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ESTABLISMENT OF TOLERANT ATTITUDE TO PEOPLE WITH DISABILITY IN CHILDREN OF SENIOR PRESCHOOL AGE IN A PRESCHOOL EDUCATIONAL ORGANIZATION
Abstract
The article, from the position of inclusive approach to education, substantiates the necessity to establish tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities in normally developing children of senior preschool age, presents the study of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities establishment in children of this age. The author reveals the conditions of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities establishment in senior preschool children from the event approach position and through the prism of the main type of activity.
The need to develop the scientifically based position on the identified issues determines the relevance of the problem study.
The purpose of the article is to justify the conditions determining the efficiency of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities establishment during preschool years.
The materials of the article may be useful for teachers of pre-school educational organizations implementing inclusive practice.
Keywords
establishment, tolerant attitude, children with disabilities, conditions, event approach
AUTHOR
Elena I. Popova
Candidate of Pedagogic Sciences, Associate Professor, The State Educational Establishment of Higher Education Ershov Ishim Teachers Training Institute. 1, Lenin str., Ishim, Tyumen Region, 627750, Russia. E-mail: iris1958.18@mail.ru
1. Introduction
1.1. Relevance of the problem
At present, there is obviously an increase in scientific and public interest in the country and abroad towards the problem of tolerant attitude toward people with disabilities establishment. Unfortunately, malevolence, anger, aggressiveness are spreading more and more among children; physical, emotional violence becomes habitual manifestation of social life; stereotypes, prohibitions, lack of knowledge contribute to the development of negative attitudes towards people with disabilities. A kindergarten is not an exception. Meanwhile, the basis for a tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities should be formed at the earliest stages of personality development, in preschool childhood - the period when a child is introduced to the surrounding world, during his initial socialization.
High practical importance and insufficient theoretical elaboration of the problem of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities establishment during the preschool childhood period determined the choice of the topic and the concept of the article.
1.2. Importance of the problem research
Researches of A.V. Zaporozhets, L.A. Wenger, L.P. Strelkova, D.I. Felshtein and others reveal a number of features that form the basis for the tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities establishment in preschool children: special openness, high susceptibility to social influences, intensive development of the ability to identification, empathy and reflection, as well as various forms of communication with peers.
It is known, the earlier the behavior is mastered, the better it is remembered.
With good reason it could be argued that the educational environment of preschool organization, as a model of cultural and semantic reality for its subjects, potentially has opportunities for productive organization of the establishment process of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities in normally developing preschool age children.
In our study, the essence of tolerance towards people with disabilities we understand as recognition, acceptance, comprehension (Asmolov, 2001), and substantial sense of tolerant attitude and behavior as an invariant of all links of "tolerance range" described above. The main thing for substantial characteristic of the tolerant attitude is not that it is associated with love, friendship, respect and acceptance, but with the fact that it excludes hatred, hostility, contempt and rejection (Leontiev, 2009).
We believe that a new impetus should be given to the establishing of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities in normally developing children in preschool educational organizations (PEO).
Research purpose: to identify the establishment level of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities in preschool age children and to study conditions that determine the efficiency of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities establishment during preschool years.
1.3. The analysis of research current state on article's scientific problem
The problem of the concept "inclusive education" essence determining is studied in works of foreign authors T. Booth, D.Armstrong, F.Armstrong, H.M.Levin, D.Mitchel, D.L. Ryndak, A. Sander, A.D. Treherne, L.Jackson et al.
The questions of inclusive education theoretical bases developing are presented in works by M. Ainscow, C. Barnes, ChombaWaMunyi, E. Lusthaus, K. Mutua, M. Nind, S. Staiback, D.G. Pritchard, L. Redd, A. Renzaglia, S. Stubbs, A. Sander, C.S. Szymanski, M. Winzer , B.A. Wright, M.L. Yell et al.
Problems of inclusive education practical implementation are highlighted in works of such foreign teachers as I. Deno, M. Reynolds, M. Budoff, T. Cronis, J. Gottieb, D. Gampel, A. Nevin, L. Meyer, R.A. Villa, J.S. Thousand and others.
Among domestic researchers the most interesting are the scientific works of S.V. Alekhina, D.V. Zaytsev, E.N. Kutepova, N.N. Malofeev, F.L. Ratner, A.Y. Yusupova, L.M. Shipitsyna, E.A. Ghafari et al.
