maras et al-2000-british journal of educational psychology

15
Effects of different forms of school contact on children’s attitudes toward disabled and non- disabled peers Pam Maras* University of Greenwich, London Rupert Brown University of Kent at Canterbury Background. There have been fluctuations in research interest into the inclusion of children with disabilities in mainstream schools over the last twenty years. It is still not clear what methods, practices and types of contact are most likely to promote positive attitudes in children toward disabled peers and disability generally. Aims. To consider two theoretical models of inter-group contact, both claiming to identify precursors for generalised attitude change, in relation to the attitudes of non-disabled children toward disabled peers as a function of different classroom contact. Sample. Participants were 256 non-disabled school children aged 5± 11 years (128 girls and 128 boys). Methods. Measures of sociometric preference and the evaluation of psychological and physical attributes were used to ascertain children’s perceptions of known and unknown peers with disabilities. Results. A relationship was found between the type of contact the children had with disabled peers, and their perceptions of psychological and physical attributes (stereotypes) of groups of unknown disabled and non-disabled peers. Conclusions. Results show generalisation of stereotypic attitude/judgments from one type of disability to another as a consequence of the two types of contact situation. Findings have important implications for integrating disabled children into mainstream. *Requests for reprints should be addressed to Dr Pam Maras, School of Social Science, University of Greenwich, Avery Hill Campus, Avery Hill Road, London SE9, UK (e-mail: [email protected]). British Journal of Educational Psychology (2000), 70, 337± 351 Printed in Great Britain # 2000 The British Psychological Society

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  • Effects of different forms of school contact onchildrens attitudes toward disabled and non-

    disabled peers

    Pam Maras*

    University of Greenwich, London

    Rupert Brown

    University of Kent at Canterbury

    Background. There have been fluctuations in research interest into theinclusion of children with disabilities in mainstream schools over the lasttwenty years. It is still not clear what methods, practices and types of contactare most likely to promote positive attitudes in children toward disabled peersand disability generally.

    Aims. To consider two theoretical models of inter-group contact, bothclaiming to identify precursors for generalised attitude change, in relation tothe attitudes of non-disabled children toward disabled peers as a function ofdifferent classroom contact.

    Sample. Participants were 256 non-disabled school children aged 5 11 years(128 girls and 128 boys).

    Methods. Measures of sociometric preference and the evaluation ofpsychological and physical attributes were used to ascertain childrensperceptions of known and unknown peers with disabilities.

    Results. A relationship was found between the type of contact the children hadwith disabled peers, and their perceptions of psychological and physicalattributes (stereotypes) of groups of unknown disabled and non-disabledpeers.

    Conclusions. Results show generalisation of stereotypic attitude/judgmentsfrom one type of disability to another as a consequence of the two types ofcontact situation. Findings have important implications for integratingdisabled children into mainstream.

    *Requests for reprints should be addressed to Dr Pam Maras, School of Social Science, University ofGreenwich, Avery Hill Campus, Avery Hill Road, London SE9, UK (e-mail: [email protected]).

    British Journal of Educational Psychology (2000), 70, 337 351 Printed in Great Britain

    # 2000 The British Psychological Society

  • The twenty years following the Warnock Report (DES, 1978), subsequent legislation

    (e.g., DES, 1981; DfE, 1998, 1993) and codes of practice (e.g., DfE, 1994) saw aplethora of debate and research on the integration of children with special educational

    needs (SENs) into mainstream schools. Controversy encompassed a range of disciplines

    and focused on political, social, pedagogical and theoretical issues. Debate

    encompassed a range of often competing positions, from the view that prejudice is

    socially constructed (e.g., see Barnes, 1996; Oliver, 1990; Shakespeare & Watson, 1997)

    to the perspective that disabled people s cognitions about their situations are at the rootof others attitudes toward them (e.g., Johnston, 1997). Since the mid 1990s research

    and interest in integration has seemingly waned, the focus having turned more toward

    the behaviour of children and young people in and out of school (Maras, 1996). The

    descriptor i`ntegration has been superseded in common parlance by i`nclusion . These

    changes in discourse are reflected in and reflect government papers (e.g. DfEE, 1997,1998) which, though adopting the term inclusion, link it directly to schools and school

    effectiveness (see White & Barber, 1997): a marriage which, it has been suggested, is

    fraught with tensions (Lunt & Norwich, 2000).

