Predicting Community Opposition to Inclusion in Schools: The Role of Social Dominance, Contact, Intergroup Anxiety, and Economic Conservatism

Abstract

This study addresses community members' attitudes toward inclusion, the practice of including students with disabilities in regular education classroom settings. Participants in Study 1 were 271 community adults, completing measures of prior contact with people with disabilities, social dominance orientation (SDO), economic conservatism, intergroup anxiety, prejudice, and opposition to inclusion. Results from structural equation modeling indicated that amount of intergroup anxiety predicted opposition to inclusion via the mediator, prejudice toward people with disabilities, and that amount of prior contact indirectly predicted prejudice toward people with disabilities through intergroup anxiety. SDO positively predicted both intergroup anxiety and prejudice in the model, with prejudice also mediating between SDO and opposition to inclusion. Both SDO and economic conservatism failed to exhibit direct predictive relationships with opposition to inclusion. Participants in Study 2 were 161 community adults. Contact was shown to exert an indirect effect on prejudice via intergroup anxiety, whereas intergroup anxiety impacted inclusive attitudes via prejudice. SDO exerted both direct and indirect (via prejudice) effects on opposition to inclusion.