Everybody Belongs

Changing Negative Attitudes Toward Classmates with Disabilities

Arthur Shapiro, Joe Kincheloe, Shirley R. Steinberg

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN: 9780815311799
• eBook ISBN: 9781135575830
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The evil prosthesis of Captain Hook, the comical speech of Porky Pig, and the bumbling antics of Mr. Magoo are all examples of images in our culture which can become the basis of negative attitudes and subliminal prejudice towards persons with disabilities. These attitudes influence and underlie discriminatory acts, resulting in negative treatment and segregation. A teacher's ability to recognize and counter such images may well determine the success of inclusion and mainstreaming programs in our schools and society. Well-researched and well-written, this book offers practical guidance as grounded in solid research to schools that are wrestling with how to mainstream children with disabilities.

CHAPTER ONE

Why Change Attitudes?

Attitudes and Images Learned Early in Life

The evil prosthesis of Captain Hook, the sinister hump of Richard III, the pitiable crutch of Tiny Tim, the blind bumbling antics of Mr. Magoo, the comical speech of Porky Pig, even the pathetic pleas of poster children in their wheelchairs—these are six examples of negative disability images deeply ingrained in our culture. Because the influence of such images so often works subliminally, most of us remain unaware of how we internalize them or how they affect, in particular, childrens’ attitudes and their accompanying behaviors. Forming attitudes regarding disability from such images is like basing assumptions about African culture on old Tarzan movies.

We learn negative attitudes toward disability early in life from such strong cultural influences as school, the media, our language and literature. Many first encounters with literature, for example, include stereotyped characters like the childish dwarfs and hump-backed wicked witch in Snow White, the Little Lame Prince, the evil giant in Jack and the Beanstalk, or the sly deformed dwarf, Rumpelstiltskin. Franks (1996) found that many various disabilities are used symbolically in fairy tales. For example, in Grimm’s Fairy Tales (1945/1995), the story of Cinderella ends with her stepsisters having their eyes picked out by doves. The final line reads, “And so, for their wickedness and falseness they were punished with blindness for the rest of their days” (p. 161). Similarly, the prince who climbs up Rapunzel’s hair to get into the tower loses his sight by having his eyes “scratched out by the thorns among which he fell” and is forced to “wander about blind in the wood [with] nothing but roots and berries to eat” (p. 132).

Such images impress on young minds that people with physical or mental differences are to be feared, pitied, trivialized, or ridiculed. Children learn early from these stories that physical beauty symbolizes goodness and disability symbolizes evil. Furthermore, the evil disabled ones are always out to ravage the attractive ones. “Our memories of these and other characters often become indelible, impervious to any experiences we may have with disabled individuals in real life” (Bowe, 1978, p. 109).

Childrens’ reading matter regularly reinforces such images. Weinberg and Santana (1978), for example, found that individuals with disabilities in comic books are often characterized as evil. One only need to recall the villains of Dick Tracy (even named for their physical differences) including Prune Face, Brow, BB Eyes, Flat Top, Mumbles, Itchy Oliver, Ugly Christine, Pouch and even a female named Lispy who spoke with a speech disorder (Crouch, 1987).

Biklen, Ford and Ferguson (1989) stressed the importance of examining the meanings of disability in culture so as to understand the issues of disability and schooling. Attitudes are acquired through “observational learning” whereby a child observes surrounding behaviors and influences. Unfortunately, many negative influences in our culture teach children early in life to accept the idea that certain human qualities like physical “wholeness,” good looks, high intelligence, and clear speech, are valued and identified with high status individuals, whereas the qualities of others are demeaned, stigmatized, ridiculed, feared and degraded. Youngsters learn to assume that people with disabilities are more “different from” than “similar to” persons without them, and those differences lessen them and set them apart. The consequences of such beliefs result in segregation and isolation which, in turn, reinforce negative attitudes.

Studies conducted by Gerber (1977); Goodman, Gottlieb and Harrison (1977); and Horne (1985) reveal that non-disabled students often demonstrate negative attitudes toward their disabled peers making them feel rejected and less accepted. Unfortunately, many youngsters enter school with stereotypic views and attitudes toward those perceived as different (Salend, 1994). According to Baum and Wells (1985),

The devaluing of human differences appears to be acculturized in children as they grow and develop. [Y]ounger children show more acceptance of their handicapped peers than older children do. Their awareness of handicapping conditions at about four is followed by beginning negativism by about five years of age (p. 282).

Brodkin (1993) found that

Children are not born biased, but they notice differences at a young age. By age five, children begin to absorb society’s messages and fears. Between the ages of seven and nine, children’s awareness of differences may be transformed into full-blown prejudice (p. 75).