    Notwithstanding these changes in focus, issues in the area of inclusion and attitudes

    to disability remain the same and many research questions remain unresolved; it is stillnot clear whether, and what form of, contact arising out of inclusive practice produces

    positive outcomes in terms of non-disabled children s attitudes. Despite the shift away

    from research and moves toward ideological debate in the area, the number of children

    and young people with SENs being included in mainstream schools, with the exception

    of children with behaviour problems, is seemingly increasing (Norwich, 1990, 1994,

    1997). However, theory about the most effective methods of achieving this inclusion isstill relatively undeveloped in relation to the impact of contact on non-disabled (ND)

    children s attitudes toward disabled peers with whom they have contact and, more

    importantly, toward disabled people generally. From a social psychological viewpoint

    increased moves toward inclusion have a direct effect on the amount of social

    interaction occurring between mainstream children and children with disabilities and ontheir subsequent social perceptions.

    There is some evidence on the effects of educational integration on ordinary

    children s attitudes (Brinker 1985). In the literature that addresses this issue and that

    has looked at children s attitudes towards peers with disabilities in other settings,

    several broad underlying themes can be identified. Some research has focused oncontact per se (McConkey, McCormick, & Naughton, 1983), exposure and visibility

    (Furnham & Pendred, 1984; Strohmer, Grand, & Purcell, 1984), and perceived

    similarities (Siperstein & Chatillon, 1982). The broad conclusion from this work is that

    contact per se will have positive outcomes and will be even more effective where

    similarities are perceived. Other research has added to the picture by looking at

    cognitive mechanisms which might identify why exposure could be an important featurein attitude formation (Lewis & Lewis 1987). A third strand of research has been

    concerned with the effects of contact improving attitudes toward disability (e.g.,

    Chesler, 1965), the structure of contact (e.g., Acton & Zarbatany, 1988) and on the

    impact of co-operation in improving attitudes (e.g., Armstrong, Johnson, & Balow,

    1981; Johnson & Johnson, 1981). However, little is still known about the precisemethods of inclusion which produce the most positive effects and, in particular, how

    338 Pam Maras and Rupert Brown

  • improved attitudes can be encouraged, not just towards a few individuals, but towards

    disabled children in general. In some earlier research we showed how a plannedintervention involving co-operative activities between children with and without

    disabilities can generate more favourable intergroup attitudes (Maras & Brown, 1996).

    In this paper we further examine this issue by studying children s attitudes in a range of

    schools where different inclusive practice is in place. We should note that in this paper

    we are not assuming links between children s attitudes and their understanding of

    SENs. See Dockrell, Logotheti, and Magiati (1998) for work in this area.The research reported in this paper utilised two contrasting theoretical perspectives

    on contact. For both, the generalisation of attitudes arising out of a contact situation is

    a desired outcome. One perspective maintains that for attitudes arising out of contact to

    be generalised, references to relevant categories should be de-emphasised we call this

    interpersonal, `decategorised contact (Brewer & Miller, 1984). The second proposesthat for positive attitude change arising out of contact to be generalised, some category

    salience should be retained and additional features, such as the acknowledgement of

    valued differences between groups should be highlighted this we refer to as inter-

    group, `decategorised contact (Hewstone & Brown, 1986). Brewer and Miller see the

    blurring or breaking down of group or category boundaries as essential topersonalisation (and the reduction of categorical biases). Hewstone and Brown

    propose that maintaining group boundaries can be beneficial for aiding positive

    generalisation since the transfer of positive attitudes from the individuals one has met in

    the contact situation to other category members not encountered is thereby facilitated.

