Does intense contact with people with disabilities lead to more inclusive behaviour within professional practice?

Abstract

Does intense contact with people with disabilities lead to more inclusive behaviour within professional practice? BackgroundA Flemish training program for pre-service teachers and pre-service special educators organises a sports camp where the participants have intense and direct contact with people with disabilities. These pre-service special educators are trained in orthopedagogy, which can be defined as the theory of support within a problematic parenting or educational situation. In this sports camp, pre-service teachers and special educators can immerse themselves and experience the world of people with disabilities. This sports camp is based on the contact hypothesis which assumes that such a "bath" of direct contact will improve the inclusive behaviour of the pre-service professionals. This inclusive behaviour, which refers to acting in accordance with the UN Convention on Persons with Disabilities (United Nations, 2006), is required of these pre-service teachers and special educators as they will be employed in education and support services for persons with disabilities.This sports camp, however, requires a lot of man-hours for guidance and preparation from the training program and is very expensive in accommodation costs. In addition, it is also very demanding for the training program to set up a complete sports camp with 80 pre-service teachers and special educators, 40 participants with different types of disabilities, 2 nurses and 5 teacher educators on an annual basis. On top of that, one does not know whether such a sports camp is effective on the pedagogical inclusive behaviour of these pre-service professionals. Therefore, the objective of this study is to examine whether this sports camp is effective in terms of an increase in inclusive pedagogical behaviour.

From Policies to Practices: Factors Related to the Use of Inclusive Practices in Portugal

“…This result must be interpreted considering the specificities of the Portuguese context because since the introduction of compulsory schooling, the conceptual framework for education remained practically unchanged until 2018 [33,37,45]. In addition, these findings corroborate other studies suggesting the influence of previous and intense contact with diversity on positive attitudes toward inclusive education and inclusive practices [46,47]. In this sense, the relationship between years of experience and inclusive practices may be mediated by several factors, as teaching experience by itself might not lead to more inclusive teaching practices.…”

How do individuals with autism participate in work life? A study on inclusive employability

“…Furthermore, according to Allport (1954), positive and frequent contact between people from different groups contributes to improve the judgement of the whole group and consequently to reduce prejudice (Carvalho-Freitas and Stathi, 2017). Direct and intensive contact increases positive attitudes, self-efficacy and inclusive behaviour (Emmers et al, 2023). Therefore, contact and training could be used together to create a positive cycle of attitude change (Hunt and Hunt, 2004).…”