Representations of the visual impairment of a pre-service group: a study on the contribution of initial training and contact experience

Abstract

Attitudes towards disability are the result of the representations that people create and share during social interaction: they are an individual interpretation of a collective and cultural belief.
Starting from this perspective, this article reports the results of a descriptive-exploratory study, conducted between 2017 and 2018, that investigated pre-service teachers representation of visual
disability in support disabilities specialization course at the University of Salento (Lecce). The goal is to know the representations of pre-service teachers, describing their possible change after the
training experiences provided and on the contact experience in the laboratory on visual disability conducted by a blind teacher. On the narrative corpus, was carried out qualitative analysis aimed
at identifying the cultural repertoires. The teachers within the sample also acknowledged training and contact as impacting their understanding, awareness and knowledge of visual impairment
people and approaches