Atteggiamenti delle e degli adolescenti nei confronti dei pari percepiti come “diversi”: validazione di uno strumento quali-quantitativo.

In order to further explore the link between social inclusion/exclusion and perceived diversity, the present paper reports on the validation process of AATOS, a quali-quantitative instrument adopting a non-categorical approach in the study of adolescents’ attitudes towards their perceived “different” peers. Its psychometric properties were tested with a sample of 490 secondary school students. The reliability and construct validity of the attitude scale were assessed using factor analysis and testing several validation hypotheses. Moreover, two rounds of intercoder agreement were conducted to establish the consistency of the coding categories developed for the qualitative analysis. All in all, the findings of the current study suggest that the AATOS can be considered a robust instrument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]