Attitudes towards people with disabilities in selected areas of the former Yugoslavia

In the past, people had a negative and intolerant attitude towards people with special needs. This affected their lives and made it impossible for them to integrate into the surroundings. The main purpose of the master's thesis was to investigate the influence of various socio - demographic characteristics on the formation of attitudes towards people with special needs in the selected areas of former Yugoslavia. In the theoretical part, we first defined the term Yugoslavia with the help of literature. The sample on which our researched part is based consists of the population coming from different parts of the former Yugoslavia. According to the legislative basis of the selected countries of the former Yugoslavia, we defined special needs in the theoretical part and described each of the groups in detail. In the following, we described the transition from the medical model to the social one and defined the concept of integration and inclusion. In the following, we touched on the upbringing and education of children with special needs. Finally, we explained the concept of attitudes. The empirical part was based on a descriptive and causal-non-experimental method of pedagogical research. The research was conducted on a sample of different professional profiles in the selected areas of former Yugoslavia, namely Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro. The survey involved 296 people who answered closed-ended questions submitted in the form of a survey. The socio-demographic characteristic of “place of residence” is added to the hypothesis. We studied the influence of different socio-demographic characteristics on the formation of attitudes towards people with special needs according to gender, age, level of education, place and place of residence. The results showed that the respondents who come from certain areas of the former Yugoslavia have a positive attitude towards people with special needs. In the research work, we did not find statistically significant differences between participants in terms of age and country of residence. Statistically significant differences were found in the following socio-demographic characteristics, namely between gender and place of residence. Men showed greater agreement with the views than women. Statistically significant differences also emerged regarding personal experience. People with less experience were more likely to agree. Respondents pointed out that they least agree with statements such as: "I avoid eye contact with a person with special needs" and "People with special needs are incompetent and useless members of society." Findings: "People with special needs have the same needs for love, acceptance, work and learning as people without them", "Society has a duty to adapt the environment to people with special needs (accessibility, mobility, adaptation…)" and "Volunteering and participation in humanitarian actions contributes to greater awareness and understanding of people with special needs” are the statements with which the respondents most agreed