Page 171 - Vseživljenjsko učenje kot temelj trajnostne družbe

Ableism and Mindset of Future Educators

ableism) do not correlate with mindset. Our results show that the double-
sword model may be appropriate to explain the relation between mind-
set and prejudice, as both growth mindset and fixed mindset are indeed
positively related to some components of ableism. It is not surprising that
personal responsibility is correlated with growth mindset as both concepts
imply personal control, whether for one’s own development (growth mind-
set) or success (personal responsibility). Discrimination beliefs are weakly
and positively correlated with fixed mindset, but not with growth mindset.
Among all subscales, discrimination most obviously measures stigmatiza-
tion and therefore this may also be proof that the stigma-reduction model
is valid. Hypothesis 2 is partially confirmed; however, correlations are weak
and not all facets of ableism seem to be correlated with mindset.

Predictors of Ableism
Next, we wanted to discover which are the significant predictors of symbolic
ableism and its components. Therefore, we conducted a set of hierarchical
linear regressions for three different outcome variables: symbolic ableism
(measured as a total score on A-SAS), personal responsibility and discrim-
ination. We decided on only those two subscales, because those were the
only components of ableism that correlated significantly with mindset mea-
sures. Further, the inspection of scatterplots revealed that only for those two
variables is a linear relationship with mindset observable. We applied two-
dimensional measures of mindset (separate variables for fixed and growth
mindset), because in that way correlations were higher with outcome vari-
ables.
In Step 1 fixed and growth mindset was entered, because those were the
predictors that interested us the most. In the second step we inserted a
dummyvariable(studyprogrammerelated/notrelatedtovulnerablegroups).
This was done because in Hypothesis 1 we confirmed that there exist differ-
ences in ableism among those groups. In the third step we added the age
and self-assessed knowledge variables into linear regression, because both
groups significantly differed in those variables and we wanted to check if
differences in ableism observed between groups could be due to age or
(self-assessed) knowledge rather than the type of study programme.
As seen in Table 4, symbolic ableism is predicted solely by the type of study
programme. Being a student in a study programme which includes training
for work with vulnerable groups, predicts reporting lower ableism. However,
only 4.2 of variance of ableism is explained with the type of study pro-
gramme. In step 3, where age and self-assessed knowledge were put into

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