    In both models, the importance of Allport s (1954) conditions for successful contact

    (i.e., co-operative activity between equal status participants with strong institutionalsupport for the goal of integration) is recognised.

    There is some research evidence which supports both perspectives (see Bettencourt,

    Charlton, & Kernahan, 1997; Brown, Vivian, & Hewstone, 1999;Maras & Brown, 1996;

    Miller, Brewer, & Edwards, 1985; Vivian, Hewstone, & Brown, 1997). However, with the

    exception of Maras and Brown (1996), there is little evidence from naturalistic contextsin support of these models and, again with the exception of Maras and Brown (1996),

    both models and much of the research they have instigated have been mainly concerned

    with contact between ethnic, national or ad hoc groups. It remains to be seen how

    applicable they are to social situations involving children with and without disabilities.

    The research reported in this paper tested the appropriateness of Hewstone andBrown s (categorised) and Brewer and Millers (decategorised) theories of contact as

    models for improving attitudes within the social context of inclusive education for

    disabled children. It was hypothesised that the former theoretical stance would be the

    most conducive to generalised attitude change. It should be noted, however, that we did

    not preclude the notion that in `categorised contact situations where the additional

    features of institutional support and valued differences are not present, resultingattitudes may well still be generalised but may not be positive.

    Context

    The research was conducted in a large local education authority (LEA) in Southeast

    England. An extensive preliminary survey identified models of integration effectivewithin the LEA that related directly to the two models of contact (Maras, 1993):

    339Childrens attitudes toward disabled peers

  • 1. Where integration was taking place but where children with disabilities were not

    clearly identified by the schools to their mainstream peers as being members of a widergroup (interpersonal `decategorised contact).

    2. Where integration was occurring but where children with disabilities were clearly

    identified by the schools as members of a group of similar others (inter-group

    `categorised contact). This identification took several forms. For example, teachers

    talked about disability to the children and the disabled children were taught separately

    for all or part of the time. Further examples of this can be seen below in Table 1.Within these models children with three types of disability were included: hearing

    impairment (HI), learning disabilities (LD) and physical disabilities (PD). Schools were

    also identified where no obvious inclusion of disabled children (ND) was taking place;

    two of these served as control schools. The identification of categorisation, or not (type

    of contact) and the matching of schools was crucial to the design of the reported study.Initially type of contact was assessed by looking at the visibility of children with

    disabilities, along with criteria such as school size, significant numbers and spread

    across classes of children with significant SENs. Categorisation in terms of withdrawal,

    adult helpers, physical location of children with SENs (i.e., in mainstream or separate

    classrooms) and the use of aids, such as body-worn hearing aids in the case of childrenwith HI, were considered. This involved both the survey to class and head teachers

    described above and follow-up visits to specific schools. As part of this process both

    teachers and headteachers along with other appropriate adults such as SENs teachers

    were interviewed, observations were carried out and at least two further follow-up visits

    were made to schools thought to fit the models. Eight schools were finally identified

    and took part in the study. Only schools where one type of disability (LD, HI, PD ornone) predominated participated in the study. Thus there were two schools representing

    each type of disability inclusion. Table 1 provides examples of how the two types of

    contact (`categorised and `decategorised ) were operationalised in the schools where HI

    children were integrated.

    Table 1. Features of categorised and decategorised schools where children who are

    hearing impaired are included

    CATEGORISED CONTACT DECATEGORISED CONTACT

    Group and individual differences and simila-rities are acknowledged.

    Only individual differences and similarities areacknowledged.

    HI unit is in a separate building from themainstream school. Reverse integration takesplace in a structured way.

    HI unit is in mainstream school. Reverseintegration DOES NOT take place in astructured way.

    HI children are encouraged to wear `body-worn hearing aids.

    HI children are discouraged from wearingbody-worn aids.

