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The educational context has been disrupted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the study was to explore attitudes of pupils in Serbia toward distance education during the pandemic. Specifically, we aimed to explore the cognitive component of pupils’ attitudes through their perception of positive and negative aspects of distance education, the motivational component based on the expressions of how distance education affects pupils’ motivation to learn, and emotional component through verbal expressions of emotions toward distance education. The sample for the study included 110 pupils attending primary (5th to 8th grade) and secondary schools in Serbia. A semi-structured interview was employed. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis. The findings suggest that majority of pupils have negative attitudes toward distance education and that they find insufficient interaction between teachers and pupils to be the major shortcoming of distance education. Positive aspects of distance education which could be preserved after the pandemic according to the participants’ views are: communication between teachers and pupils using information technologies (IT), technical possibilities for a better presentation of learning topics and permanent availability of learning materials on online platforms. The study revealed the lack of intrinsic learning motivation and deficiencies in pupils’ self-regulation of learning which are important to be overcome as they impede pupils’ academic development both in distance and in classroom education.

Belsky’s theory of differential susceptibility to environmental influences assumes that the very individuals who seem most susceptible to environmental adversity may also benefit most from developmentally supportive rearing. The aim of this study was to examine whether supportive parenting (with parental care) in contrast to unsupportive parenting (without parental care), has greater beneficial effects in adolescents with intellectual disability (ID) than in typically developing (TD) adolescents. The sample included two groups of adolescents aged 12-18: the group of 210 adolescents without parental care (PC), 80 with ID (Mage = 15.59 years; SDage = 1.97; 54% boys), 130 TD adolescents (Mage = 15.03 years; SDage = 1.95; 52% boys) and the parallel group of 206 adolescents with PC, 76 with ID (Mage = 15.57 years; SDage = 1.93; 53% boys), 130 TD adolescents (Mage = 15.03 years; SDage = 1.95; 52% boys). Social competence was assessed using the Social Skills Rating System. Our assumption was confirmed with respect to self-control, cooperation and responsibility, adolescents with ID are more susceptible to influences of parenting status compared with TD adolescents. With respect to externalising problems, our assumption was not confirmed, possibly due to the less supportive parenting environment characterised by more parenting risk factors in families of adolescents with ID. The implications for prevention of externalising problems were discussed in relation to school and family context.

Previous studies have offered important findings on the frequency of negative forms of social behaviour in children with intellectual disabilities and typically developing children. However, there is a lack of studies dealing with the link between the prosocial behaviour of youth and family variables. The aim of the conducted research was to study the degree of connection of the quality of parenting and the level of intellectual development of adolescents with the prosocial behaviour of adolescents. The sample consisted of 416 respondents, aged 12 to 18, divided into two groups. One group comprised 210 adolescents (130 typically developing adolescents and 80 adolescents with mild intellectual disabilities) without parental care, and the other group included 206 adolescents (130 typically developing adolescents and 76 adolescents with mild intellectual disabilities) with parental care. For the assessment of prosocial behaviour we used the subscale Prosocial behaviour from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaires - SDQ. The results have confirmed that, regardless of intellectual status, young people without parental care exhibited prosocial behaviour significantly less frequently than young people with parental care. The findings are discussed within the context of the starting model. The concluding part of the paper points to the fact that cognitive deficits are not a limiting factor in the development of prosocial behaviour of adolescents with mild intellectual disabilities and that further research is needed on the influence of environmental factors on the exhibition of prosocial behaviour in adolescents.