In our study, the issues related to substantiation of conditions complex that contribute to tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities establishment in preschool age children, and that were not previously considered as unity and were not used in connection with the inclusive education practice, will be discussed for the first time.
1.4. Research hypothesis
The study was based on the hypothesis that the establishment of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities in senior preschool age children can be more successful if the following conditions are satisfied:
- development and implementation of the program which allows children acquire knowledge about people with disabilities and tolerant behavior;
- use of mainstreaming strategy, presuming social contacts with children with disabilities in the area of leisure;
- establishment of positive attitudes towards themselves (self-acceptance elements) in normally developing children and children with disabilities.
2. Research methods
2.1. Objectives of the research
In the course of the study we tried to attain the following objectives: 1) to identify the establishment level of tolerance towards people with disabilities in senior preschool age children; 2) to implement the conditions for establishment of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities among the senior preschoolers of the experimental group; 3) to compare cognitive, emotional, motivational and conative spheres of experimental and control groups respondents; 4) to analyse the results of the control experiment and to evaluate the conditions efficiency of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities establishment in senior preschool age children.
2.2. Theoretical and empirical methods
To test the hypothesis of solving the problems posed, the following methods were
used:
- theoretical (analysis of psychological and pedagogical literature, normative documents on education on the problem of research, advancing hypotheses, synthesis, comparison, classification, systematization);
- empirical (observation, conversation, problem-playing situations, analysis of educational products, experiment);
- methods of processing results (qualitative and quantitative analysis of the study results, method of results visual representation, methods of mathematical and statistical processing).
2.3. Base of research
The described research was undertaken on the basis of the municipal autonomous preschool educational organization "Children Development Center Kindergarten № 19" in Ishim, Tyumen region. The research involved 60 preschool age children. They were divided into two groups: an experimental and a control group of 30 people each.
2.4. Evaluation criteria and indicators
As a result of our theoretical analysis we defined the criteria and indicators of tolerance establishment towards people with disabilities in children of senior preschool age.
The following criteria and indicators were used to identify the level of tolerance for people with disabilities:
- manifestation of cognitive component of tolerance to people with disabilities (ideas, their completeness, system, the desire to gain new knowledge);
- manifestation of emotional-motivational component of tolerance towards people with disabilities (interest, understanding of another person's inner world, respect for the "other", empathy with the "other");
- manifestation of conative component of tolerance to people with disabilities (practical skills to establish interpersonal contacts, to conduct a dialogue).
Three levels of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities establishment in preschool age children have been defined on the basis of the identified indicators manifestation degree: optimum, allowable, critical.
The critical level of tolerant attitude is characterized by fragmentary information only about the nature of tolerance. A child does not realize the need for tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities. Information about them is superficial (knowledge is fragmentary, unconscious) and it is not used by a child in real life. A child's attitude towards people with disabilities is restrained and negative.
Acceptable level of tolerance establishment is characterized by a child's awareness of tolerance nature deepening, although this knowledge is formalized, shallow and it is not systematized. A child feels a need to behave tolerantly though he(she) lacks sufficient experience. Attitude towards people with disabilities becomes more concerned with elements of readiness to support the other, increases the ability to assess their behavior in terms of tolerance / intolerance.
The optimal level of tolerance establishment is characterized by sufficient awareness of a senior preschooler about the components of tolerance to people with disabilities and the ability to apply this information to practice, which indicates its transformation into knowledge. The child expresses a positive and interested attitude towards people with disabilities. In conflict situations, he(she) tries to have a dialogue, but it is difficult to suggest concrete ways of the situation resolving. Tolerant behavior becomes a reference point for developing interpersonal relationships.
2.5. Progress and description of the experiment
In the process of the ascertaining experiment, the level of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities establishment in senior preschool age children of the control and experimental groups was diagnosed. To make this, the following diagnostic methods were used: "Diagnosis of preschool children tolerance towards their peers with disabilities" (A.S. Sirotyuk), "Study of the depicted people emotional states understanding" (G.A. Uruntaeva), "Conative component manifestation when playing plot scenes "(G.A. Uruntaeva, U.A. Afonkina).
Analysis of the experiment results has shown that most of respondents have middle and low level of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities establishment (see Table 1, section 3.1.).
