The impact of literary works containing characters with disabilities on students? perception and attitudes towards people with disabilities

Nowadays, with the emergence of an inclusive approach and the growing prevalence of its practice, social diversity as a value has become a highly focused area in social policy, including education. Reading and processing literary works that include a person with a disability can be an excellent tool in education for students to get to know people with disabilities, who make up a significant section of society. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of literary works containing characters with disabilities in Hungarian textbooks on students' attitudes towards people with disabilities in a classroom setting. During the intervention, the students in the experimental group worked for 14 weeks with literary works including characters with disabilities in textbooks. The experimental and control groups consisted of two three-grade classes from a primary school in Budapest. Changes in students' attitudes were measured using the CATCH attitude questionnaire, metaphor analysis, and drawing analysis before and after the intervention. The results show that literary works with negative stereotypes have an impact on students' attitudes towards people with disabilities, so their critical analysis is recommended.