By: Amanda Stinebrickner

SOCIAL INTEGRATION IN THE CLASSROOM

WHY IS THIS SUBJECT IMPORTANT TO ME?

Physical Impairments

Disability

Deformity

Weight

SOME REASONS CHILDREN ARE SOCIALLY ISOLATED:

DISABILITY AND IMPAIRMENTS

PHYSICAL DEFORMITY

CONNIE CULP

(Wikipedia Encyclopedia) “The most common congenital deformity of the anterior wall of the chest, in which several ribs and the sternum grow abnormally. This produces a caved-in or sunken appearance of the chest. It can either be present at birth or not develop until puberty

PECTUS EXCAVATUMLATIN FOR “HOLLOWED

CHEST”

Nuss procedure (“minimally invasive corrective surgery”) Before surgery, “Participants demonstrated decreased self-

confidence, increased feelings of self-consciousness, and a variety of avoidance and concealment behaviors”. After the procedure, “all areas of adolescent quality of life improved”. “An important component of self-concept, especially during adolescence, is body image” and that “an important factor in adolescents’ quality of life is their need to believe that they are physically normal”

Reference: Roberts, MacMath,

English, & Martin, pg. 21)

PECTUS EXCAVATUM

Holaday & McPhearson, using colored photographs of burned and unburned children, “compared attitudes of 218 practice teachers, senior nursing students, and counselor-in-training toward children and adolescents described as typical, having emotional and psychological problems, or having been severely burned or scarred”.

“They found that children with severe burns and facial scarring were regarded less favorably and were given fewer predictions of future success than the other 2 groups. Significantly fewer of the students expressed a willingness to work with them, and many had little confidence that they would be able to help burned clients”

Surprisingly, it was the children that were burned that were “most often asked about their injuries and scarring but were rarely asked about school, leisure activities, or friends

Resource: Holaday & McPhearson, pg. 36

ARTICLE, “STUDENT ATTITUDES TOWARD CHILDREN AND

ADOLESCENTS WITH SEVERE BURNS”

WEIGHT

weight, disability, physical impairments and deformity issues/concerns. “From a psychosocial standpoint, obesity is considered to be one of the most stigmatizing and least socially acceptable conditions in childhood” (Schwimmer, Burwinkle, & Varni, pg. 1818). “Of the limited number of studies that have been conducted in this area, data have consistently shown that obese children are often viewed in a negative manner by their peers. Obese youth are often attributed with negative characteristics such as being mean, lazy, unattractive, less intelligent, and less socially skilled” (Gray, Kahhan, & Janicke, pg. 720). Not only can obesity lead to feeling socially unaccepted, but it can also lead to the child being bullied.

In 1961, Richardson, Goodman, Hastorf, and Dornbusch did a study, asking participating children to rank six drawings of same-sex children in the order of how they liked the child pictured

Children pictured: healthy-looking, normal weight child, a child with crutches, a child in a wheelchair, a child with a face disfigurement, a child missing a hand, and an obese child

Ranked highest: healthy-looking, normal weight child

Ranked lowest: obese child

TWO STUDIES

In 2003, Latner and Stunkard did this same study again

Because obesity had become more common, they hypothesized that the rate of weight-based stigmatization would have decreased since the 1961 study had been done

To their surprise, the healthy-looking, normal weight child was “even more likely to receive first place rankings and the obese child was significantly more likely to receive last place rankings. Thus, despite increased rates of obesity in children, weight-based stigmatization was shown to be getting worse rather than better”

Resource: Gray, Kahhan, & Janicke, pg. 721

SECOND STUDY

CHARTS SHOWING AN INCREASE IN OBESITY

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

OBESITY CYCLE

CAUSES OF STEREOTYPES OF WHAT ‘NORMAL’ IS

SOCIETY OBSESSED WITH PERFECTION

Feeling of superiorityRacismLook at characters in movies, TV

programs, etc.-what roles they play and why?

Projecting our judgments onto others

Misinformed/Uneducated

MOVIE PORTRAYALS AND OUR OWN STEREOTYPES

As parents

As educators

WHAT CAN WE DO

Help children feel value and worth-make them feel they are MORE than their

disability, impairment, disfigurement, or weight

concern!!!!

MOST IMPORTANTLY