Swedish and English adolescents' attitudes toward the community presence of people with disabilities

Predictions derived from North American formulations of normalization sugge st that contemporary care policies for people with intellectual disabilitie s will have a positive impact on societal perceptions of this group. To tes t this, adolescents' attitudes towards the community presence of people wit h disabilities in a normalization-advanced country (Sweden) and a relativel y less normalization-advanced country (England) were compared. It was expec ted that Swedish and English participants would hold equally positive views of people with a non-intellectual disability, whereas English participants would hold less positive views than Swedish participants of people with an intellectual disability. The results gave limited support to this expectat ion when dimensions of participants' attitudes derived from a factor analys is were analysed. These results are discussed with reference to other facto rs that may influence attitudes in the two countries. In addition, implicat ions for future research and practice are outlined.