    HI is discussed formally with mainstreamchildren & they are given information abouthow to communicate with HI children.

    HI is NOT discussed formally with mainstreamchildren & they are NOT given informationabout how to communicate with HI childrenunless they request it.

    340 Pam Maras and Rupert Brown

  • Method

    Design

    The study employed a cross-sectional design involving the type of disability and method

    of inclusion in each school, thus yielding a conceptual 3 6 2 between-subjects design:Type of Disability (LD, HI, PD) 6 Method of Inclusion (`categorised , `decate-gorised ). Two additional schools which had no disabled children were used as controls.

    The sample included two age groups (infant and junior) and equal numbers of girls and

    boys. Because neither age nor sex of participating children is directly relevant to our

    current concerns they are ignored in analyses reported below. For information,however, no relevant age or sex differences were found.

    Participants

    A total of 256 children from two National Curriculum (NC) years one/two (infant aged

    5 7 years, mean age 6.1 years) and three/four (junior aged 8 11 years, mean age 9.9

    years), 128 girls and 128 boys. Ten children moved or were absent for at least one of the

    three sessions. The children were randomly selected from within four classes in each ofeight schools in a large LEA in Southeast England. This sampling method was used to

    reduce possible contaminating effects of idiosyncrasies of schools and class teachers.

    Parental permission to participate in the study was obtained prior to random selection.

    Procedure

    Stimuli: The study utilised stimuli reported in past research (Maras & Brown, 1996).

    Data described here used stimulus photographs of unknown children with (DIS) andwithout (ND) disabilities to elicit children s reactions [standard stimuli (SS)]. The

    photographs showed children with physical disabilities (PD) sitting in wheelchairs,

    children with hearing impairment (HI) wearing body-worn hearing aids and children

    with learning disabilities (LD) who had Downs Syndrome. Piloting determined that the

    different disabilities were obvious to children of this age. The non-disabled childrenwere matched with the disabled children for age, sex and other features such as posture.

    These standard stimuli photographs of unknown children were modified to show the

    children in pairs and groups.

    Photographs were also taken of all known non-disabled and disabled children (KC)

    in the participating classes; these were utilised to determine sociometric choice andpreference.

    Measures: Three measures used in this research were also utilised in our past work

    (Maras & Brown, 1996). The first measure consisted of five `post-boxes into which the

    children were asked to post the photographs of the known and unknown individual

    children depending on how much they wanted to play with them (`always, `a lot ,

    s`ometimes , `not much or `never ), thus supplying a measure of sociometric preference.The second, a five happy/sad faces Likert type scale, was modified for measuring affect

    or liking. The third measure consisted of five different sized balloons. This was designed

    for measuring amount of certain physical and psychological attributes.

    Interview procedure: As in the previous study (Maras & Brown, 1996), participating

    children used the measures and stimuli for two tasks described below. In addition, semi-structured interviews were carried out with each child to elicit pre-existing stereotypes

    341Childrens attitudes toward disabled peers

  • and attitudes about disability generally and then specifically about HI, LD and PD.

    Prior to data collection the children were familiarised with the measures and theresearcher. Data collection was carried out over two sessions. All sessions were run in

    the same way. Each child was seen individually in a quiet place away from the

    classroom and verbatim instructions were used (Maras, 1993; Maras & Brown, 1996).

    The children first responded to the measure of sociometric preference using both known

    (KC) and unknown (SS) stimuli individually. They then responded to the evaluative

    measures of psychological and physical attributes in respect of stimuli photographs ofthe unknown children with and without disabilities (SS) which were presented in boy/

    girl matched pairs (i.e., LD, HI, PD & ND). Order of presentation for the sociometric

    preference task was random. For the evaluation task the disabled/non-disabled stimuli

    were presented in a systematically ordered manner.

