Presented at ISEC 2000

Does Exclusive Education Contribute to a Good Quality of Life?

Anna Firkowska-Mankiewicz, Ph. D.

Abstract

The paper presents preliminary result of the follow-up study of Warsaw teenagers examined first in 1975 and followed-up in 1999. The main focus will be the comparative analysis of the actual social position, social adjustment and quality of life of 49 adults aged 36 performing at age 13 on WISC between 69 and 85 ("borderline"). About half of them attended special schools for mildly intellectually handicapped, the other half attended elementary public schools. The paper will show their actual intellectual performance on Raven's Progressive Matrices as well as indicators of their SES (education, occupation, income etc.), of social adjustment and results on the Schaiock's Quality of Life Questionnaire.

Introduction

In many countries the most difficult problems in promotion of inclusive education for students with intellectual disabilities are organisational, material and mental barriers rooted in the educational system itself (Fairbairn, Fairbairn 1992). These barriers are still very pronounced in Poland where the system of education for persons with disabilities is dominated by the principle of segregation. Regardless the visible changes in last few years toward differently defined and differently performed integration, only about 1.5% - 3.0% of disabled children (mainly with milder forms of intellectual, motor and emotional disability) find places in more or less integrative settings (Bogucka 2000).

One of the best ways to convince the public about the merits of inclusive education is to present data showing that persons who did not experience exclusion during school years have better quality of adult life. But is it really so? I offer here a chance to examine how it is in case of Warsaw teenagers who at age 13 scored relatively low on Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). Their scores ranged from 69 to 85, what in psychometric language is called a borderline of normal intellectual functioning. About half of these children have experienced placement in schools for mildly mentally retarded - despite of their IQ score above threshold of 68, legitimising special education placement in those times in Poland. The other half stayed in regular, not segregated education.

Did differentiated school curriculum of children from both groups influence their life careers? Does their actual SES (education, occupation, material standing), social adjustment and quality of life, measured by objective and subjective indicators, differ? I will try to answer these questions formulating a provocative hypothesis that the quality of life of leavers from the segregated schools is actually not worse than the quality of life of their peers from the mainstream schools.

Quality of life concept

There is a vivid discussion on the quality of life concept among scientists, policy makers and common people. Scientists look for more or less adequate indicators of this theoretical notion, policy makers work on creating legal, economic and social provisions to improve the conditions of disadvantaged groups, and common people just want a good quality of life. Recently the concept of quality of life has become more and more popular also in a field of disability. Some authors even claim that it has replaced normalisation and desinstitutionalisation, becoming the most important issue of last decade of the twenties century (Schalock, Keith, Hoffman 1990).

How to define and measure the quality of life of disabled people? Let me quote Felce and Perry's definition. They define quality of life as "an overall general well-being that is comprised of objective and subjective evaluations of physical, material, social and emotional well-being together with the extent of personal development and purposeful activity, all weighted by a personal set of value" (Felce, Perry 1996, p. 52).

Referring to the conceptual model of Schalock, Keith, Hoffman (1990, p. 2) in such multidimensional construct, I would like to distinguish three important sets of factors:

1. Objective factors such as:

A. personal characteristics - physical and mental health, cognitive level, socio-demographic characteristics, etc.

B. objective life conditions - employment, housing, community characteristics, etc.

2. Perceptions about persons with disabilities.

3. Individual sets of values - beliefs about what is important and how the world works.

Objective factors related to personal characteristics and material and socio-cultural life conditions are important determinants of general well-being and life satisfaction. However, their importance may vary depending on two other sets of factors - namely the perceptions about persons with disabilities in a society and the individual value system. For example, two persons with mental handicap living in rather poor material conditions may evaluate their quality of life differently. One can be quite satisfied because material goods are not very high in his or her value system and he or she is not stigmatised in the community. The other person can be very unhappy because he or she feels to be poor and is excluded from the community life. Thus the personal believes about what is important in life and the way the persons with disabilities are perceived and treated by their peers, teachers or neighbours can significantly affect or modify their subjective, perceived quality of life - irrespective the objective personal characteristics and life conditions. In my presentation I refer to both objective and subjective measures of quality of life - based on direct responses given in an interview and on results in Schalock's Quality of Life Questionnaire.

