THE INFLUENCE OF CONTACT ON SOCIAL ATTITUDES TOWARDS INCLUSION: STUDY WITH STUDENTS FROM BRAZILIAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Résumé fourni par la source

Social attitudes towards inclusion are composed of cognitive, affective, and behavioral components and may function as predictors of behavior toward specific social groups, such as people with disabilities. These attitudes can be influenced by several factors, including gender, age, previous contact, and education. Considering this, the present study aims to analyze whether contact with people with disabilities is associated with more favorable social attitudes towards inclusion. Five hundred students aged 6 to 16 participated in the study, distributed among the early and final years of Elementary Education, from public schools from the five regions of Brazil. The Children’s Scale of Social Attitudes towards Inclusion was used as the data collection instrument. The Wilcoxon rank-sum test was applied to examine differences between students with and without previous contact with people with disabilities. The results indicate no statistically significant differences in the North, Northeast, Midwest, and South regions. A statistically significant difference was identified only in the Southeast region. These findings suggest that the relationship between contact and social attitudes is not uniform across regions and may be influenced by contextual and institutional factors, in line with intergroup contact theory. Taken together, the findings highlight that contact alone does not necessarily lead to more favorable social attitudes toward inclusion, reinforcing the importance of considering the quality and context of interactions, as well as regional and educational conditions in which they occur.

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