    Results

    These two procedures generated the various dependent measures for the study: the

    amount of liking for and evaluation of abilities of each of the disability target categories

    (LD, HI, PD, none) and sociometric preference for these categories and known peers.Although the study was originally conceived of as a 3 6 2 (Type of Disability 6Method of Inclusion) design, in order to incorporate the control schools, statistically it

    was simpler to treat the eight participating schools as different levels of a single factor,

    and then to include Disability of Stimuli as a within-subjects factor1. Thus the initial

    overall analyses adopted an 8 6 [4] mixed ANOVA strategy: School 6 [Stimuli]. Sexand Age were included as between-subjects variables but are not reported below forsimplicitys sake. None of the results we report was qualified by these factors (i.e., there

    were no reliable interactions involving sex and age).

    We first present general findings from the study. Several of these analyses relate

    directly to our theoretical perspectives on contact but are necessarily quite complex in

    nature. In order to show the trends more clearly, we then focus exclusively on the datafrom schools where children who are hearing impaired (HI) are included since it is in

    these schools where the pattern of findings is most clear.2

    Six mixed model ANOVAs (described above) were run on the intergroup attitude

    indices (hearing ability, school work, physical education ability, running, hardworking,

    thinking, liking, and `play with) using ratings of SS as the dependent measure. Giventhat our hypotheses concern the effects of different kinds of inclusive practice adopted

    by schools on intergroup attitudes, our primary interest is in statistical interactions

    involving the School and targeted Stimuli variables. Such interactions indicate attitudes

    toward particular stimulus groups vary as a function of the type of integrated contact

    the participating children had experienced. Before discussing such interactions, it is

    worth noting one consistent and highly significant finding which was observed on allmeasures: without exception, a main within-subjects effect for Stimuli (ps < .001)

    indicated that the three disabled groups were consistently evaluated as less able (and

    less likeable) than the ND children. On several of the indices this main effect provided a

    reassuring validation of our stimulus materials i.e., the children clearly understood

    and indicated to us that, for example, ND children could r`un better than children withphysical disabilities. Nevertheless, it was noticeable that such r`ealistic biases also

    342 Pam Maras and Rupert Brown

  • generalised inappropriately to other categories of disability e.g., children with LD and

    HI were also judged to be able to run less well than ND children. It was also clear thaton the affective dimension l`iking , disabled children were generally (and significantly)

    less liked than non-disabled stimuli.

    Of central interest in this paper are differences between rating of stimuli as function

    of different contact experiences (i.e., different schools). Such results would demonstrate

    a significant interaction involving type of school and stimuli. Such interactions were

    observed on five dependent measures: t`hinking (F (21,660) = 5.51, P < .001);`hearing (F (21,657) = 3.95, p < .001); r`unning (F (21,690) = 3.10, p < .001);

    `Physical Education (F (21,666) = 1.78, p < .05); and l`iking (F (21,669) = 1.62,

    p < .05); this last effect also involved sex of subject. To present the full results from all

    these interactions would be both complex and burdensome for the reader. Thus we have

    chosen to exemplify these effects by reporting fully the effects observed in the schoolswhere children who are HI are included. To interpret the significant interactions

    reported below we employed a relatively conservative procedure. This involved the

    assessment of pair-wise differences within each type of school (decategorised,

    categorised and control) using Tukeys HSD post hoc procedure.

    Results from the schools where hearing impaired children are included

    Liking: As noted above, disabled children were rated as significantly less likeable than

    ND children in all of the schools. As can be seen below (Figure 1) the difference

    between ratings of disabled and ND children was greatest in the school where contact

    was categorised and this difference is consistent for all three types of disability.

    Hearing: When asked how well unknown children can hear (a dimension directlyrelevant to the contact situation in these schools) all of the children indicated that the

    HI children could hear significantly less well than the other disabled groups (LD & PD).

    The children who had had contact rated the HI children lower than the control children

    who had had no contact perhaps indicating a first effect of contact could be to make

    the children more aware of the particular disability. Although the pattern is much thesame in the three types of schools, the differences are much sharper in the categorised

    school than the decategorised and control schools. In all three conditions the children

    attribute a degree of hearing impairment to the groups to which it is not relevant (LD &

    PD); this is especially the case for PD stimuli children (Figure 2).

