organizational contributor to teacher decisions on instructional modifications toward inclusion. An inclusive and welcoming school climate serves as an ‘invisible hand’, providing teachers with comfort and assistance in making decisions about inclusive pedagogical changes (Brown, 2019). In a more inclusive school context, teachers tended to report higher efficacious beliefs (Fu et al., 2021), show stronger teacher agency to purposively seek available resources (Wang and Zhang, 2021), and perform more confidence in managing challenging behaviors (Woodcock et al., 2022).

On the other hand, transformational principalship was reported as an organizational stimulus for cultivating inclusive school climates. Scholars previously observed that principals in effective inclusive schools were striving to foster a favorable climate in which all members had a shared vision and a sense of collective responsibility for welcoming all students, especially those with additional learning needs (Billingsley et al., 2018; Pedaste et al., 2024). It was also found that transformational and relationship-based leadership contributed to forge shared commitments for inclusion, in turn shaping partnerships among inclusive educators (Poon-McBrayer and Wong, 2013). This inspired teachers’ engagement in collaborative practices for teaching students with diverse learning needs. Overall, these studies about the relationships among transformational leadership, school environment, and teacher intention or motivation for inclusion mostly adopted qualitative methodology and covered small samples (Billingsley et al., 2018; Poon-McBrayer, 2017; Poon-McBrayer and Wong, 2013), thereby hindering the generalization of such pieces of evidence. This elicits the necessity for the current quantitative investigation as well.

As previously stated, we assumed that:

H2. School inclusion climates significantly and positively affect teachers’ inclusive education intentions;

H3. School inclusion climates significantly mediate the effects of transformational leadership on teachers’ inclusive education intentions.

Teacher efficacy toward inclusion as an individual facilitator and its mediating effect

Educators’ lack of confidence or professional competencies has been broadly viewed as an obstacle to enact change initiatives including the implementation of inclusive practices (Opoku et al., 2021b; Wray et al., 2022). This emphasizes the requisite to improve teachers’ efficacious beliefs in the process of educational reform toward inclusion. Teacher efficacy (TE) deriving from social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1999), refers to a term for a teacher’s belief in their capabilities to facilitate desired student outcomes (Kiel et al., 2020), or their belief in capabilities to undertake the actions necessary to complete a particular teaching task (Woodcock et al., 2022). Relatively ample empirical evidence has indicated that higher efficacy toward inclusion is a critical antecedent of teacher intention to teach inclusively. These studies showed that, in classrooms where TE is relatively higher, teachers could better assimilate the values of inclusion (Xie et al., 2022), exhibit more willingness of utilizing differentiated instruction (Weiss et al., 2019), employ teaching strategies that were flexible and responsive to students’ strengths and needs (Woodcock et al., 2022), and provide fewer special education referrals to lower achievers (Yada et al., 2022). Thus, we proposed that:

H4. Teacher efficacy toward inclusive education significantly and positively influences teachers’ inclusive education intentions;

Meanwhile, teachers’ efficacious belief may play a mediating role in the relationship between school organizational conditions and teachers’ change intentions. Specifically, transformational leaders tend to be devoted to establishing an inclusive school ecology for supporting students’ diverse educational needs (Emam and Hendawy Al-Mahdy, 2022). Teachers in schools with more inclusive climates were identified to possibly report higher levels of efficacious beliefs for inclusion. For example, Hosford and O’Sullivan (2016) observed that a supportive school climate had a strong influence on the efficacy belief of inclusive educators. Fu et al. (2021) evidenced that creating an inclusive school atmosphere favored fostering more efficacious inclusive implementers in Chinese inclusive schools. Wang et al. (2020) stressed inclusive climates as a vital source of teacher agency and an impetus for the enhancement of their professional competency relating to inclusive instruction. However, there has been a particular lacuna in studies exploring how school organizational conditions and teacher efficacy for inclusion affects their intentions to practice inclusion in a Chinese context. In this regard, we proposed that:

H5. Teacher efficacy toward inclusion significantly mediates the effects of transformational leadership on teachers’ inclusive education intentions.

