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.
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