Children's attitudes toward peers with disabilities: the Israeli perspective.
Attitudes toward peers with disabilities were compared in two groups of elementary school children, Israeli (2845 children) and Canadian (1831 children), using the Chedoke-McMaster Attitudes Toward Children with Handicaps (CATCH) scale. Israeli children expressed significantly more positive general attitudes (P=0.0001). The more favourable attitudes were seen in both areas evaluated by the CATCH, the cognitive and the affective-behavioural. In both groups, children who had had previous experience with a disabled person expressed more positive attitudes (P=0.001). An effect of gender was seen in the Canadian but not in the Israeli children. Cultural factors appear to play a role in modelling children's attitudes toward their disabled peers and therefore should be considered before educational programmes are implemented.
Tirosh
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E
The Hannah Khoushy Child Development Center, Bnai Zion Medical Center, The Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Haifa, Israel.
Schanin
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M
Reiter
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S
D001290:Attitude; D002170:Canada; D002648:Child; D002658:Developmental Disabilities; D006233:Persons with Disabilities; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007557:Israel; D008297:Male; D010379:Peer Group; D011287:Prejudice; D012737:Sex Factors; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*