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Better understanding preservice teachers’ current perceptions toward students with disabilities will allow mathematics educators to create specific strategies for helping students to develop perceptions promoting inclusive classroom environments. To access these perceptions, we developed an online survey that asks respondents about their knowledge of disabilities, their experiences with people with disabilities, and decisions they would make based on classroom scenarios that involve students with disabilities. We gave this survey to 14 preservice secondary school teachers (PSTs). Key findings include five PSTs presented an inclusive perception toward students with disabilities, seven PSTs presented an ambiguous perception and the perceptions of two PSTs remained unknown. All but the latter two PSTs provided at least some evidence of their willingness to fully include students with disabilities in their mathematics classrooms. 

Negative perceptions held by teachers toward students with disabilities create environments that make students feel uncomfortable and often incapable of participating actively in classrooms. Much of the research about these perceptions is focused on teachers of students with learning disabilities, which leaves out teachers’ perceptions toward students with other disabilities. We are developing a responsive online survey to access what mathematics teachers identify as disabilities and their behavior toward students with disabilities in their classroom. In this paper, we describe the process we have developed for constructing this survey. We also share our conceptualization of the relationship between teachers’ perceptions and equity affirmations toward disability, and the results of applying that conceptualization to our research context.