Data and measurement

The study is based on interviews conducted in 1999 with 49 men and women, aged 36, and living in Warsaw. They represent about half of the original sample of 104 low scorers on WISC (range between 69 and 85 points, mean 77.6, SD 4.6) examined in the Warsaw Study as 13 years old in 1976 (Firkowska-Mankiewicz, Czarkowski 1982, Wald, Firkowska-Mankiewicz 1991, Firkowska-Mankiewicz 1992, Firkowska-Mankiewicz 1999a). The other half could not be followed for different reasons, such as death, moving out from Warsaw without a trace of new address, permanent absenteeism at home and - last but not least - pathological environment and a definitive refusal to be interviewed.

In 1999 respondents were interviewed at their homes. A long psycho-social questionnaire aimed at tracing in detail respondents' educational and occupational careers, their material and family situation as well as their health status and psychological functioning. Among different measures of psychological functioning, the most important were scores in Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices and scores in QOL - Schalock's Quality of Life Questionnaire. The QOL comprises 40 questions with 3-item cafeteria divided into 4 sub-scales, each based on 10 questions: Satisfaction, Competence/Productivity, Empowerment/Independence, Social Belonging/Community Integration. The sum of sub-scales gives the total score in QOL. The preliminary adaptation of QOL to conditions in Poland shows satisfactory reliability, with the Cronbach's a comparable to that in the U.S. (Firkowska-Mankiewicz 1999b).

The sample of 49 persons has been divided into two groups: respondents who declared that during their school career they were students at special school for mildly mentally retarded (21 cases) and on those who were never in a special school (28 cases). All subsequent analyses follow this division. First, I show their psychological functioning, social origin and some socio-cultural characteristic at age 13, i.e. 23 years ago. Then I examine their actual IQ, social status indices and family situation, as well as other psychological measures of their social adjustment and quality of life.

Main results

1. Psycho-social characteristics of students from normal and special schools at age 13.

Who were our today's respondents about a quarter of century ago? Let us have a look at Table 1 presenting some basic data on their psychological functioning, social origin and family situation.

Table 1 Psychological functioning, social origin and family situation of Warsaw teenagers from normal and special schools at age 13 (1976)

The data show that special school students scored a bit, but significantly lower on WISC and Vineland Scale of Social Maturity and had more emotional problems as registered by Test of Bender-Koppitz. Interestingly, however, they claimed to be more satisfied with themselves during school period than their peers who were students of normal schools - confronted with social environment more demanding and more critical toward less able students.

On the base of the tests results one could suspect that children who were directed to segregated education by Qualification Commission1 could present in fact more psychological troubles at the normal school setting. When we add to that their relatively lower social origin2 the picture starts to be clear. Children who despite having their IQ much above threshold legitimising special school placement have been referred to such schools came more often from lower social strata, with lower education of parents, and with lower educational aspiration for children. However, these families were not significantly poorer nor living in worse housing conditions than families whose children stayed in normal schools. But the assessment of children's psychological functioning coupled with their low social origin were an easy excuse for members of Qualification Commissions to take decision to transfer more difficult child from more difficult environment to special education track. These procedures are well known from the school practice of many countries (Mercer 1973, Firkowska-Mankiewicz, Czarkowski 1981). But what happened later on? Had the differentiated school placement an impact on future life of persons with borderline IQ?

2. IQ, SES, family situation, psychological functioning and QOL of normal and special school leavers after 23 years.

Let us answer first the most intriguing question what is the actual IQ of normal and special school leavers. To check it we used Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices. The rough scores for respondents from normal school was 24.9, SD 10.7 while for those from special schools - 26.3, SD 8.7. These scores are significantly lower than results registered for the standardisation sample of Poles aged 35-45 living in large cities - namely 43.2, SD 13.3 (Jaworowska, Szustrowa 1991). For the sake of comparison the rough scores of our respondents have been converted to the standardised scale with a mean 100 and SD 15.

Let us answer first the most intriguing question what is the actual IQ of normal and special school leavers. To check it we used Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices. The rough scores for respondents from normal school was 24.9, SD 10.7 while for those from special schools - 26.3, SD 8.7. These scores are significantly lower than results registered for the standardisation sample of Poles aged 35-45 living in large cities - namely 43.2, SD 13.3 (Jaworowska, Szustrowa 1991). For the sake of comparison the rough scores of our respondents have been converted to the standardised scale with a mean 100 and SD 15.

Table 2 IQ of normal and special schools students at age 13 (1976) and 36 (1999)

There are at least two very interesting results to comment on in this Table. First - the substantial growth of IQ scores during last 23 years in both groups, but more strongly accentuated among special school students (12.5 versus 7.8). One could then say that despite a former disadvantage, special school students improved their intellectual functioning more dynamically because their IQ is now even slightly better than their peers from normal schools. The second interesting result is a consequence of the first one: the lack of significant differences in actual IQ between normal and special school leavers.

