nstraints.
A modified version of Evans’s  experimental paradigm, originally used to survey the emergence of beliefs about the origin of species in children, was used to test these beliefs. Comparing parent and child beliefs and disability descriptions helped to investigate the extent of cultural transmission of the three disability models (individual, social, and biopsychosocial).
In the early 2000s, Evans [35–37] investigated the emergence and spread of beliefs regarding the origin of species in both fundamentalist and non-fundamentalist Christian school communities. Using a mixed qualitative–quantitative design, Evans compared the beliefs of children and parents about the origin of species to evaluate if the spread of creationist and evolutionist beliefs in the general population was indicative of cognitive constraints or was simply a function of social forces .
Creationism and evolutionism have historically and culturally been viewed as contrasting and polarizing. The same holds true with disability models, which are contrasting perspectives on human beings and the social world. These models have influenced the education of children from the time children enter primary school. While the individual model, much like creationism, seems intuitively plausible [4, 25, 38, 39], the social model, developed as a reversal of the individual model, is as counterintuitive as evolution [25, 40–43].
A total of 76 primary school aged children and their parents (N = 152) participated in this study (S1 File–Dataset). Of this, 46.1% of the children were male (N = 35) and 53.9% were female (N = 41), with a mean age of 8.46 (M = 8.40; F = 8.51; SD (M/F) = 1.46). In addition, 28.9% of the parents were male (N = 22) and 71.1% were female (N = 54), with a mean age of 42.01 (M = 43.23; F = 41.52; SD (M/F) = 5.21). One child and his parent’s data were eliminated because of parent’s illegible writing. All of the children in the sample attended state school. The Institutional Review Board of the Department of Philosophy, Social & Human Sciences and Education at the University of Perugia reviewed and approved this study. The parents provided their written informed consent to participate in this study for themselves and on behalf of the children enrolled in our study. The study presented “no more than minimal risk.” In order to replicate Evans’  procedure, the children were divided into two age groups: 6–8 years old (N = 38) and 9–11 years (N = 38).
Materials and procedure
Four questionnaires were administered to both the children and the parents. The questionnaires maintained the same format as the questionnaires that Evans  used, i.e., item number, item type (open or closed questions), Likert scale ranges, and open-ended questionnaire coding system. However, the item content, instructions, and questionnaire stimuli were modified (see S2 File–Details of Measure for a detailed description of the measures, coding, and procedures). The open questions were created to collect uncensored personal explanations of disability and diversity, whereas the closed questions were designed to elicit a response of agreement, presented in a forced–choice model, using explanations built on the basis of the three disability models. The latter techniques act as scaffolds , reminding respondents of the explanations according to the publicly present disability models, of which they may not have access to without such support.
The children were interviewed at their home separately from their parents. Comprehension of the concept of “disabled vs. normal person” was verified via a semantic discrimination task. The children’s explanation of disability (Disability Explanation) was assessed using one open-ended and one closed-ended questionnaire, while activities or interests (Child’s Interests and Activities), as well as agreement with health and disability statements (Child’s Disability Knowledge), were assessed using two closed-ended questionnaires (S2 File Details of Measures). Statements on health and disability were constructed on the basis of false beliefs (stereotype