The effect of social contact on college teachers’ attitudes toward students with severe mental handicaps and their educational integration

Abstract

ABSTRACT 74 full‐time teachers in a tertiary college completed a 68‐item questionnaire about their attitudes toward students with severe mental handicaps and their educational integration into ordinary colleges. The results showed that college teachers who (i) had training in teaching students with learning difficulties, (ii) were aware of the link programme between their college and a local school for pupils with severe learning difficulties, and (iii) had experienced social contact with severely handicapped students expressed more positive attitudes and emotional reactions toward severely handicapped students and their educational integration. The study concludes that in order to make link programmes more effective and to foster more favourable attitudes towards severely handicapped students, colleges need to engineer more opportunities for discussion about the rationale of link programmes and for making social contact with the students involved.