Background and purpose: During PE, students with disability can experience isolation, derision and less engagement compared to peers (Qi & Ha, 2012). Empathy can improve attitudes for a stigmatized group (Batson et al., 1997).... [ view full abstract ]
Background and purpose: During PE, students with disability can experience isolation, derision and less engagement compared to peers (Qi & Ha, 2012). Empathy can improve attitudes for a stigmatized group (Batson et al., 1997). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of an inclusive PE program on empathy and implicit attitudes toward people with disability among early adolescents.
Methods: 242 students were involved in the study (mean age 13.1±1.7 years), 129 volunteered to attend an extra 1-hour PE class per week for 6-month, where they tutored students with disabilities adopting a one-on-one relationship (for more details see Gobbi & Carraro, 2018), 113 served as control. The Interpersonal Reactivity Index to evaluate affective and cognitive component of empathy, and the Disability Attitude-Implicit Association test were administered pre- and post-intervention. RM-ANOVAs were conducted for boys and girls separately.
Results: Both boys and girls involved in the peer-tutoring inclusive PE reported enhanced affective (F=5.9, F=6.6 respectively, with p<.05) and cognitive empathy (F=6.4, F=8.5 respectively, with p<.05) in comparison to the control group. Implicit attitude resulted significantly more positive after intervention for boys in the experimental group (F=5.1, p=0.026).
Conclusions and implications: Findings support that peer-tutored inclusive PE can positively affect empathy, both in its emotional and cognitive dimensions, among early adolescents. Importantly, the lowered negative implicit attitude toward people with disability reported among boys may sustain the importance of inclusive PE to reduce stigma and discrimination in educational setting.
References
Batson et al (1997). Empathy and attitudes: Can feeling for a member of a stigmatized group improve feelings toward the group? JPersSocPsycho, 72(1),105
Gobbi & Carraro (2018). Brief report: Exploring the benefits of a peer-tutored physical education programme among high school students with intellectual disability. JApplResIntellectDisabil, DOI:10.1111/jar.12437
Qi & Ha (2012). Inclusion in Physical Education: A review of literature. IntJDisDevEdu,59,257-281
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