    Schoolwork:Now we consider a dimension that is more relevant to the general schoolcontext schoolwork. Here, again, there is a general trend to downgrade all of the

    disabled children, particularly the PD group in the categorised and control schools (see

    Figure 3). Contact, however, seems to have produced differing effects. In the control

    schools the HI children are rated significantly higher than the PD children and there is

    no significant difference between the children s ratings of the LD and PD children. In

    the decategorised school there is no significant difference in the ratings of any of thedisabled groups. In the categorised school the pattern is somewhat different. As with

    their rating of hearing, there was far more differentiation between disabilities and the

    PD children are rated significantly lower than both the HI and LD children (Figure 3).

    Thinking: Finally we consider a dimension that is more abstract and less directly

    relevant to these particular contact situations thinking. Once again, all three disabledgroups are rated significantly lower than the non-disabled group. In the control schools

    343Childrens attitudes toward disabled peers

  • HI children are rated significantly higher than PD and LD between whom there is no

    significant difference. A similar picture emerges in the decategorised school with nosignificant difference between any of the disabled groups. In the categorised school an

    entirely different pattern can be seen. Here, PD children and more importantly HI

    children (a disabled group with whom they have contact), are rated significantly less

    able to think than LD children (to whom the dimension is relevant) (Figure 4).

    The data described so far have presented a somewhat negative picture of contact. The

    most deleterious effects of contact appear to be in the categorised school in which thechildren differentiate between the disabled groups more than in the decategorised and

    control schools and downgrade the disabled group they know (HI) on dimensions that

    are not relevant (schoolwork and thinking). In addition, in the categorised school, the

    sharper differences spill over onto another disability (PD). Furthermore, children in all

    of the contact situations clearly differentiate between disabled children generally andnon-disabled children.

    Sociometric preference ( p`lay with data): Data on the participating children s

    sociometric preferences for known and unknown DIS and ND peers were then

    analysed. These revealed a number of significant main effects and interactions but none

    of these involved the simple School x Stimuli interaction of interest in this paper and sowill not be discussed further. Thus for sociometric preferences disability seemed not to

    be a relevant factor in the children s judgments. Suffice it to say that the most powerful

    results observed on these measures involved Sex x Gender of stimuli interactions,

    Figure 1. Liking for SS in schools where children with hearing impairment are

    integrated and control schools

    LD = learning disability; HI = hearing impairment; PD = physical disability; ND = nodisability. Bars for each type of disability not sharing the same subscript in each type of contactare significantly different by Tukeys HSD test, p < .05.

    344 Pam Maras and Rupert Brown

  • reflecting the well documented finding of preference for same sex playmates amongstyoung children (La Freniere, Stayer, & Gauthier, 1984; Maccoby & Jacklin, 1976). For

    both known and unknown children these interactions (F (1,168) = 235.54 and

    F(1,221) = 278.88, both p < .0001) completely masked all other statistical effects.

    Attitude generalisation: It will be recalled that attitude generalisation from the known

    contact person to other members of his or her category is the desired outcome of bothof the models of contact considered earlier. One index of this is provided by correlating

    the participants ratings of how much they would like to play with known and unknown

    same-sex children by gender. This strategy was employed to rule out confounding

    effects of children s own gender preference referred to above. There was a significant

    correlation between ratings of known and unknown girls in the categorised school. Inthe schools with decategorised contact the correlations were lower and significantly

    smaller than those in the categorised school. A similar pattern was observed amongst

    the boys although the difference between the correlations just failed to achieve

    conventional levels of statistical significance. Correlations were also carried out on the

    children s mean ratings of the known and unknown non-disabled children. Here all but

    one of the correlations were significantly different from zero at the .01 level and Z testsrevealed no significant differences between any of the correlations in the categorised

    and decategorised schools. This indicates that the difference in generalisation of

    Figure 2. Hearing rated for SS in schools where children with hearing impairment are

    integrated and control schools

    LD = learning disability; HI = hearing impairment; PD = physical disability; ND = nodisability. Bars for each type of disability not sharing the same subscript in each type of contactare significantly different by Tukeys HSD test, p < .05.

