중학교 재량활동 '장애이해 프로그램'을 통한 비장애학생의 장애학생에 대한 태도 변화

A Study on the Changes in Middle School Students' Attitudes toward Students with Disabilities through 'Disability- Awareness Program' in Optional Activity Classes

통합교육의 추세와 함께 일반학교 내의 장애학생 수는 급증하고 있다. 그러나 통합된 장애학생들이 그들의 장애에 의하기보다 비장애학생들의 부정적인 태도로 인해 소외되고 거부된다면 성공적인 통합에서 얻어지는 교육적 효과를 기대할 수 없으며, 오히려 통합이 더욱 제한적인 환경이 될 수 있다. 본 연구는 정규교육과정인 창의적 재량활동시간의 범 교과 학습활동의 일환으로 장애에 대한 정보제공과 모의장애체험, 장애인 직·간접 접촉, 집단토의 활동 등을 도입하여 마련된 '장애이해프로그램'을 U중학교 2학년 총 144명을 대상으로 실시하여 그 효과여부를 살펴보았다. 그 결과, '장애이해 프로그램' 적용 전·후 비장애학생들의 장애학생들에 대한 수용성과 활동선호에 관한 태도에는 통계적으로 유의미한 차이가 나타났다.

Despite awareness of the necessity for inclusive education in the field of special education and the efforts concerned, all these awareness and efforts have simply resulted in physical transfer of disabled students to regular schools. Programs for understanding disabilities are necessary to provide students with correct and positive information in need. Such programs encourage nondisabled students to regard a disability as nothing but an individual difference and to respect those with such deviances as whole beings. Targeting nondisabled young children in kindergartens or elementary schools, previous studies on special education have been mostly aimed at the promotion of acceptive attitude towards the disabled, by means of revision of extra curricular activities and curriculum. While, this study aimed to see the changes of nondisabled students' attitude toward the students with disabilities through creative, optional activity classes within the framework of the regular middle school curriculum. For this purpose, this study developed and applied a 'Disability -Awareness Program' in creative, optional activity classes within the regular curriculum to cultivate nondisabled students' acceptive attitude toward the students with disabilities. The program was performed once a week for 10 weeks by two teachers(the investigator and teacher) in charge of creative, optional activity classes. The target students were 144 second graders in 4 classes of a middle school. In order to measure the nondisabled students' attitudes toward the students with disabilities, acceptance scale(Voeltz, 1980) and activity preference scale(Siperstein & Gottlieb, 1977) were used. The major findings are as follows: First, nondisabled students' attitudes toward students with disabilities were significantly changed after the practical application of the 'Disability-Awareness Program'. More specifically, each of the four major subcategories (social contact willingness, deviance consequences, actual contact, and mild deviance consequences) showed significantly positive changes. Secondly, the practical application of the 'Disability-Awareness Program' had positive effects on the activity preference scale measuring nondisabled students' activities with students with disabilities. Every item of the activity preference scale measuring nondisabled students' attitudes towards the students with disabilities positively changed through the program, which implies that nondisabled students showed less inhibitions and more comfort in their willingness to enjoy activities with their peers with disabilities. In conclusion, the 'Disability-Awareness Program' resulted in significantly positive changes of nondisabled students' attitudes toward students with disabilities. Based on these results of this study, it would be suggestable that more programs aiming at attitude changes toward students with disabilities should be encouraged in creative, optional activity classes within the regular curriculum.