James (1975) related some of the consequences of such prejudice. He found that

Life can be a living hell for children who are different. Deviance, even in its minor forms, is seldom tolerated in our society. Almost any sensitive person who spends a few hours on a busy playground or in the halls of an elementary or junior high school will find more than one child being teased because he is fat, thin, crippled, ugly, retarded, or otherwise different (p. 16).

Such prejudice must be directly addressed in the schools. Simply integrating youngsters with disabilities into the mainstream without pedagogically dealing with attitudes is meaningless and, in some cases, increases negative attitudes. Schools need this information because they are mandated to deal with the successful integration of their pupils who have educational handicaps. Morrison and Ursprung (1990), for example, found a definite need for educational programs directed at altering children’s attitudes toward disabled individuals:

There is considerable evidence suggesting that such an undertaking is important and would be beneficial. Classroom teachers, counselors, and other people working to implement such projects know these endeavors must be based on the assumption that the dissemination of accurate information about disabilities will lead to increased positive attitudes and reduction of social rejection, stigmatization, and prejudice (p. 183).

Legislation like the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (PL 94–142, 1975 as amended by IDEA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (1973) and the Americans With Disabilities Act (1990) all mandate that persons with disabilities receive the opportunity to function in “normalized,” “least restrictive” environments. The primary outcome of this federal legislation is the increased inclusion and main-streaming of students with educational handicaps in the public schools, resulting in greater interaction between disabled and non-disabled peers (Bookbinder, 1978; Carlberg and Kavale, 1980). Jones and Guskin (1986), however, found that if the laws and service persons providing equal educational opportunities for children with disabilities are to be effective, school environments must be made increasingly receptive to those who make up this population. Both the courts and Congress appear to have recognized that full integration into communities and schools would improve our traditional views of persons with disabilities. But such improvement appears to be possible only through a better understanding of the attitudes that determine status and treatment of such people in our schools and other social institutions. The effectiveness of new laws and service patterns is inherently related to changes in the attitudes of communities, professionals, and persons with disabilities and their families. Despite recognition, then, that full integration into communities and schools will alter traditional views toward persons with disabilities, the achievement of this full integration appears to be possible only through face to face interaction and a better elucidation of our current attitudes toward them and attitude change in general.

Even the perception of what constitutes “positive attitudes” differs between persons with disabilities and those without them. For example, Makas (1990) found that

[Disabled] people and non-disabled people differ significantly in their perceptions of what constitutes “the most positive attitudes toward persons with disabilities.” For the disabled respondents, “positive attitudes” would mean either dispensing with the special category of disability entirely, or promoting attitudes that defend the civil and social rights of disabled persons. For the non-disabled respondents, “positive attitudes” reflect a desire to be nice, helpful, and ultimately place the disabled person in a needy situation. Non-disabled individuals may actually be perceived by disabled people, therefore, as expressing negative attitudes when, in fact, the non-disabled persons are trying hard to express what they consider to be positive attitudes… Thus the paradox of well-intentioned liberalism is that the recipient frequently experiences the interaction as offensive (p. 30).

The Importance of a Multidimensional-Experiential Approach

Unfortunately, positive social interaction has yet to prove a natural outcome of mainstreaming as an integrative process (Dewer, 1982). Teachers in the regular grades that include mainstreamed youngsters classified as handicapped are most often given assistance and training to address “cognitive” rather than “affective” needs. They are more apt to receive help with teaching approaches for various subjects rather than help with learning to nurture friendship-building and social integration (Guinagh, 1980).

Salend (1984) found that typical or regular classroom students can play a significant role in determining the success or failure of integration. He found that the process can be greatly facilitated when non-disabled students interact positively with their peers classified as handicapped, particularly when they serve as role models, peer tutors and friends. But he noted further that, “the ability and willingness of regular education students to help make mainstreaming successful may be influenced by their attitudes toward their mainstreamed peers” (p. 161).

Thus, to facilitate genuine social integration, it is critical to train regular teachers to become actively involved in the preparation of their non-disabled students in understanding and developing positive attitudes toward their peers with disabilities. Changing negative attitudes, however, can be difficult. It requires a great deal of planning and a multidimensional process that includes a knowledge of how attitudes develop and a variety of experiential techniques. Derman-Sparks (1989) noted,

[F]ostering anti-bias attitudes toward disability and empowering children with disabilities requires much more than being together in the classroom. Children with disabilities need to see themselves reflected in the world around them, in pictures, in toys, in books, in role models. They need acceptance for who they are and in an environment that fosters their autonomy and the development of alternative modes of interaction with the world. Nondisabled children need to gain information, ask questions, and express their feelings about disabilities. Contact by itself does not necessarily reduce nondisabled children’s fears—it may even intensify them—unless adults take active steps to promote children’s learning about each other. … Anti-bias teaching about disabilities also requires that teachers become aware of their own deep-seated attitudes (pp. 39–40).