H6. Transformational leadership influences teachers’ inclusive education intentions through the sequential mediation of school inclusion climates and teacher efficacy.

Conceptual framework

The conceptual framework delineating a hypothesized serial mediation model of how both organizational and individual factors facilitate teacher intention to implement inclusive practices was proposed in this study (see Fig. 1). As stated earlier, the rationale for this model lies in the reason that principals’ transformational leadership practices help build inclusive climates within the school community where inclusive educators perceive more efficacious to make inclusive schooling workable, and therefore have a higher degree of intentions to teach inclusively.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Conceptual model of the study.

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Methodology

Participants and procedures

After gaining research ethics approval from the institutional research ethics committee, an online questionnaire survey was conducted in inclusive schools in Beijing, China. First, using a convenience sampling strategy, with the aid of Beijing Special Education Research Center, research invitations were sent to the school administrators working in inclusive schools in six main districts (Dongcheng, Xicheng, Haidian, Chaoyang, Fengtai, Shijingshan) and asked them to participate in the investigation. We received instant responses from 94 inclusive schools in four districts (Xicheng, Haidian, Chaoyang and Fengtai). Second, we used a purposeful sampling strategy to select 40 elementary schools and 22 junior high schools from two districts (Haidian and Chaoyang). Third, these school administrators helped distribute online questionnaires with consent forms and instruction sheets to inclusive educators in their schools. The survey questionnaire was designed and completed electronically in Chinese on Wenjuanxing (a popular platform in China functioning like Qualtrics, https://www.wjx.cn/). All the data was collected online. All participants were informed that they could opt to answer the questionnaire voluntarily, without any incentive provided, and that their anonymity was ensured. A total of 780 valid questionnaires were received from the sampled population (N = 818) from 62 inclusive schools.

Of the 780 teachers, most of them (81.7%, 637) were female and 18.3% male (143); Their ages ranged from 25–53 years (M = 37.28, SD = 7.33). Regarding their teaching experience, 137 respondents (17.5%) had taught for 5 years or less, 280 (35.9%) had taught for 6–14 years, and 163 (46.6%) had taught for 15 years or more. In terms of inclusive education training, 187 (24.0%) frequently participate in it, 527 (67.6%) occasionally participate in it, and 66 (8.4%) have not. All of them had experience interacting with SEN students.

Measurement

A questionnaire including four scales was utilized for data collection. The respondents were required to score items on six-point Likert scales from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”.

Transformational leadership (TL) scale

The 9-item TL scale developed by Leithwood and Jantzi (2006) was used to measure teachers’ perceptions of principal transformational leadership. The wording was modified according to the contexts of inclusive education. Sample items include, “in my school, the principal often gives teachers support to improve inclusive teaching practices” and “our principal encourages teachers to consider new ideas for inclusive teaching for all students”. The TL scale incorporates three subscales, namely, setting directions (three items), developing people (three items), and redesigning the organization (three items). This scale has been validated in the Chinese context (Zhang et al., 2022). The CFA results indicated acceptable model fit (χ2 = 133.41, df = 21, p < 0.001, CFI = 0.963, TLI = 0.927, RMSEA = 0.07, SRMR = 0.029), suggesting that this scale is valid and reliable.

School inclusion climate (SIC) Scale

The 9-item SIC Scale validated by Zhou (2019) was adopted to measure teacher-perceived inclusion climate concerning two factors, namely, principal support and schoolwide inclusive practices. Sample items include “professional development activities are organized to help regular teachers teach SEN students” and “our principal is able to communicate the ideas of inclusive education to all staff.”. This scale has been widely used in China’s inclusive contexts, demonstrating good psychometric results concerning reliability and construct validity (Wang et al., 2020; Wang and Zhang, 2021). CFA results for the two-factor model suggested an acceptable model fit (χ2 = 393.66, df = 27, p < 0.001, CFI = 0.955, TLI = 0.940, RMSEA = 0.044, SRMR = 0.021).

