Measuring Social Distance Toward Individuals With Special Needs

Abstract

Discovering social approaches to individuals with special needs and to what extent the society wants to interact with such people is of importance to fathom out not only the social responses to individuals with special needs but also the social reflections toward inclusive policies. This descriptive study accordingly aimed to investigate the level of social distance toward individuals with special needs and the factors affecting social distance. A total of 659 randomly sampled people from the southeastern region of Turkey participated in the study. Of the participants, 395 (60%) are female, and 264 (40%) are male. Their ages ranged from 16 to 64 years with a mean age of 28.4 years. Data were collected through the Bogardus Social Distance Scale developed to measure the level of social distance among people. Research results indicate that gifted individuals were the most accepted by the participants with regard to getting married and being close kin by marriage. The greatest social distance was expressed toward individuals with intellectual disabilities and autism. Social distance toward individuals with special needs did not differ significantly according to education level, contact frequency, and gender of the participants.