    345Childrens attitudes toward disabled peers

  • attitudes visible in Table 2 was confined to the situationally relevant stimuli category i.e., those with HI and was not a generic effect.

    Discussion

    In this paper we have reported findings from a large cross-sectional study involvingseveral schools practising different policies of inclusion for children with disabilities.

    The focus was on mainstream children s attitudes towards their peers with disabilities

    and the first notable result was that, in general, the participants showed marked

    differentiation in their evaluations of, and liking for, the standard photographic stimuli

    used to measure attitudes. As can be seen in Figures 1 4, this differentiation took the

    form of a consistently more favourable attitude towards the ND stimuli than all threedisabled groups. Notice how the right hand bars in these figures are always significantly

    higher than the remaining three bars. It is against this background of generic in-group

    preference that the effects of different types of intra-school contact between children

    with and without disabilities must be assessed.

    These effects were indicated by the presence of statistically reliable interactionsbetween school and stimuli on most measures. The simplest way to describe these

    interactions is to note that, in schools in which there was a concentration of children

    with a particular form of disability, those that down-played the salience of that

    disability category what we have termed decategorised schools tended to have

    Figure 3. Schoolwork rated for SS in schools where children with hearing impairment

    are integrated and control schools

    LD = learning disability; HI = hearing impairment; PD = physical disability; ND = nodisability. Bars for each type of disability not sharing the same subscript in each type of contactare significantly different by Tukeys HSD test p < .05.

    346 Pam Maras and Rupert Brown

  • children with less differentiated (and less biased) attitudes than those who placed more

    emphasis on disability (categorised schools). In fact, the decategorised schools generally

    tended to resemble the `no contact control schools in the profile of their intergroupattitudes on different evaluative dimensions. This pattern is well exemplified in the

    schools with significant numbers of children with hearing impairments, whose results

    we have presented in detail (Figure 1 4). Note how the differences between the HI and

    ND bars are always greater in the categorised schools than in the decategorised or

    control schools.

    At first glance, such findings clearly offer more support to Brewer and Miller s (1984)contact model than to Hewstone and Brown (1986). As predicted by Brewer and Miller,

    where a social category is psychologically less significant it loses its power to organise

    (and bias) people s attitudes. Nevertheless, despite this empirical support, from an

    applied perspective the Brewer-Miller model does not offer a very optimistic prognosis

    for school inclusion policies. For, although children in the decategorised schools had

    less biased attitudes than those in the categorised schools, these attitudes were not onthe whole any more favourable than those shown by children in the control schools.

    Against this baseline, then, even decategorised contact seems to be having scant effect

    on mainstream children s attitudes toward disability.

    Inclusion policies more closely resembling Hewstone and Brown s (1986) version ofthe contact hypothesis would appear to have even lower chances of success, if these

    Figure 4. Thinking rated for SS in schools where children with hearing impairment are

    integrated and control schools

    LD = learning disability; HI = hearing impairment; PD = physical disability; ND = nodisability. Bars for each type of disability not sharing the same subscript in each type of contactare significantly different by Tukeys HSD test, p < .05.

