Confrontation with the disability and evolution of the social representation of the otherness of the schoolboys
The borders between traditional and specialized schooling tend to be erased since the integration of the disabled children in the ordinary school circuit is posed like national priority. The daily relationship with a handicapped child confronts the children of the ordinary classes with the “otherness”. Thus, this research aims to study the social representation of the otherness of pupils from high school where pupils with a disability are schooling in regular classes and to locate the place occupied by the disability. The evolution of this representation in the course of one school year and the effect of the contact (to belong to a class which integrates or not a student with a disability) were particularly studied. Five hundred forty nine children schooled in middle school integrating pupils with a disability answered the same questionnaire at the beginning and the end of school year (initial social representation vs final). The data show that the representation of the otherness returns to three great types of otherness: personality’s features or physical attributes (46%), the social norms (28%) and the handicap (15%). Only the last element belongs to the core of the representation of the otherness. However, this one is accompanied by other terms relating to the social norms at the end of the year (be poor and spoken language). More still, this evolution depends on the type of contact maintained with the handicap (direct or indirect). On the whole, in spite of common schooling between pupils with a disability and non-disabled pupils, it would seem that the disability is always regarded as a characteristic of the otherness.