SOCIAL PERCEPTION TOWARDS DISABLED PEOPLE IN ROMANIAN SOCIETY

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SOCIAL PERCEPTION TOWARDS DISABLED PEOPLE IN
ROMANIAN SOCIETY

• Vasilica Stamatin, MSC in Psychology
• Ph.D. student in Sociology
• Babes-Bolyai University,Cluj, Romania

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• After the Romanian revolution in 1989, people
  with disabilities were finally seen in the
  community.
• The communists induced the idea that it is
  shameful to have a family member with a
  disability.
• Most of the disabled people were hidden,
  abandoned in hellish institutions and treated
  worse than animals.
• The aim of this study was to research the present
  perception of disability in Romanian society.

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• There are very few studies regarding disability
  in Romania
• The research was focused especially on period
  after 2007, when Romania joined E.U.
• Desirability became a very dangerous estate among
  Romanian citizens that could lead to tokenism and
  covered disablism.
• The research was focused on implicit and explicit
  perception towards disabled people.

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• Central research question
• What is the present social perception towards
  disabled people in Romanian society?
• Secondary research questions
• Is the Romanian social perception towards
  disabled people related to medical model or to
  social model of disability?
• Is there a difference between implicit and
  explicit Romanian social perception towards
  disabled people?

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• Qualitative approach
• Exploratory research
• Phenomenological methodology
• the researcher cannot be detached from his own
  presuppositions and should not pretend otherwise
  (Hammersley, 2000).
• the phenomenologist are concerned with
  understanding social and psychological phenomena
  from the perspectives of people involved (Welman
  and Kruger, 1999, p. 189).
• Epistemological position
• data were contained within the perspectives of
  people that are involved with disabled people in
  daily activities
• I define a positive attitude towards disability
  any perception, attitude, behavior, or belief
  related to social model of disability- data were
  analyzed from this perspective

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• Sampling
• 26 disabled people, aged between 14-76 years old,
  different professions and different levels of
  education were interviewed.
• Who are the people that you meet most often
  daily and that you are interested in their
  attitude towards you and your disability?
• Over 50 answers indicated people between
  school-age and very old age, having the following
  professions pupils, students, clinicians,
  nurses, social workers, retired people, priests,
  solicitors, notaries, sales people, taxi and bus
  drivers, policemen, waiters, teachers,
  accounters, plumbers, cleaners, other public
  services people.
• Snowballing method
• 85 participants covering all targeted
  professional areas, age range and from the most
  important 5 Romanian regions Moldavia, Ardeal,
  Banat, Regat and Dobrogea.

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• Methods
• phenomenological in-depth semi structured
  interviews
• focus groups interviews
• mind mapping
• guided empathy in disability
• memoing or field notes
• Explicitation of the data-Hycners (1999)
  explicitation process
• Bracketing and phenomenological reduction.
• Delineating units of meaning.
• Clustering of units of meaning to form themes
• Summarizing each interview, validating it and
  where necessary modifying it.
• Extracting general and unique themes from all the
  interviews and making a composite summary.
• Cognitive dissonance theory (Leon Festinger,
  1957), concept of habitus (Pierre Bourdieu,
  1994), hermeneutics (Hans-Georg Gadamer, 1960),
  sociological imagination (C.Wright Milles, 1959),
  spread phenomenon (Dembo et. al., 1956).

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Mind map, I.T. 66 years old, teacher
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• If I would be Cristina (disabled person), I am
  not sure if I would like to live anymore. Shes
  loved by her family, but I assume they are shame
  to go out with her. (interview, C.D., 25 years
  old, nurse)
• ...and that person, ALTHOUGH he was a wheel
  chair user, denied everything they the
  colleagues were supposing about him, proving
  eventually that he had a strong personality and,
  TO EVERYBODYS AMAZEMENT, he was professionally
  even better than many of our normal colleagues.
  (Interview, I.P., 46 years old, prosecutor)
• They (disabled people) have a hard life,
  because they cant earn money by being employed,
  and they need care specialists to keep an eye on
  them all the time Sometimes you are amazed to
  see how a disabled person is coping with a
  difficult job. If I would be disabled I would
  feel the need to work ten times harder, to prove
  everybody that I am not under their level!...
  (interview, P.G., 58, accountant)

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• Central themes
• The big difference between being born disabled
  and getting an impairment through an accident or
  a disease
• Family as a vital support in living with a
  disability
• The poverty of disabled people in Romania
  increased by the economic crisis
• The disabled beggars and their enormous influence
  on negative social perception.
• Bucharest underground , trains, railway stations
  and busses disabled beggars
• disabled beggars across Europe
• disabled beggars actors
• Isolation of disabled people or
  institutionalization (as protective measures),
  abusive behaviors, financial advantages of poor
  families with disabled members
• Media as an important influence factor in
  building social perspectives towards disability

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• Results
• Central research question the social perception
  towards disabled people in Romanian society is
  still a negative one, based on prejudice, stigma
  and compassion.
• First research question 91 of participants
  perception is congruent with the medical model of
  disability. 9, whose perception was
  correspondent to social model of disability was
  almost exclusively formed by professionals
  working with disabled people.
• Second research question no significant
  difference between explicit and implicit
  perception towards disabled people in Romanian
  society (different declarative and implicit
  perceptions were situated under 7).
• The results revealed that
• The social model is almost unknown among
  Romanians
• Spread phenomenon determine the assessment of
  disabled people capabilities
• The negative attitude and behavior due to wrong
  approach determined by low level of knowledge
  related with disability.

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• Conclusions
• The social perception towards disabled people in
  nowadays Romanian society is still a perception
  based on the medical model of disability.
• There are no significant evidences that
  Romanians have different implicit and explicit
  perceptions about disabled people.
• Even if Romanian people is a loving and
  compassionate nation, people still dont have
  enough knowledge about disability and about
  social model of disability, and they fail in
  practicing a positive attitude towards
  disability.

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• References
• Bourdieu,P. (1994)( Practical reason on the
  theory of action, Stanford University press,
  Stanford California, 1998)
• Dembo,T.(1969).Rehabilitation psychology and its
  immediate future A problem of utilization of
  psychological knowledge. Rehabilitation
  Psychology,16, 63-72.
• Gadamer, Hans-Georg, Truth and Method,1960.
• Hycner, R. H. (1999). Some guidelines for the
  phenomenological analysis of interview data. In
  A. Bryman R. .G. Burgess (Eds.), Qualitative
  research (Vol. 3, pp. 143-164). London Sage.
• Mills, C.W., (1959), The Sociological
  Imagination, 'The Promise', Chapter 1, p.5.
• Welman, J. C., Kruger, S. J. (1999). Research
  methodology for the business and administrative
  sciences. Johannesburg, South Africa
  International Thompson.

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Contact informationVASILICA STAMATINMSC in
Psychology Ph.D. student in Sociology
Babes-Bolyai University,Cluj, Romania
vasilica.stamatin_at_gmail.com