Mexican and Portuguese young students facing disability. A comparative study using social representations.

The results of the investigation are based on a sample of 479 Mexican and Portuguese students of both genders, between the ages of 15 and 19. Its aim was to identify and analyze their systems of representation with regards to disability from a perspective of comparison. The results suggest that there is not a closed system of representation for disability amongst Mexican and Portuguese students but rather a complex system made up of central representations and peripheries. It further shows that many common denominators exist in the two systems of representation that reveal attitudes and images that tend to a negative view of disability. Points of Interest: the application of the theory of social representations in the understanding of the social systems of representation for disability; the identification of the dimensions and elements that make up the representation systems adopted by young Mexican and Portuguese students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]