The Laboratory held a seminar on social attitudes towards vulnerable people
On April 27, 2023, the fourth consultation seminar of the series «Care and Well-being in Post-Soviet Eurasia: Institutions, Discourses, Identities» was held in the Laboratory. The meeting was devoted to the discussion of the topic «Public Attitudes towards Vulnerable People in Russia in the Context of Care and Inclusion Work. A case of ASD».
The seminar was addressed by Charlie Walker, PhD, Associate Professor at the University of Southampton. Irina Zangieva, Senior Researcher at the International Laboratory for Social Integration Research, and Kirill Lesov, a graduate of the master’s program «Applied Statistics with Network Analysis» presented the results of their research «Factors Determining the Perception of People with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Russia».
The meeting began with Charlie Walker’s introduction to the importance of research and understanding the formation of social attitudes towards people with disabilities, particularly those with autism spectrum disorder.
The lack of visibility of this issue in society leads to false prejudices and stereotypes about people with ASD. People with ASD are people who have communication and socialization problems, and it is very difficult to interact with the outside world. The main problem is that people’s stereotyping of people with ASD, lack of understanding of how to behave more appropriately towards such people, can have a significant negative impact on the integration and inclusion of people with ASD in public life.
The seminar also presented the results of research into factors that influence the perception of people with ASD. The study identified the types of representation of people with ASD. The research also found a link between attitudes towards ASD and interest in the topic of ASD, experience of human interaction with ASD, gender and type of residence city. The hypothesis of the correlation between concepts to ASD and attitudes towards people with ASD has not been confirmed.
During the discussion, Charlie Walker stressed the importance of geographic context for the study. The results obtained must be interpreted in the light of Russia’s cultural and social characteristics.It is also necessary to take into account how things are now with the social support of people with ASD: the availability of information about ASD, the availability of funds and programs to support people with ASD, etc. The professor recommended supplementing the study with the disclosure of the specifics of this context in the theoretical review of the study and in summarizing the results.
Elena Yarskaya-Smirnova, professor and head of the Laboratory, also noted the need to refer to the available results of all–Russian social surveys on this topic. For example, questions about the attitude towards people with ASD have recently begun to be asked in regular opinion polls by VCIOM.
At the end of the seminar, the participants discussed methodological aspects of the study of attitudes towards people with ASD and the prospects for continuing the study of this topic.