Researchers like Schroedel (1979) and Watts (1984) found the most effective components of such a multi-dimensional process for altering negative attitudes toward persons with disabilities included experiential (active participation) techniques. The use of social gaming (for example, role-playing and simulation activities always followed by discussion); value confrontation; interaction with persons with disabilities (for example, cooperative learning and interactions with guest speakers with disabilities); providing applicable information through books, articles, and a wide variety of audio and visual media, (for example, movies, slides, audio and videotapes, and compact disks); exposing students to assistive technology, adaptive devices, aids and appliances and the use of puppets to depict vignettes and lead discussion. Such Multi-dimensional and experiential methods were found successful for changing negative attitudes by Donaldson (1980); Israelson (1980); Jones, Sowell, Jones, and Butler (1981); Dewer (1982); Popp (1983); Kilburn (1984); Bergantino (1984); Bauer (1985); Binkard (1985); Raschke and Dedrick (1986); Riester and Bessette (1986); and Fiedler and Simpson (1987). All concluded that planned programs using such “multi-dimensional” and “experiential” methods to teach peers acceptance of classmates with disabilities result in positive gains in student acceptance and facilitate positive perceptions of youngsters with disabilities. Donaldson (1980) suggested the following categories: (a) direct and indirect contact with, or exposure to, disabled persons; (b) information about disabilities; (c) persuasive messages; (d) analysis of the dynamics of prejudice; (e) disability simulation; and (f) group discussions. Similarly, Morrison and Ursprung (1990) stressed that the material developed for any program needs to be organized for various methods of presentation including (1) actual experiences with disabled persons of equal or valued status who represent non-stereotypic images of disabilities, who should convey information about what it is like to be disabled and how they want non-disabled persons to relate to them; (2) exposure to individuals with disabilities who have successfully adjusted to their disability and who can display their confidence and independence; (3) exposure to various methods of presentation that will keep the children’s interest including simulations of disability, puppet shows, and films. Each of these elements receives a thorough analysis in Chapter VI. First we must examine attitudes themselves.

The Nature of Attitudes

An attitude is the general tendency of an individual to act in a certain way under special conditions. This general tendency can be displayed in two kinds of action: what the individual does and what the individual says. In other words, an attitude is defined as “a favorable or unfavorable evaluative reaction toward something or someone, exhibited in one’s beliefs, feelings or intended behavior” (Meyers, 1987). It is, therefore, the tendency for an individual to act or react positively or negatively to his or her world based on the values, beliefs, and paradigms rooted in his or her social experiences. An attitude may be viewed as a positive or negative emotional reaction to a person or object accompanied by specific beliefs that tend to cause its holder to behave in specific ways toward its object.

While definitions of attitude may vary slightly, most include three interrelated basic elements: (1) a belief or “cognitive” component, (2) an emotional or “affective” component, and (3) an action or “behavioral” component. The components are interrelated because positive and complimentary beliefs are accompanied by liking and positive feelings while uncomplimentary and negative beliefs are accompanied by dislike and negative feelings. These beliefs and feelings, in turn, represent a tendency to act. As Yuker (1977) stated,

If the beliefs and feelings are positive, there will be a tendency to move toward the object of the attitude, and to say and do nice things. If the beliefs and feelings are negative there will be a tendency to avoid the object, or to say or do negative things. If the beliefs and feelings are ambivalent, the person’s actions will vacillate, sometimes they will be positive, other times they will be negative (p. 93).

Liebert (1975) suggested that the three components of attitude often form from observational learning—that is, the kind of learning where the behavior of one person is changed simply by observing the behavior of others—like the face to face interaction between students without disabilities and students with disabilities. Bowe (1978) stated that

Attitudes appear to be heavily dependent upon contact with information about what attitudes concern. People who have had extensive contact with disabled people tend to regard them more favorably and to recognize more fully than do people with less contact and that they differ greatly among themselves (p. 112).

Unfortunately, the schools through their model of labeling and segregation, often provide the basis of negative attitudes. Students viewed as different are banished, denied access, and receive negatively loaded labels which, in turn, causes guilt, pain, and shame, not only for them but for their parents as well. Once labeled, they are treated as being somehow less than the others. Such negative attitudes, hi turn, affect the youngsters’ self-images.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter One Why Change Attitudes?
• Chapter Two Issues of Language and Terminology
• Chapter Three The Minority Group and Medical Model Paradigms
• Chapter Four Early Attitudes and Their Legacies
• Chapter Five Disabilities and Common Sense Approaches
• Chapter Six Critical Educational Practices for Changing Negative Attitudes
• Some Final Thoughts About this Book
• Appendix One Resources
• Bibliography
• Index