Invisible barriers? College student’s attitudes towards peers with disabilities

Abstract

This paper analyses university students’ knowledge, opinions and attitudes towards peers with disabilities. The integration of students with disabilities in Education is an object of concern and research in the whole Spanish Education System, including Higher Education where 21,942 people with disabilities were students in the academic course 2013-2014. This research belongs to two projects on Innovation in Education for the University of Málaga. Attitudes of professors, students without disabilities and students with disabilities were examined. This paper shows the viewpoint of students without disabilities, which is necessary in order to observe the acceptance inside the classes. An email-survey was conducted in the whole University of Malaga’s student population (N= 32.464). The sample size was 620, so we had a confidence interval of 3.9% with a confidence level of 95%. Statistical analysis was conducted. Data showed the relevance of higher levels of information and direct experience with the disability: those two variables correlated to more positive attitudes toward the students with disabilities. Only the 20% of the students said they had received any kind of information about disability from the university sometime, however most of the sample was favorable to the presence of students with disabilities in the university, to the possibility of sharing classwork with them and to the enrichment that coexistence inside the class provides. New actions in order to enhance student’s attitudes toward students with disabilities were discussed, so the paper suggests including a new point of view that promotes the empowerment of those students.