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The Paralympic legacy: what will it do for people with intellectual
disabilities?
Prof. Jan Burns (Canterbury Christ Church University)
INAS - the International Federation for sport for para-athletes with an intellectual disability www.inas.org
INAS
Special Olympics
Paralympics
Paralympics
20 million+ viewing public
The Legacy
Aspiration for London 2012:
“influence the attitudes and perceptions of people to change the way they think
about disabled people”
Department for Culture, Media and
Sport, 2010 p.3
The Legacy
A large claim
However, the organisers do not set out the pathway to this outcome
Explanations may lie in research on attitude change
Previous researchA large quantity of previous research using
social psychological theories of attitude change
Factors implicated include:
Increasing positive contact with the target group
Increasing legitimate positive knowledge about the target group
London 2012 a massive social intervention
A study investigating the legagcy claim
Joanna Ferrara (Canterbury Christ Church University)Prof. Jan Burns (Canterbury Christ Church University)Dr Hayley Mills (Canterbury Christ Church University
Aim:
to investigate whether it is possible to change attitudes towards people with ID by exposure to paralympic performance.
N= 973 Measures+ demographic questionnaire
N= 973 Measures+ demographic questionnaire
Exp
erim
enta
lC
om
par
iso
n
Time 1 Time 2
N= 523 Measures+ debrief
N= 623 Measures+ debrief
Intervention
Paralympic footage
+ Information
DESIGN
MeasuresVariable Measure Author
Implicit attitudes towards disability
Disability Attitudes Implicit Association Test’ (DA-IAT)
Pruett & Chan, 2006
Explicit attitudes towards ID
The Community living attitude scale- mental retardation (CLAS-MR)
Henry, Keys & Jopp, 1999
Social Desirability The balanced inventory of desirable responding (BIDR).
Paulhus, 1991
Results
1. Groups were comparable on all measures and demographics
2. Significant positive improvement in implicit attitudes between T1 and T2, irrespective of group
3. Total explicit attitude change scores not significant, but subscale ‘empowerment’ was, again irrespective of group
4. Regression T 1 – main predictors of positive attitude, previous contact and gender, not social desirability
5. Regression T 2 – no significant predictors
Conclusions and implicationsTentative support that watching Paralympics might improve attitudes, but equally so will watching the Olympics
This may be a result of such stimuli evoking feelings of ‘empowerment’
Even quite a small intervention can have an effect, the Olympics/Paralympics is a very large intervention
Do not know a) how long these effects last, b) how generalisable the results are
Support our athletes in London 2012
Thank youQuestions?