Teacher efficacy for inclusive practices (TEIP) Scale

The 18-item TEIP adapted from Sharma et al. (2012) was used to assess three types of teacher self-efficacy beliefs for inclusive practices, namely, efficacy in using inclusive instructions (six items), efficacy in collaboration (six items), and efficacy in managing behavior (six items). Sample items include, “I am confident in designing learning tasks so that the individual needs of students with disabilities are accommodated” and “I am confident in my ability to get parents involved in school activities of their children with disabilities”. This scale has also been validated in the Chinese context (Fu et al., 2021). Since the three dimensions of teacher efficacy for inclusion were highly correlated (ranging from 0.78 to 0.83), we further detected the second-order factor structure of the TEIP scale, and the results are acceptable (χ2 = 145.732, df = 16, p < 0.001, CFI = 0.925, TLI = 0.947, RMSEA = 0.078, SRMR = 0.034).

Intention to teach in inclusive classroom (ITIC) Scale

The 7-item ITIC scale developed by Sharma and Jacobs (2016) was utilized to measure teachers’ intentions to implement inclusive practices. Sample items include, “I Change the curriculum to meet the learning needs of a student with learning difficulty”. In Sharma and Jacob’s multi-sample study (2016), ITIC had acceptable levels of reliability (α ≥ 0.74). CFA results informed us that this single-factor demonstrated a satisfactory model fit (χ2 = 108.32, df = 24, p < 0.001, CFI = 0.967, TLI = 0.914, RMSEA = 0.065, SRMR = 0.070).

Data analysis approach

SPSS 22.0 and Mplus 7.0 were utilized to do data analysis. Descriptive statistics and correlation were calculated by SPSS first, before using Mplus to carry out the structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis. Several indices were used to assess the robustness of fit, including Chi-square statistic (χ2), Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA). Generally speaking, CFI > 0.90, TLI > 0.90, and RMSEA and SRMR < 0.08 were employed as the cutoffs to indicate an acceptable data fit (Schreiber et al., 2006). Concerning mediation analysis, the bootstrap approach was employed to identify indirect impacts (Hayes, 2009).

Results

Common method variance testing

In this study, all the questionnaires were completed anonymously. All the data were collected from the same group of subjects and all predictors were measured at the same stage. Therefore, Harman’s single-factor test was employed to test the common method variance. Following the principal component analysis, the results demonstrated that all factors had eigenvalues >1, and only 27.26% of the variance can be explained by the first factor, which is less than the critical standard of 40%. Consequently, common method biases were not a major concern in the present study.

Descriptive statistics and correlations

The descriptive statistics and correlations are presented in Table 1. Among the four variables, teacher efficacy for inclusive practices (M = 4.93, SD = 0.78) had the highest mean scores, followed by school inclusion climate (M = 4.82, SD = 0.93), teacher intention to teach in inclusive classroom (M = 4.68, SD = 1.09), and transformational leadership (M = 4.68, SD = 0.97). All factors showed good reliability with acceptable Cronbach’s α values (0.83–0.93). Meanwhile, significant correlations existed among the four variables. When the bivariate correlations between variables were checked, no possible issues of multicollinearity existed within the dataset (see Table 1), since all values were below the generally accepted threshold level of 0.80.

Table 1 Descriptive statistics, correlation matrix, and Cronbach’s α.
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Hypothesized model testing

An SEM model was built to explore the relationship among TL, SIC, TEIP, and ITIC. The results demonstrated that this model reached a good data fit: χ2 = 480.812, df =60, p < 0.001, CFI = 0.946, TLI = 0.931, RMSEA = 0.072, SRMR = 0.027. As shown in Fig. 2, TL had significant influences on SIC (β = 0.709, p < 0.001), TEIP (β = 0.304, p < 0.001), and ITIC (β = 0.241, p < 0.001). Therefore, H1 was supported. SIC had a positive association with TE (β = 0.534, P < 0.001), but not ITIC. Therefore, H2 was not supported. Additionally, TEIP positively related to ITIC (β = 0.383, P < 0.001). Therefore, H4 was supported.

