Parental Attitudes Toward Mainstreaming of Handicapped Children

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate attitudes of parents of school-aged and preschool aged children with and without handicaps, toward the issue of mainstreaming. A sample of 212 individuals responded to a parent questionnaire which was mailed to each household to be completed by both parents. This questionnaire examined attitudes and concerns of parents across 14 mainstreaming issues (Appendix 2) . Of the total sample, 123 responses were used for the final analysis. Cases were discarded because some were missing the age of their child, some we::e not qualified because of their child\u27s age, and others had not completed the survey. Regarding overall attitudes toward mainstreaming, there was a significant interaction between handicapping condition and sex of parent. Fathers of handicapped children disagreed more with the attitude questions than mothers of handicapped children. Also, the handicapping condition of the child affected parental attitudes about problems which a handicapped child might encounter in a mainstreaming situation. Parents of nonhandicapped children disagreed more with these issues than parents of handicapped children. Fathers of handicapped and nonhandicapped children agreed more than mothers that there might be problems encountered by handicapped children in a mainstreaming situation. Mothers of nonhandicapped children and fathers of handicapped children disagreed more with these statements. The interaction between sex of parents and handicapping condition of the child was found to be significant for the dependent variables of overall mainstreaming attitudes and attitudes toward problems which a handicapped child might encounter in a mainstreaming situation. Another significant independent variable was handicapping condition of the child which was found to be significant on attitudes toward problems which a handicapped child might encounter in a mainstreaming situation and attitudes toward safety issues of both handicapped and nonhandicapped children in a mainstreaming situation. In other words, parents of handicapped children were more children were more concerned about school related problems and safety issues for handicapped children in a mainstreaming situation. Age of the child was not found significant for any of the dependent variables. In addition, the interaction of handicapping condition and age of the child was found to be significant for the dependent variable which dealt with attitudes toward safety of both handicapped and dealt with attitudes toward safety issues of both handicapped and nonhandicapped children. Families with school-aged handicapped children and families of nonhandicapped preschoolers disagreed more with the safety issues