Let us now look at most common indicators of socio-economical status, namely the level of education achieved, occupational status and material and dwelling standard.

Let us now look at most common indicators of socio-economical status, namely the level of education achieved, occupational status and material and dwelling standard.

Table 3 SES indicators of normal and special schools students

* ISCO 88 - The International Scale of Occupation - see Miedzynarodowa Klasyfikacja Zawodów 1993.

The data presented in Table 3 show that main indicators of social status are less favourable in case of special school leavers. None of them achieved the level of education above elementary or vocational - while in case of normal school leavers it happened in 1/3 of cases: one respondent achieved even the university degree in law, the other finished college and 6 achieved secondary education - mainly technical or vocational.

As far as employment is concerned, a similar proportion of persons from both groups is not currently employed. However, special school leavers more often report that they cannot find a job while the reason of not working in case of normal school leavers is more often related to the invalidity pension or rearing children.

Among those who actually work, special school leavers seem to have lower occupational status than their peers from normal schools - more often they work in simple manual occupations and less often changed jobs. Their economic situation seems also so be worse, though only a dwelling equipment is significantly less rich (e.g. among 10 articles such as washing machine, refrigerator, video, TV Sat, etc. their peers more often report to have more expensive goods such as computer or a car). Let us look now at the family situation.

Table 4 Family situation of normal and special school leavers

More than 2/3 of normal school leavers are actually married and about 80% have children, while only about half of their peers from special school have similar family situation; the other half either was never married (42%) or had their marriage broken by death or divorce.

Every second respondent was still living with parents - what reflects not only very high prices of apartments in Poland but also a relatively strong dependence of respondents on their families of origin.

All what has been presented till now seems to indicate somewhat lower social position measured by such hard facts as educational and occupational status and some indicators of material and family situation of persons who have experienced special school placement. Is this situation mirrored by more subtle, subjective measures of social adjustment - satisfaction from different spheres of life and quality of life indicators?

Table 5 Life satisfaction and QOL in normal and special school leavers

Presented data almost unequivocally indicate far reaching similarities between both groups in majority of indices of social adjustment; the observed differences are in most cases insignificant. What is really interesting it is a fact that when the differences are on borderlines of significance - they seem to show slightly better adjustment of special school leavers! They are more satisfied with many spheres of their life, mainly with their school education, health and with themselves. As far as QOL subscales are concerned, we notice one but very characteristic exception from the rosy picture designed above: in Social Belonging/Community Integration subscale special school leavers score a bit lower than their peers following normal school curriculum.

Summary and discussion

Let us sum up the presented results enumerating differences in the life situation and psychological functioning of persons who experienced during their school time segregated and mainstream education.

1) Special school students' psychological functioning at age 13 was slightly but significantly worse than their peers who stayed in normal school: their results in WISC and Vineland Social Maturity Scale were a bit lower and in the Bender-Koppitz Test - a bit higher. The special school students' social origin was also less favourable. They came almost inevitably from manual workers' families with low level of parents' education, lower educational aspirations for children and less friendly home atmosphere.

2) The hard facts about the actual situation of normal and special school leavers indicate that their present IQ improved significantly from school years and is now almost identical (or even a bit better in case of former special school students).

On the contrary the indices of social status say about lower level of education, of occupational position and of dwelling equipment in case of special school leavers, but show no significant differences in income and dwelling standard. Their family situation is also slightly less favourable - less often they are married and have children.

3) However, according to subjective measures of the satisfaction from different spheres of life and subscales of Schalock's QOL, the actual psychological well-being and social adjustment of special school leavers is at least as good as their mates from normal schools and sometimes seems even to be better. The only sphere of life where they feel a bit less comfortable is a sphere of social relationships.

To comment briefly there results I would like to say firstly that given IQ results at age 13 none of our respondents should be placed in segregated educational trajectory. The blame for that should be put mainly on the assessment procedures and the school system which prefers to get rid of more difficult or more demanding pupils - especially when they come from the disadvantaged or pathological environment. These practices are repeated again and again in Poland and only more determined policy toward integration and inclusion can stop it.

Having said that let us came back to the crucial point of this paper - namely whether the special or normal school placement affected life careers of students with borderline IQ. The answer is not univocal. From data presented one could speculate that exclusive education prevented special school students to achieve better level of education what resulted in slightly lower occupational and material position.