Fig. 2: The effects of TL on ITIC through SIC and TEIP.
figure 2

***p < 0.001; Dotted lines indicate non-significant paths.

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Meanwhile, the mediation analysis results were displayed in Table 2. The results indicated that TEIP played a positive mediating role between the effects of TL on ITIC (β = 0.169, p < 0.01), while SIC did not have such a mediating role from TL to ITIC. Meanwhile, SIC and TEIP served as chain mediators of the relationship between TL and ITIC (β = 0.211, p < 0.01). Therefore, H3 was not supported, but H5 and H6 were supported.

Table 2 Mediation analysis of TEIP and SIC on the effects of TL on ITIC.
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Discussion

Teachers’ inclusive education intentions have been commonly recognized as the best predictors of actual inclusive practice (Almalky and Alrabiah, 2024; Opoku et al., 2021a). How to motivate educators’ intentions to implement inclusive practices has been an essential issue in the research and practice fields of inclusive schooling across nations (Mendoza and Heymann, 2024; Opoku et al., 2021b; Sahli Lozano et al., 2021; Sharma et al., 2018). This research contributes to closing the gap in the present scholarly work by proffering empirical evidence regarding variables predicting teachers’ inclusive education intentions in Mainland China. Results have demonstrated that the investigated organizational and individual predictors were instrumental in such intentions, which are principal transformational leadership, school inclusion climate, and teacher efficacy toward inclusion.

Organizational conditions for facilitating teacher intention to implement inclusion

Transformational principalship and inclusive school climates are proven to be two organizational factors that motivate teacher intention toward performing inclusive instructional behaviors. First, this study confirmed that transformational principalship directly enhanced teachers’ willingness of implementing inclusive practices. On the one hand, in collectivist social-cultural contexts like China, principal-teacher relationships are featured by high power distance, obedience to authority, and deference to status (Hofstede et al., 2010). Chinese educators have acclimatized to complying with directives and work arrangements from their principals who enjoyed paramount power in the schools (Liu and Hallinger, 2021). As confirmed in this study, in such a “principal’s responsibility system” or “principal-control”-based model (Yin and Zheng, 2018), when transformational leadership practices towards inclusive affairs, which is perceived by teachers as opinions of their principals, were enacted, they also tend to directly consider implementing inclusion as their working obligation and intend to teach inclusively. On the other, this finding added quantitative evidence in inclusive contexts, resonating the past qualitative conclusions which emphasized the essential role of principalship in stimulating teacher commitment and involvement in promoting school inclusivity (Poon-McBrayer, 2017; Poon-McBrayer and Wong, 2013). In fact, in China’s elitism educational tradition of examination-oriented schooling context, previous scholars have found that the highest priority of pursuing higher test scores makes the leadership of transformation quite difficult for Chinese principals (Deng et al., 2023; Qu, 2022; Xie et al., 2022). This context-embedded stubborn cognitive schema also acted as a brake for teachers to commit themselves to performing as motivated implementers of inclusive practices (Qu, 2022). As shown in our data, the mean scores of TL and teachers’ inclusive education intentions were two of the lowest among all variables (see Table 1). Nevertheless, our findings showed that once principals fully appreciate inclusive values and meanings, and further perform as transformational leaders devoted to greater inclusion, first-line educators would also exhibit stronger intentions to implement inclusive practices in their daily activities.

