A Hierarchy of Attitudes Toward Exceptionality

Abstract

The responses of 122 university students to 24 statements expressing attitudes toward the school integration and community integration of 11 groups of exceptionality and the normal were submitted to an ordering-theoretic data-analysis procedure. The nonlinear hierarchy of contingent relationships among the exceptionalities in each attitude domain were interpreted with reference to previous research and contemporary special education theory and practice. The results illustrate the usefulness of ordering theory, a new measurement model, for building a theory concerning the interrelated network of attitudes toward exceptionalities.