Attitudes towards the lives of disabled people : exploring primary school aged disabled & non-disabled children's perspectives

Abstract

This qualitative research explores the attitudes of disabled and non-disabled children on disabled people's lives, examining whether these children value the lives of disabled people and whether the children nurture an inclusive culture. The area of children's attitudes towards the lives of disabled people (children and adults) within a Maltese context is quite under researched. Therefore, this study is being proposed in an attempt to bridge this gap in literature and shed new light within a local context. The significance of exploring and understanding children's present attitudes may serve as a baseline to further reinforce present positive attitudes and tackle negative attitudes accordingly. Guided by the new sociology of childhood and the social model of disability as theoretical frameworks, this qualitative study generated data through semi-structured interviews. This data was then analysed using thematic analysis. Findings from this study conclude that disabled and non-disabled children hold both positive and negative attitudes towards disabled people which reflect both social and medical representations of disability. Children looked at what the disabled individual can do, and discussed the social and environmental barriers which hindered the individual in community participation. Nurturing an inclusive culture, participants also perceived that disabled individuals may be more active in society through interdependence and support from the people within the community. Contrastingly, participants viewed disabled people as different, in need of medicalisation and lacking competencies. This view hinders disabled people from participating in community activities while promoting a disabling culture. Due to negative attitudes, lack of disability awareness and false beliefs which lead to prejudice, different values were attributed to individuals with different impairments by both disabled and non-disabled children. All these factors lead to a disabling culture and findings indicate that negative attitudes need to be addressed so that disabled people are valued and included as equal members of society. Positive attitudes, on the other hand, need to be reinforced to foster a stronger inclusive culture.