Between Acceptance and Anxiety: Parents’ Sociocultural Beliefs Toward Inclusive Education in Eastern Aceh

Abstract

Inclusive education has been widely promoted as a rights-based educational reform aimed at ensuring equitable access for learners with disabilities within mainstream schooling. Despite strong policy commitments, the implementation of inclusive education often remains fragile, particularly in socioculturally and religiously grounded contexts. This study explores how parents in Eastern Aceh, Indonesia, construct meanings of disability and inclusive education through their sociocultural and religious belief systems, and how these beliefs shape their educational decisions. Employing a qualitative design, this study conducts a secondary thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with parents of disabled and non-disabled students collected during a multi-site research project in Eastern Aceh. The data were reanalyzed using a sociocultural framework to foreground parental meaning-making processes that have not been previously examined. Thematic analysis reveals four dominant patterns: disability as divine destiny or moral test, parental anxiety over social exposure and stigma, protection-oriented educational choices, and limited trust in schools’ capacity to support inclusive practices. The findings indicate that while religious interpretations often foster acceptance of disability, they may simultaneously constrain parental advocacy and normalize educational exclusion. Inclusive education, therefore, is mediated not only by institutional readiness but also by deeply embedded belief systems that regulate parental expectations and engagement.