But when we look at indices of their social and psychological adjustment including QOL we see that despite that they are equally and sometimes even more satisfied from their lives and estimate its quality as not worse than their peers following normal school trajectory. So for the provocative question given in the title of my paper the answer could be yes. What should be done next is to find out why and how it is possible. My first intuition leads to the self-esteem and the value system of respondents' themselves and their groups of references. The self-esteem of special school leavers seems to be higher - both during school period and now - than their peers from normal schools. Given their relatively higher IQ than those of the rest of their class-mates from special schools it is probable that they were better pupils and had more satisfaction from their school experiences; so it could help them to build the better self-esteem. On the contrary their peers who stayed in normal schools were relatively worse pupils there than the majority of their colleagues who were their group of references; that is why their self-esteem based on their school experiences could be lower. But to be able to develop more fully this line of reasoning we should dispose the additional data not available now.

Notes: Qualification Commissions were composed of psychologist, pedagogue, physician and educational authorities representative. In general, after a single assessment a child has been referred to special education placement. It is worth to note that in this period the western tests of intellectual performance had been used with western norms - without standardisation and normalisation procedure. 2 Almost all special school students come from manual workers families in which 9 for 10 fathers had no more than elementary education.

References

Bogucka J., 2000, Stan placówek integracyjnych w Polsce w roku szkolnym 1998/1999 (Integrative settings in Poland in 1998/1999), Centrum Metodyczne Pomocy Psychologiczno-Pedagogicznej Ministerstwa Edukacji Narodowej, Warszawa Fairbairn G.,

Fairbairn S. (eds.), 1992, Integrating Special Children: Some Ethical Issues, Avebury, Aldershot, Brookfield USA, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sidney

Felce D., Perry J., 1996, Exploring Current Conceptions of Quality of Life, in: Renwick R., Brown J., Nagler H. (eds.), Quality of Life in Health Promotion and Rehabilitation, London, Sage

Firkowska-Mankiewicz A., Czarkowski M. P., 1982, Social Status end Mental Test Performance in Warsaw Children, Personality and Individual Differences, 3, p. 237-247

Firkowska-Mankiewicz A., Czarkowski M. P., 1986, Srodowisko spoleczno-kulturowe a zdrowie (na przykladzie uposl. um.) - (Socio-cultural environment and health - the case of mental handicap), Studia Sociologiczne no 3, p. 199-210

Firkowska-Mankiewicz A., 1993, Spór o inteligencje czlowieka. Dziedzicznosc czy srodowisko (Debate about Human Intelligence. Inheritance or Environment), Warszawa, Wydawnictwo IFiS PAN

Firkowska-Mankiewicz A., 1999 a, Zdolnym byc... Kariery i sukces zyciowy warszawskich trzydziestolatków (To be gifted... Careers and success in life of Warsaw 30 year olds), Warszawa, Wydawnictwo IFiS PAN

Firkowska-Mankiewicz A., 1999 b, Jakosc zycia osób niepelnosprawnych intelektualnie. Prezentacja QOL - Kwestionariusza Jakosci Zycia (Quality of life of persons with intellectual disability - presentation of QOL), sztuka leczenia, vol. V, no 3, p. 15-21

Jaworowska A., Szustrowa T., 1991, Podrecznik do Testu Matryc Ravena, Aneks (Manual for Raven's Progressive Matrices, Annex), Pracownia Testów Psychologicznych Polskiego Towarzystwa Psychologicznego, Warszawa

Mercer J., 1973, Labelling the Mentally Retarded, Berkeley, University of California Press, Los Angeles, London

Miedzynarodowa Klasyfikacja Zawodów (International Scale of Occupation) ISCO, 1993, Sawinski Z., Domanski H., Slomczynski K. M., Kucharska E., Nierychlewski A (eds.), ISS, UW Warszawa

Schalock R. L., Keith K. D., Hoffman K., 1990, Quality of Life Questionnaire, Standardisation manual, Mid-Nebraska Mental Retardation Services, Inc., Box 1146, Hastings, NE 68901

Wald J., Firkowska-Mankiewicz A., 1991, Implications of the Warsaw Study for Social and Educational Planning, in: Vulnerability and Resilience in Human Development, Tizard B., Varma V. (eds.), Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London and Philadelphia, p. 233-243

I would like to thank British Council in Warsaw and the Federation of Parents Organisation in Netherlands for subvention which made possible my participation in the Congress.

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