Children’s contact with people with disabilities and their attitudes towards disability: a cross-sectional study

Persons with disabilities as experts-by experience: using personal narratives to affect community attitudes in Kilifi, Kenya

“…There was also greater emphasis placed on the agency of persons with disabilities in terms of abilities and facilitating actions by others, and on being human in terms of recognition and inclusion. Allport’s ‘contact hypothesis’ attributes these changes to the deliberate interactions with people living with disabilities [ 32 ], which corroborates the findings of Armstrong et al [ 34 , 35 ], MacMillan et al [ 32 ], and Schwab [ 34 ]. The deliberate exposure of the groups to people with disabilities, who were the frequent subjects of negative images and devaluation, challenged the stereotypical views of persons perceived to be a burden and the ‘objects’ of dehumanizing practice [ 36 – 38 ].…”

“…A systematic review of 35 studies revealed that children’s attitudes were positively associated with the social contact experienced with people who have disabilities [ 33 ]. This was corroborated in a more recent cross-sectional survey of over 1800 children, in which empathy for and underlying anxiety about interacting with people with disabilities were reported mediators of the contact-attitude link [ 34 ].…”

Promoting Inclusion Via Cross‐Group Friendship: The Mediating Role of Change in Trust and Sympathy

“…According to the philosophy of inclusive education, diversity among students potentially fosters interactions between individuals who are different from each other: A number of studies show that contacts between students from different social groups can enhance positive intergroup attitudes in children and adolescents (Pettigrew & Tropp, ; Tropp & Prenovost, ). However, this research has primarily focused on students from different ethnicities, although only a few studies have investigated students with low academic achievement (for exceptions, see Armstrong, Morris, Abraham, Ukoumunne, & Tarrant, ; Cameron & Rutland, ; Grütter & Meyer, ). This is relatively surprising, because studying contacts between the majority group of typically developing students and their classmates with low academic achievement can help us understand how acceptance and inclusion among students can be promoted.…”

Applying the Contact Theory in Inclusive Education: A Systematic Review on the Impact of Contact and Information on the Social Participation of Students With Disabilities

“…None of the included studies addressed the underlying affective mechanisms that mediate the contact-attitude relationship (i.e., intergroup anxiety and empathy: Brown and Hewstone, 2005;Aberson and Haag, 2007;Pettigrew and Tropp, 2008). While the mediating role of intergroup anxiety and empathy has also been confirmed for students' contact and attitudes toward peers with a disability in a natural context (Armstrong et al, 2016), it remains unknown whether these mediating effects also hold in interventions that aim to promote students' attitudes toward peers with a disability, utilizing contact and information. Considering the affective mediators can transfer both positive and negative affect to the attitude object (Clore and Schnall, 2005), most effect of contact would be expected in the affective component of attitude.…”