Second, our results suggested that transformational principalship served as a significant catalyst for creating inclusive climates in schools, echoing Pedaste et al.’s (2024) argument that principals have almost the greatest influence on building and maintaining specific school cultures. As Price’s (2012) proposition that principals ‘set the tone’ of the school, this finding further highlighted that principals matter in creating an inclusive tone and nurturing inclusive cultures where inclusive practitioners could efficaciously address diverse learning needs.

Additionally, mediation analysis results demonstrated that school inclusion climate was a significant mediator between principal leadership and teacher efficacy for inclusion. This finding supported inclusive teaching environments as the ‘organizational path’ through which principals exert their influences on teacher development (Leithwood et al., 2020). Also, this finding was in line with earlier conclusions showing a sense of efficacy increase in teachers within highly inclusive pedagogical climates (Fu et al., 2021; Wray et al., 2022). Transformational school leaders could provide inclusive practitioners with emotional and administrative support and promote schoolwide inclusive practices (Poon-McBrayer and Wong, 2013; Óskarsdóttir et al., 2020). Immersed in a more inclusive climate, teachers tend to have a growing frequency of collegial interaction related to SEN, received more professional support and resources about inclusive practice, and perceived a higher sense of security in practicing new instructional strategies. These would allay their concerns and psychological pressure about projecting inclusive curriculum and pedagogical adaptations and further improve their degree of confidence in dealing with additional learning needs.

Teacher efficacy and teacher intention to implement inclusive practices

Aside from the organizational antecedents, at an individual level, we also explored the effect of teacher efficacy which has been identified as the most noteworthy personal determinant affecting behavioral intentions to changes (Almalky and Alrabiah, 2024; Opoku et al., 2021b). Meanwhile, this investigation is a pioneering attempt in Chinese inclusive education contexts, establishing a clear connection between teachers’ efficacious beliefs and their intentions to practice them.

First, our results indicated the marked positive influence of teacher efficacy on their intentions of adopting inclusive instruction. This positive connection aligns with the findings of other studies, implying that emotional capacity building could help educators make positive instructional changes in their inclusive classrooms (Ahmmed et al., 2014; Almalky and Alrabiah, 2024; Opoku et al., 2021b; Sahli Lozano et al., 2021; Sharma et al., 2018).

Second, the mediation analysis suggested that teacher efficacy for inclusion was a significant mediator of the relationship between transformational principalship and teacher intention of implementing inclusive pedagogy. This indirect effect highlights the ‘emotional path’ that principal leadership influences individual teacher development and schoolwide teaching practice (Leithwood et al., 2020). In alignment with the widely spread assertion from social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1999), this study confirmed that principals’ leadership support act as a vital source of teachers’ efficacy beliefs, including those working in inclusive circumstances (Wray et al., 2022). This finding was more understandable in Chinese contexts, given that efficacy beliefs were more affected by relationships with important others in collectivism-dominant cultures like China (Wray et al., 2022; Yan and Sin, 2014). Previous studies reported that Chinese educators under high pressure to improve most students’ standardized test scores, reiterated their low confidence in differentiated teaching and classroom misbehaviors management in the education system with highly-competitive examinations (Deng et al., 2023; Qu, 2022). The current study manifested that when principals execute transformational activities, teachers are probably more confident to embrace innovative ideas such as differentiated or individual teaching (Óskarsdóttir et al., 2020; Pedaste et al., 2024), which could in turn stimulate their behavioral intentions to teach inclusively in their classrooms.