The obtained results made it possible to conclude that it is necessary to implement the conditions contributing to the establishment of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities in children of senior preschool age.
The preschoolers of the experimental group took part in the establishing experiment.
When developing the conditions for the establishment of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities in senior preschool children, we took into account that the social
55 Modern European Researches No 5 / 2017 purpose has three-component structure: a) cognitive component; b) emotional-motivational component; c) behavioral component.
So, in cognitive sphere it is necessary to develop in a child the volume, depth, effectiveness of knowledge about tolerance towards people with disabilities and tolerant behavior, techniques, methods, strategies of tolerant interaction; in emotional and motivational sphere - a tolerant attitude to other people and to himself, where the main motivation is the motive of assistance, maintenance, compliance, as well as the ability to show restraint and self-control; in conative sphere - a conscious attitude towards one's actions, expressed in the experience of applying relevant knowledge and ideas to concrete situations.
For the purpose of influencing the cognitive, emotional-motivational and behavioral components in the establishing experiment, we tested conditions described in section 1.4., which, according to our hypothesis, should have improved the process of establishing tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities in children of preschool age.
Tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities can be improved in various ways: providing adequate information about people with physical and / or mental disabilities; direct contact with them; knowing personal characteristics and problems of these people, use of role-playing games, which include various situations from the life of people with disabilities etc. (Popova 2015).
In order to fulfill the first condition, we have developed and tested the program "One World for Everybody". In developing the program, we proceeded from the premise that preschoolers had low awareness of people with disabilities and did not know how to interact with them. So, the main goal of the classes is to give children knowledge:
- about people with disabilities;
- of special technical means that help people with disabilities;
- about the possibilities for a disabled person;
- about equal opportunities for people with disabilities and healthy people;
- about the specific forms of information exchange and interpersonal communication;
about the rights of people with disabilities;
about inclusive education as joint learning of different children in ordinary kindergarten, etc.
According to this, the program consists of 10 blocks ("People with disabilities: what do we know about them?", 'What does it mean to be disabled", "Feelings of people with disabilities", "How can we help people with disabilities", "Etiquette in communication with people with disabilities", "Achievements of people with disabilities", "City convenient for everybody","The rights of people with disabilities", "A child with disability comes to a kindergarten", "Tolerance Country") and includes a cycle of classes aimed at establishing in preschool children tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities.
Techniques described in the program suggest the construction of educational environment through their own experience of playing "barrier situations." This makes it possible for every child to feel the impact of various restrictions on movement, in the perception of visual and auditory information, thus creating the conditions for genuine understanding and respect for people with disabilities, creating a positive attitude towards them. In the process of the program implementation, visual material has been widely used (documentaries and feature films, dactyl alphabet in pictures, magnetic alphabet with Braille print, pictures, doll-characters, etc.). As methodological
56 Modern European Researches No 5 / 2017 tools, role games, psycho-gymnastic games, communicative games, theatrical games, tale-therapy, doll-therapy, freehand drawing and other methods are used.
In order to enhance and enrich children's empathic experience we included in the program the works of fiction about people with disabilities for reading and discussion. Among these works the following were chosen: "Tsvetik-semitsvetik" (V.P. Kataev), the trilogy of "Cathy" (Susan Coolidge), "Red flower" (S.T. Aksakov), "Nose Dwarf" (V. Gauf), "Tin Soldier" (H.Andersen), and others.
Training of tolerant behavior is included in classes to preserve acquired knowledge which allows children to use it in practice later (Popov, 2011).
The analysis of the experimental data and reinterpretation of our own experience let us affirm that in the conditions of preschool educational institution, the establishment of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities in children of preschool age may be provided by mainstreaming strategy involving expansion of social contacts through interaction of children with disabilities with their peers during festivals and various recreational activities (Sidorova, 2016).
The most important thing in the organization of leisure activities - the use of event approach, providing creation for children those situations (events) which would give them particularly vivid impressions that define the standard of humanistic values and open relationships that give the participants of the event new valuable experience (both in general emotionally psychological and value- semantic spaces, characterized by mutual understanding; spiritual bond, closeness, WE-feeling) (Shustova, 2010).
