The Public’s Supportive Attitude towards the Social Inclusion of Children with Special Needs: Theory and Experience

Abstract

Using hierarchical linear models, this article examines how factors at individual and policy levels influence public attitudes towards the social inclusion of children with special needs based on data collected from 1,602 samples and second-hand data in five cities. It is found that individual and policy factors have varying impacts on relationship support, social support, and public support for the social inclusion of children with special needs: (1) individuals who once gave help to children with special needs express strong support; (2) government policies may have a crowding out effect, that is, greater intensity of child policies may lower public support for the social inclusion of children with special needs; (3) different policies may interfere with each other, that is, child policies and disability policies may have the opposite effects on people’s attitudes towards public support for the social inclusion of children with special needs.