In addition, our results suggested that inclusive school climates and teacher efficacy for inclusive practices could play serial mediating roles in explaining the relationship between transformational principalship and teachers’ change intentions. However, it was not verified that school inclusion climate was a direct facilitator of teachers’ behavioral intentions toward inclusive practices. On the one hand, this might be explained by the contextual characteristics of the school-wide inclusion climate, which focuses on the systems and related organizational culture activities at the school level (Hosford and O’Sullivan, 2016; Schwab et al., 2018). Inclusive educators may passively perceive the seemingly inclusive climate in which they are embedded, but not change their ingrained and unconfident minds on teaching disabled students. Therefore, on the other hand, this chain-mediating identified pathway further showed the salient role of teacher efficacy beliefs, without which the avenue between principal leadership and teachers’ change intentions is not constructed. An inclusive ecology among the whole school could nurture higher levels of teacher efficacy beliefs, yet it did not necessarily improve teachers’ willingness to implement inclusion directly. Such findings illuminate the differences and relations between organizational and individual factors in facilitating teacher intention to teach in inclusive classes. Meanwhile, it also strongly supports Villa and Thousand’s (2000) claim that “unless teachers believe that they are capable of dealing with diverse learning needs, inclusion would result in anxiety rather than success”.

Implications

The results yield some implications for school administrators during the inclusive reform, particularly in educational contexts like China and other similar societies with higher power distance, relatively centralized education management systems, and examination-oriented elitist education values, such as Malaysia, Vietnam, and Singapore. In these contexts, principals may be more likely to not fully realize the influences that they could bring to inclusive schooling. Our findings revealed that transformational principalship could effectively enhance educators’ efficacious beliefs and stimulate teacher intention for inclusive teaching. Therefore, principals are expected to be aware of their responsibility in promoting the achievement of all learners, including those with disabilities and/or learning/emotional/behavioral difficulties. These inclusive school leaders also need to take positive action for school improvement toward inclusion, employing such transformational leadership measures as setting visions and directions toward inclusion, developing inclusive professionals, and reconstructing the organization. These have also been extensively viewed as the “basics” of successful school leadership to educational changes including inclusive schooling (Leithwood et al., 2020; Poon-McBrayer, 2017).

In addition, to effectuate transformational leadership practices in inclusive schools, principals are expected to persistently create a schoolwide inclusive climate and enhance inclusive practitioners’ efficacious beliefs. The findings showed that the effect of transformational principalship on teachers’ intention toward inclusion was sequentially mediated by school inclusion climates and teacher efficacy for inclusion. Therefore, principals are suggested to firstly become transformational and inclusive leaders who are willing to provide teachers with professional and psychological support; they need to consciously created and maintained the inclusive school ecology for the purpose of cultivating an enabling group dynamic toward inclusion; They also need to be more open, democratic, and benevolent (Zheng et al., 2019), making inclusive educators feel comfortable and efficacious to involve in schoolwide inclusive practices.

Limitations and future directions

The present investigation has several limitations. First, the sample teachers were from Beijing where the development of inclusive education is highly advanced in mainland China. Considering that China is a vast nation and the development of inclusive practices in China showed significant regional disparities. Thus, the generalizability of current research findings was still bounded. Future studies are suggested to optimize the sampling strategies (e.g., stratified sampling) to achieve a more representative sample. Second, the participants’ answers from self-report questionnaires were believed as indicators of practical behaviors in this study. we acknowledged this methodological limitation, as it should be noted the potential disparities from teachers’ behavioral intentions to actual classroom practices (Yan and Sin, 2014; Yin et al., 2022). It would be more convincing if the data from classroom observations on teachers’ behaviors were added to future explorations. Third, this investigation only explored teachers’ perspectives. Future studies could consider the combination and comparison of viewpoints from both teachers and principals, to further explore the influencing mechanism between principalship and teacher intention in inclusive school contexts.

Conclusions

Overall, we conclude that, in organizational factors, transformational principalship can exert a direct effect on teacher intention for inclusion, while the cultivation of an inclusive climate in schools may not directly affect teacher intention. The individual factor examined in this study, teacher efficacy, seemed to have direct effects on teacher intention to implement inclusive practices. The results also suggest that teacher efficacy may play a significant mediating role between transformational principalship and teacher intention for inclusion. In addition, our result supports the conclusion that the joint effects of both organizational and individual factors on teacher intention for inclusion. Specifically, school inclusion climates and teacher efficacy play the role of serial mediators in the relationship between transformational principalship and teacher intention for inclusion.