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The Paralympic legacy: what will it do for people with intellectual disabilities?

The Paralympic legacy: what will it do for people with intellectual disabilities?. Prof. Jan Burns (Canterbury Christ Church University). INAS - the International Federation for sport for para-athletes with an intellectual disability www.inas.org. Special Olympics. INAS. Paralympics.

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The Paralympic legacy: what will it do for people with intellectual disabilities?

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  1. The Paralympic legacy: what will it do for people with intellectual disabilities? • Prof. Jan Burns (Canterbury Christ Church University)

  2. INAS - the International Federation for sport for para-athletes with an intellectual disability www.inas.org

  3. Special Olympics INAS Paralympics

  4. Paralympics 20 million+ viewing public

  5. The Legacy Aspiration for London 2012: “influence the attitudes and perceptions of people to change the way they think about disabled people” Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 2010 p.3

  6. The Legacy • A large claim • However, the organisers do not set out the pathway to this outcome • Explanations may lie in research on attitude change

  7. Previous research • A large quantity of previous research using social psychological theories of attitude change • Factors implicated include: • Increasing positive contact with the target group • Increasing legitimate positive knowledge about the target group London 2012 a massive social intervention

  8. A study investigating the legagcy claim Joanna Ferrara (Canterbury Christ Church University) Prof. Jan Burns (Canterbury Christ Church University) Dr Hayley Mills (Canterbury Christ Church University Aim: to investigate whether it is possible to change attitudes towards people with ID by exposure to paralympic performance.

  9. DESIGN Intervention Time 1 Time 2 N= 97 3 Measures + demographic questionnaire N= 97 3 Measures + demographic questionnaire N= 62 3 Measures + debrief Paralympic footage + Information Experimental N= 52 3 Measures + debrief Comparison

  10. Measures

  11. Results • Groups were comparable on all measures and demographics • Significant positive improvement in implicit attitudes between T1 and T2, irrespective of group • Total explicit attitude change scores not significant, but subscale ‘empowerment’ was, again irrespective of group • Regression T 1 – main predictors of positive attitude, previous contact and gender, not social desirability • Regression T 2 – no significant predictors

  12. Conclusions and implications • Tentative support that watching Paralympics might improve attitudes, but equally so will watching the Olympics • This may be a result of such stimuli evoking feelings of ‘empowerment’ • Even quite a small intervention can have an effect, the Olympics/Paralympics is a very large intervention • Do not know a) how long these effects last, b) how generalisable the results are

  13. Thank you Questions? Support our athletes in London 2012

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