The Effect of Gender on Childrens’ Attitudes Towards Co-Education of Students with and Without Disability after the Application of an Intervention Program

Abstract

Gender identity has been rising sharply over the past decades for all international researchers across a spectrum of scientific disciplines. Many theories address gender differences and identity in biology, environment, or a combination of these two determinants are met in the literature. Within this research interest, the role of gender has been investigated in a number of social issues related to aggression, positive science, attitudes towards various social groups, etc. The gender factor has not been sufficiently investigated its role in the acceptance of children with disabilities or Special Educational Needs (SEN) by their peers. The purpose of this research was to examine the effect of gender, after the implementation of an intervention film education program, on the change of attitudes of people without disabilities or SEN in relation to inclusive education. The survey involved 544 students attending the first two grades (A and B) of the Gymnasium. The assessment of participants' attitudes was carried out with three questionnaires completed before and after the intervention program: a) questionnaire by Theodoraki, Bagiati & Gouda (1995), which is based on the Theory of Planed Behavior; (b) the General Attitude Questionnaire (Nikolaratzi & Reybekiel, 2001); and (c) a Demographic Questionnaire. The dependent variables were: a) General Attitude, b) Attitude towards Behavior, c) Intention, d) Perceptible Control, e) Ethical Obligation, f) Important others, g) As independent variables considered the gender and experience of pupils and students, the sample, disability issues and SEN, and the number of interventions measurements. Frequency recording was performed and mean values ​​and standard deviations were calculated while the relationship between the continuous variables was investigated using the Pearson r factor. The parametric tests that were performed focused on the analysis of the variance through repeated measurements showing the progress of the stops for each of the measurements (in our case, three (3) measurements were made) and for each of the variables of the survey. At the same time, in relation to attitude and behavior, two specific factors were analyzed with three-way ANOVA with repeated measures and t-test independent samples were used, and the same procedure was used for the gender factor correlations of the participants. The "Sex" factor has shown that it plays an important role in students 'and students' attitudes towards children with disabilities or SEN. More specifically, the present results showed that participants had more positive attitudes than the rest of students. Following the implementation of the intervention program, pupils' attitudes towards SEN or disability improved more in relation to non participants’ attitudes, except in cases where there was previous contact and experience and where boys were more positive.