A survey on friendships with peers with severe disabilities of 1,137 middle and high school students was conducted across three states. Students indicated that they should try to make friends with peers with severe disabilities and that friendships are most likely to develop when students with disabilities are educated in general education classes, for all or part of the school day. Students perceived themselves, special education teachers, and youth organizations as primarily responsible for facilitating these friendships, and that effective strategies involve learning situations in which students work together, teachers present information on disabilities, and teachers and parents arrange social events for all students.
Attitudes towards mental illness were measured by the Opinion About Mental Illness Scale (OMI) for 83 male graduate college students from American and Chinese cultural backgrounds. The OMI questionnaire consisted of five factors: A) Authoritarianism, B) Benevolence, C) Mental Hygiene Ideology, D) Social Restrictiveness, and E) Interpersonal Etiology. Statistically significant differences between the two groups of subjects on Factors A, B, D and E of the OMI were found. American students performed lower on "Authoritarianism", on "Social Restrictiveness", and on "Interpersonal Etiology", and higher on "Benevolence" than Chinese subjects.
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