Special Or Unique: Young People's Attitudes to Disability
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Special or Unique Young People’s Attitudes to Disability Evan Odell Disability Rights UK ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Acknowledgements This research was conducted with support from About LKMco Kate Bowen-Viner, Bart Shaw and Sam Baars from This report was supported by LKMco. LKMco is an LKMco. Support from LKMco included designing the education and youth ‘think and action-tank’. We research tools, providing guidance on conducting believe society should ensure all children and fieldwork and analysis, and support with young people receive the support they need to developing an ethical research approach. make a fulfilling transition to adulthood. This project was funded as part of DRILL – the We provide the evidence and support policy makers Disability Research on Independent Living & and practitioners need to support young people. Learning programme. DRILL is funded by The National Lottery Community Fund. We use our timely and rigorous research to get under the skin of issues affecting young people in About Disability Rights UK order to shape the public debate, advise the sector and campaign on topical issues. We have a We are disabled people leading change, working for particular interest in issues affecting marginalised equal participation for all. Disability Rights UK is led young people. by people with diverse experiences of disability and health conditions, from different communities. We www.lkmco.org.uk work with allies committed to equal participation @LKMco for all. [email protected] www.disabilityrightsuk.org @DisRightsUK [email protected] Special or Unique – Young People’s Attitudes to Disability 2 CONTENTS Contents Foreword 4 Executive Summary 5 Key Findings 5 Recommendations 6 1 Introduction 7 1.1 Background 7 2 Methodology 8 2.1 Project Aims and Research Questions 8 2.2 Steering group 8 2.3 Participants 8 2.4 Analysis 8 2.5 Ethics 9 3 What attitudes do disabled children hold about themselves and their disability? 10 3.1 How do disabled young people think of themselves? 10 3.2 How – if at all – do they feel their impairment affects their life? 16 3.3 How do disabled children feel they are treated in school? 17 3.4 How would disabled children like to be treated in school? 21 4 What attitudes do disabled children hold about other disabled children? 23 4.1 How do they view other disabled children with similar disabilities? 24 4.2 How do they view children with different disabilities from them? 25 5 What attitudes do non-disabled pupils hold about their disabled classmates/disabled people/disability in general? 28 5.1 What do non-disabled children think about their disabled peers? 28 5.2 How do non-disabled children feel they typically treat and socialise with their disabled peers? 30 6 Conclusion 31 6.1 Recommendations 32 7 References 34 Appendix 1: Methodology 37 1 Research questions 37 2 Self-portrait worksheet 42 3 Peer portrait worksheet 43 4 School and pupil sampling 44 Appendix 2: Codes 45 Appendix 3: Ethics 46 1 Pupil Consent Forms 46 2 Research Journey Map 50 Special or Unique – Young People’s Attitudes to Disability 3 FOREWORD Foreword SUE BOTT, HEAD OF POLICY AND RESEARCH, DISABILITY RIGHTS UK I have been a disabled This accords very well with how I felt as a person from birth and have child. At my school I’m ashamed to say we experienced first-hand the had a hierarchy – visually impaired at the top, special education system. wheelchair users in the middle, and those with In the 1960s it was all about other impairments at the bottom. I had segregation and a system notions of waking up one day with perfect that worked against vision and therefore able to join the elite able- disabled young people being able to achieve bodied and leave my special school. And yes, anything. we went in for bullying too. I was lucky that my parents fought for me to This research should be a wake-up call or else attend the only special school for visually we find yet another generation of disabled impaired kids where you could take exams and young people experiencing the same negative aim for university. Even so it was assumed we attitudes and behaviours. It’s only when you would take longer and therefore we were all can accept yourself as who you are, a valued two years behind our able-bodied peers. There disabled person, that progress can be made. was little interaction with the able-bodied Then you can stop apologising for yourself world and certainly no interaction with and rejecting the support that helps with disabled adults. When I eventually made it to everyday life. university I met a student who had gone to the able-bodied school next door. He This research should be a wake-up call or confessed he and his mates used to move as else we find yet another generation of far away as they could if they saw us going disabled young people experiencing the into town on the bus. same negative attitudes and behaviours. So surely today things have improved? Unfortunately, what this research shows is We need disability to be understood and a that not that much has changed. Yes, more valued part of the school environment. We disabled children