The Influence of Paralympic School Day on Children's Attitudes towards People with Disabilities

摘要

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study is to determine the infl uence of Paralympic School Day on the attitudes ofschool children toward people with a disability; to analyze the basics and theories of Paralympic Education in schoolsettings.METHODS: The participants were 36 children with a mean age of 11.78 (17 boys and 19 girls) from the elementaryschool Hrdli?ky in Ostrava, the Czech Republic. All participants completed the questionnaire “Children’s AttitudeToward Integrated Physical Education-Revised” (CAIPE-R) (Block, 1995) and the Adjective checklist before and afterthe implementation of the program.RESULTS: The scores of the participants’ general attitudes toward including people with disability in PE increasedfrom 16.50 to 17.25, the mean scores of the adjective checklist increased from 19.81 to 19.92, but the scores of theirattitudes toward changing sports rules for people with a disability decreased from 17.89 to 16.86, however, these changeswere not statistically signifi cant. Girls’ attitudes toward people with a disability tended to be better both before andafter the intervention.CONCLUSION: Generally, Paralympic School Day can change participants’ attitude toward people with disability,but when the specifi c activities are arranged, we have to take the participants’ features under consideration. In orderto have a consistent infl uence, a long term duration of the intervention should be arranged.