Why is eventfulness so important in the context of establishing tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities in normally developing children? The study confirmed that only under this condition:
- joint training to one or another will make children closer to each other;
- normally developing children will be able to acquire tolerant and respectful attitude towards physical differences;
- they will be able to help children with disabilities in case of psychological aggression from others by revealing their internal reserves (positive attitude, success in any kind of activity, overcoming the difficulties and fixation on success, etc.);
- it will be possible for normally developing children to realize that a person with a disability is different from them in one respect, but he is similar to the majority of people in many others (for example, a teacher can show you how to dance in a pair with a child sitting on a wheel chair, and next time a child on a wheel chair can demonstrate his advantages in other areas and act as a teacher for children who do not have such knowledge or skills yet);
- normally developing children will develop the ability to competently, honestly and comfortably interact with children who have disorders in physical and / or mental development;
- it will be possible to remove psychological barriers preventing normally developing children to communicate with children with disabilities, and in relation to children with disabilities - to minimize the risk of psychological violence;
- to form the ability of all children to offer help or reject help if it interferes with the autonomy and independence;
- confidential nature of relations will appear in the field of those purposes, which are accepted as common;
- communication will be structured as a dialogue, where the parties respectfully hear, perceive and understand each other;
- to expand the boundaries of the positive dialogue experience for children with disabilities;
- the event will remain in the memory of children as the sample situation and will affect their further development;
- acquired by children methods of interaction will spontaneously and naturally be transferred to real life.
Another aspect of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities establishment problem is that a child must learn to treat himself positively, single out various qualities in himself, recognize them at accessible to the age level, be able to evaluate the activity results, his skills, personality traits adequately (elements of self-acceptance) (Maralov, 2009).
In this context, we have developed a potentially useful program "Healthy Choice". At the core of the program is the concept of Linda and David Sibley of healthy lifestyle bio-psycho-socio-spiritual unity (Sibley, 2005; Tisch, 2005; Scales, 2005).
The program purposes are:
- creation of conditions for the development of all children, opening up opportunities for their positive socialization, personal development, the development of initiatives based on cooperation with adults and peers;
- the establishment of developmental educational environment that promotes socialization and individualization of all children.
A list of lessons topics presented in the program is as follows: "Our own uniqueness", "Communication", "Feelings", "Protection of feelings," "Anger management", "Friendship", "Healthy Choice", "Personal boundaries".
In the process of the program implementation children find themselves in some space that is presented by a system of situations: "game situation", "communicative situation", "educational situation", "life situation", "problematic situation", "situation of moral choice." A child enters every situation, lives in it and leaves it.
In accordance with the program content, preschool children were able to:
- learn a positive attitude toward themselves (the elements of self-acceptance), realize their own various qualities at an accessible for the age level;
- master the skills of confident behavior, acquire a sense of security and identity (self-doubt determines a social impulse behavior, followed by the states of anxiety, conflict, latent or expressed hostility, while self-confidence is the basis of individual autonomy and independence, the basis for a positive resolution of conflicts, productive communication and the ability to build relationships);
- benevolently treat others, use different forms of communication ("I can understand the other", "I know how to work together", "I know how to negotiate and relate my plans with the plans of other people");
- master the skills of dealing with feelings;
- acquire skills alternative to aggression;
- master stress management strategies, etc.
Our previous works provide a detailed description of theoretical assumptions on which the program ("The main concept of the program") of goals and objectives, as well as the methods and forms of educational activities organization is based (Popova, 2016).
It should be emphasized that the process of a tolerant attitude towards people with disability establishment is put into practice complexly and involves work with all parties of educational process: children, parents, teachers (Golikov, 2015).
In the process of study, much attention was payed to preventing of traumatic, stressful and risk- taking situations in the system of interpersonal relations: "a child with disability - normally developing child", "parents of a child with physical and / or mental disorders - educator", "parents of a child with physical and / or mental disorders - parents of normally developing children".
3. Results
A control experiment was conducted to test the effectiveness of created conditions. The same methods and procedures as at experiment ascertaining stage were used in the control experiment.
The results analysis of the control experiment showed marked changes in cognitive, emotional and motivational- conative spheres of experimental group respondents (Table 1).