    347Childrens attitudes toward disabled peers

  • findings are a guide. A plausible reason for the more sharply differentiated and negative

    intergroup attitudes observed in the categorised schools is that the contact which

    occurred here was hardly optimal in terms of Allport s (1954) criteria. Qualitative data

    from the interviews indicated that the children were not given much information about

    the nature of different disabilities and many felt uncomfortable about meeting their

    disabled peers. In other contexts, anxiety has been shown to be negatively associatedwith favourable intergroup attitudes (Greenland & Brown, 1999; Islam & Hewstone,

    1993; Stephan & Stephan, 1985), and it would be surprising if similar processes were

    also not operative in school contexts. Moreover, by common consent, class sizes in

    these schools were large, thus creating demands on teachers time and precluding the

    possibility of frequent and effective co-operative learning activities. There was a strikingcontrast between the generally negative effects of contact in these schools and the

    positive outcomes observed in an earlier study of a contact situation involving regular

    structured co-operative encounters between children with and without severe learning

    difficulties (Maras & Brown, 1996).

    Despite the practical difficulties of trying to apply Hewstone and Browns (1986)model in sub-optimal conditions, theoretically their hypothesis received at least partial

    support from the observation that attitude generalisation appeared more in evidence in

    the categorised than the decategorised schools. This was shown by the stronger

    correlations between sociometric preferences for known and unknown peers with

    disabilities in the former than the latter schools. A likely reason for this is that the

    heightened salience of the disability categories in categorised schools permittedpsychological transfer of feelings about a known exemplar category to other members

    of that category not yet met. Of course, in this instance the generalisation was probably

    of negative attitudes, but this need not always be the case (Maras & Brown, 1996; Van

    Oudenhouven, Groenewoud, & Hewstone, 1996; Brown et al., 1999).

    Before concluding it is appropriate to enter four caveats about our research designwhich qualify our conclusions. Because the study was conducted in a real-life context,

    exploiting ongoing policy differences in several schools, we do not have the luxury of a

    true experimental design in which children were randomly assigned to different contact

    experiences. In addition, our characterisation of the different inclusion policies as

    involving categorised and decategorised contact was undoubtedly an imperfect one

    Table 2. Correlations between children s ratings of `play with known and unknown

    children who are hearing impaired

    Contact with children who areHearing Impaired

    Correlation between known and unknown stimuliphotographs of children who are Hearing Impaired

    Girls Boys

    Categorised .56** .32**De-categorised .00 7.06Difference between schools (Zscore) N = 64

    2.41** 1.52

    *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001

    348 Pam Maras and Rupert Brown

  • since there were probably other variables confounded with this distinction. Still, the

    consistency and (statistical) strength of our findings across several different measuresgive us some confidence that they are not completely spurious and can be meaningfully

    related to the theoretical and policy issues we identified at the outset. Our main

    conclusion is that most schools we studied were not providing the conditions which

    promoted the most effective forms of contact between different groups of their students.

    The challenge for teachers and education policy-makers alike is to re-create in

    mainstream classrooms the kinds of co-operative and equal status learning contextswithin a national curriculum that currently allows little time for alternative methods.

    In conclusion, we have intentionally not in this paper linked our theoretical

    conceptualisations to pedagogy. However, given current increased interest in links

    between research, theory and pedagogy it is interesting to note that current debates on

    `unique vs. `generalisable differences as recently summarised by Lewis and Norwich(1999) bear more than a passing conceptual resemblance to the social psychological

    perspectives outlined in this paper. Perhaps, therefore, work aimed at linking delivery

    and practice to work on social psychological processes might prove a useful way

    forward. The challenge of course is accommodating moral often posing as theoretical

    tensions between views that purport inclusion per se and those that see education (andlearning) for all as a main goal for the future.

    NOTES1 For illustrative purposes scores for the control schools are derived from the mean scores of bothcontrol schools in Figures 1 4. In addition a mean score was also computed for the three non-disabled pairs of stimuli. Prior analysis revealed that this strategy was appropriate, as there waslittle difference between the childrens evaluations of the ND pairs when they were included in theanalysis separately.2 Results from the other schools show broadly similar patterns and can be obtained from the firstauthor.

    Acknowledgment

    The research reported here was funded by grant (#F2368) from the Leverhulme Trust.

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    Received 3 September 1999; final version received 20 January 2000

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