Student Corner Prejudice against disabled people

By Park Chae-lim

On June 1, Yoo So-eun, 42, a special instructor for the disabled currently working at Gyeonggi Global Trade High School, lamented the situation where despite increasing support from the government for pursuing inclusive education, there was no substantial improvement in students’ perception toward the disabled.

“It is because of the existing social convention that has continued for a long time,” Yoo said. “Students discriminate social minorities as inferiorities and the fierce academic competition which evaluates students solely based on school grades has driven the disabled to be left behind.”

“Unable to cope with blunt hostility, many disabled students refuse to study in the same classroom setting with others.”

The problem has recently been exacerbated, especially under the circumstances where public understanding of the disabled has not been able to catch up with the rate and extent of society’s recent investment in their welfare.

This has created an atmosphere of resentment rather than social consensus, and may account for increasing cases of violence toward disabled persons in the first half of the year.

To address this “education” has been designated as having the power to overthrow some of the existing prejudices, and curb negative or offensive behavior.

Accordingly, Korea is following the international trend of inclusive education, which attempts to form a classroom setting where the non-disabled interact and cooperate with disabled students on a daily basis.

Many claim that this approach, rather than one that encourages students to intermittently do volunteer work with the disabled, will have a more lasting effect in changing students' perception.

A survey of 158 students in classroom settings where inclusive education was taking place, and 260 students who have never studied with the disabled, was conducted to address this controversy.

The survey was based on previous research on the influence of inclusive education on high school students’ perception toward the disabled with several additional questions.

The 418 papers were collected and analyzed statistically. The study yielded positive results proving that it was not mere exposure that resulted in an improvement of prejudice and attitude toward the minorities, but genuine interaction.

Students were asked to fill out basic personal information and then were tested on three different categories ― prejudice, friendliness and accommodating attitude ― to find out their actual perception of the disabled.

To explain the survey results in detail, contrary to what previous research emphasized, the amount of hours and the number of times a student participated in community service or volunteer work showed no correlation with his or her perception of the disabled.

Rather, what mattered was genuine interaction, as students who responded to have more interest and understanding of the disabled were less biased, friendlier and less hostile in attitude.

Moreover, as questions were further specified on which activities inside and outside the classroom, ranging from public to very personal, students were engaged in, those who shared more private experiences with disabled students showed more open and considerate responses to the three categories of questions.

Considering that the most crucial time to form awareness of one’s role in society is adolescence, and that adolescents spend most of their time engaged in education, it is crucial that inclusive education is an important part of forming a society where social minorities are respected and accepted without restrictions.

The result of the survey suggests that inclusive education should be interactive and autonomous, not one-sided or forced.

Furthermore, recognizing that perhaps not all schools can adopt inclusive education, schools and volunteering organizations, should nevertheless, work closely to make volunteering a required part of the education program to increase exposure and prevent ignorance.

Though volunteering may be the first step in increasing one’s exposure to social minorities, true understanding comes from forming a connection through friendship and shared experience, which can be found in the classroom environment.

This is toward the goal of creating an interactive society where the disabled are no longer considered second-class citizens, but productive and included citizens that have something to offer society.

The writer is a third-year student at the Korean Minjok Leadership Academy.