TABLE 1. CHANGES IN THE LEVEL OF TOLERANT ATTITUDE TOWARDS PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES ESTABLISHMENT IN PRESCHOOL AGE CHILDREN
Studied group Optimal level of tolerance towards people with disabilities establisment Accepted level of tolerance towards people with disabilities establishment Critical 1 tolerance tow with disa establis evel of 'ards people bilities hment
Ascertaining stage Control stage Ascertaining stage Control stage Ascertaining stage Control stage
Cognitive component
Control group (N = 30 preschoolers) 23,3% 23,3% 58,7% 62,4% 18% 14,3%
Experimental group (N= 30 preschoolers) 17,1% 34,2% 58,7% 62,3% 24,2% 3,5%
Emotional-motivational component
Control group (N = 30 preschoolers) 15,6% 25,3% 42,2% 32,3% 42,2% 42,4%
Experimental group (N = 30 preschoolers) 7.3% 42,3% 42% 33,7% 50.7% 24%
Behavioral component
Control group (N = 30 preschoolers) 15% 33,3% 34,2% 50% 50,8% 16,7%
Experimental group (n = 30 preschoolers) 5% 50% 33,3% 34,2% 51,7% 15,8%
Total in control group: 18% 27.3 45% 48,2% 37% 24,5%
Total in experimental group: 13.1 42.2 44.7 43,4% 42,2% 14,4%
Cognitive component of tolerance - level of tolerant attitude towards children with disabilities establishment in the experimental group increased twice, while in the control group it remained unchanged.
Emotional-motivational component of tolerance - level of tolerant attitude towards children with disabilities establishment I creased by 35% in the experimental group, but by 9.9% in the control one.
Conative (behavioral component) of tolerance - level of tolerant attitude towards children with disabilities establishment increased by 35% in the experimental group and by 18.3% in control group.
4. Discussion
Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the results showed that common attitude of normally developing children to people with disabilities had a positive direction, but was not always implemented in everyday life due to the low level of awareness about these people and the lack of communication skills with peers who had disabilities.
Providing children with accurate information about people with disabilities and tolerant behavior appropriate to their level of development through the specially elaborated programs, may exert a positive influence on children's awareness of various disability aspects, increase motivation to obtain more information in this sphere.
Using mainstreaming strategy contributes to the experience expanding of normally developing children interaction with children who have disabilities; to cooperation, assistance motives establishment in normally developing children; to expanding experience boundaries of positive communication in children with disabilities, thereby helping to raise the level of readiness for such cooperation.
Motives of nonviolent actions (motives of assistance, support, cooperation and others etc.) are generated on the verge of a decent realization of themselves achieving and not harming children with disabilities.
The study confirmed that most of preschoolers show tolerance for people with disabilities and do not differentiate them from other people either in terms of individual and social qualities, or during communication. Nevertheless, the readiness to interact with peers who have disabilities in everyday life is the highest for remote forms of communication (within the simulation situations of interaction with children who have disabilities).
The presence of peers with disabilities in a close circle influence positively on the readiness to communicate with them in all areas.
Summarizing, we can conclude that the results correspond to the originally stated assumption.
5. Conclusion
The analysis of empirical data on establishment of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities in preschool age children allowed to identify and describe the conditions of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities formation in preschool children. In child's eyes daily microenvironment becomes a model of the real world. In this logic, the reasoning establishing tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities in the period of pre-school childhood becomes crucial. Realizing the importance of the problem, we offer our own version of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities in preschool age children establishment understanding, giving preference to the use of: a) programs aimed at disseminating among children knowledge about people with disabilities and tolerant behavior; b ) strategy of mainstreaming, oriented to transform everyday interactions reality and normally developing children and children with disabilities communication; c ) activities aimed at establishing positive attitude toward themselves (the elements of self-acceptance ) in normally developing children and children with disabilities. The generally high level of tolerance towards people with disabilities showed by the respondents of experimental group and their readiness to various forms of communication can be considered as the potential for successful implementation of programs aimed at the development of communication skills and interaction of normally developing children and children with disabilities, as well as for implementation of inclusion both in the field of pre-school education and in other spheres of children's life.
6. Recommendations
The article may be useful for teachers of preschool educational institutions who implement inclusive practices, namely:
- allow to form scientific basis and to select forms, methods and means of contributing to the establishment of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities in children of senior preschool age;
- worked out criterion-diagnostic tools can be used for pedagogic diagnostics of tolerant attitude towards people with disabilities establishment efficiency during preschool years;
- be used in the development and implementation of the basic educational program for preschool education, formed by the participants of educational process.
In addition, scientific and educational materials, presented in the article, will enrich the content of "Theory and practice of inclusive education" course for students of secondary and higher educational institutions.
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