x.
The complex of cultural elements, habits, interests, and activities of the children showed no significant differences between the two age groups of subjects. The cultural environment constructed by parents, mainly through the encouragement of certain interests or activities, was not different for the two groups, except for a greater pressure to engage in cultural activities carried out by parents of the older children. Instead, significant differences emerged on the levels of knowledge and stereotypes held by children. In both age groups, the level of knowledge about disability was higher than the levels of stereotypes. In addition, knowledge increased and stereotypes decreased with the age growing. This result is coherent with the studies that claim the origin of stereotypes toward people with disability is due to a cognitive immaturity [52, 53].
The typology of the beliefs
The analyses performed on the open- and closed-ended questionnaires showed the prevalence of one model (open-ended: individual model; closed-ended: social model) within and between groups. As group results obscure individual differences , it is not clear whether, for parents and children, half preferred individual model and half social model or whether most endorsed a mixed model (individual and social). For this reason, the composite measures allow one to investigate individual differences within groups in more detail. The composite measures built on the open-ended questionnaires showed that the vast majority of respondents firmly chose a singular model and not a mixed one. Almost all of the children preferred the individual model, whereas 50 percent of the parents preferred the individual model, 30 percent preferred the social model, and only 20 percent preferred the mixed model (individual and social). Results of the composite measures on the closed-ended questionnaires demonstrated that the mixed model was not preferred. In contrast to the open-ended questionnaire, a high percentage of respondents (≈ 70% children; ≈ 50% parents) did not agree with either of the two models (neither), whereas the remaining part (≈ 20% 6–8 years; ≈ 30% 9–11 years; ≈ 50% parents) agreed with the social model. The lack of preference for a mixed model could be due to the inherent cognitive dissonance between the individual and the social model. What has been affirmed theoretically and politically [5, 6, 15–17], namely, the dichotomous nature of those two models has been confirmed in this research at a psychological level.
The correlation between the two composite measures again revealed an effect of social desirability: The sharp adhesion to the individual model in the open-ended questionnaires seems masked behind the “neither” agreement in the closed-ended questionnaires.
Children’s and parents’ models and custom complex variables
Whereas there was no correlations between the children of 6–8 years and their parents about the disability representations, correlations emerged between the children of 9–11 years and their parents. Children, as they grow older, tended to align with the viewpoints of their parents. The parental education permeated cognitive constraints, dominated by the individual model, by injecting more cultural representation of disability, i.e., the social model. Significant correlations were evident between the children’s models of any group and their levels of knowledge and stereotypes: A high level of knowledge was positively correlated with the expression of the social model, whereas a high level of stereotypes correlated with a greater appreciation of the individual model. These findings confirm, at a psychological level, what was extensively investigated from a sociological perspective by disability studies since the late 1960s (for an authoritative and up-to-date overview of the main issues in the field of disability studies around the world today Watson and colleagues ), namely, the effect of custom complex variables on child’s disability attitudes and stereotypes (see, among many others [54–57]).
The present research verified whether children