Teachers with Disabilities’ Perceived Work Experiences and Job Satisfaction

Despite laws such as the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with disabilities, employment levels for people with disabilities remain low. One of those employment sectors were employments levels for people with disabilities is lower than the average is education. However, there is little information on the teachers with disabilities, and therefore, no evidence to help explain so low levels. Prior research conducted has focused mainly on the dilemma of disclosing teachers’ disabilities. What has not been explored is teachers with disabilities’ perceived work experiences and teachers with disabilities’ job satisfaction levels. This survey study explored teachers with disabilities’ perceived work experiences and job satisfaction levels in order to provide information for future research on the employment of teachers with disabilities. The results from this study indicated that teachers with disabilities’ perceptions of their work experiences are far from positive although teachers with disabilities have average to above average job satisfaction levels. The implications of this study are as follows: 1) addresses the gap in the literature on teachers with disabilities, 2) provides new information on the work experiences of teachers with disabilities, 3) provides information on teachers with disabilities’ job satisfaction levels, 4) provides some information on the workplace culture of K-12 schools, and 5) provides a census.