are educated in mainstream need more interaction between all young schools, but their experience is not all that people, and we need young disabled people to different from what I experienced. have the opportunity to draw support from disabled adults. If we fail to have an education The research shows that SEND pupils do not system that is truly inclusive of disabled young consider themselves to be disabled not from people, that values disabled young people for the belief that disability is somehow no longer who they are, and enables disabled people to relevant but because of their negative feelings reach their full potential then our efforts to towards disability generally. realise the human, social and economic rights of disabled people will always be limited. Special or Unique – Young People’s Attitudes to Disability 4 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Executive Summary This report describes the findings from a series of focus groups with young people within and without special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), conducted by researchers from Disability Rights UK and LKMco. It provides insights into the school experience of young people with SEND, and the attitudes that disabled and non-disabled young people have about people with disabilities. KEY FINDINGS Most pupils, regardless of school type or SEND Pupils with SEND described being bullied and status, saw themselves as mostly different socially excluded within their school, and from disabled people. Pupils with and without having relatively few friends. Pupils without SEND were similar in their self-descriptions, SEND expressed neutral-to-positive attitudes interests and views of education. about disabled people, but were not friends with disabled people. Few pupils with SEND identified themselves as disabled or described themselves by Pupils with SEND in mainstream schools referring to a disability or impairment, and were largely excluded from the larger most viewed themselves as distinct from social networks in their schools. disabled people. Pupils with SEND want their schools to be Most pupils we spoke to with and without more proactive in facilitating their social SEND defined disability by the use of aids, and educational inclusion and reducing particularly wheelchairs. bullying. Pupils with SEND who received extra SEND pupils in mainstream schools would support or reasonable adjustments were spontaneously describe specific incidents not sure why they received them and what or forms of bullying they had experienced they were for. SEND pupils in special schools talked about being victims of bullying or witnessing bullying, but did not always describe this clearly. Special or Unique – Young People’s Attitudes to Disability 5 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY RECOMMENDATIONS ISSUE ACTIONS Bullying and social School leaders should: inclusion • Encourage more active interventions by teachers to address bullying and social exclusion in the classroom, and promote inclusive classroom environments. • Support pupils, particularly pupils with SEND, to develop personal skills and coping mechanisms to mitigate the impact of bullying. The Department for Education should: • Develop SEND-specific anti-bullying practice guidance. Young people’s School leaders should: awareness of • Foster greater openness about SEND and disability in the school, disability and support pupils with SEND to understand their own disability. • Involve local disabled people’s organisations in the delivery of PSHE lessons on disability. The Department for Education should: • Establish a minimum inclusion standard for disability awareness in the PSHE curriculum, and encourage schools to work with local disabled people’s organisations to deliver that curriculum. Disabled people’s organisations should: • Engage with schools, multi-academy trusts and local authorities to co-develop and co-deliver PSHE curriculums on disability. • Create in-school programmes to mentor pupils with disabilities. Special or Unique – Young People’s Attitudes to Disability 6 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Introduction This report explores young disabled people’s educational experiences, as well as young people’s attitudes towards disability and disabled people. The findings in this report provide a vital insight into the school experience of young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). We found that pupils with SEND want schools Young people without SEND had largely positive to do more to support both social and views about disabled people in general, but educational inclusion and reduce bullying. their peers with disability were just “other Young people with SEND did not identify as people in school”, rather than friends. disabled, in some cases disavowing any The aim of this research is to help education similarities with disabled people they knew, practitioners and policymakers better and were reluctant to discuss their disability, understand how they can support young or link their disability to the support and disabled people and improve attitudes adjustments they received in class (which they towards disabled people in school, and to let were more open about).