Abstract
Richardson, S. A. et al. (1961) suggested that there was a consistent preferential order when U.S. children(aged 10-11) were asked to rank the drawings of children with various physical disabilities. They concluded that the ranks were not affected by characteristics of the rater, such as sex, socioeconomic status, race etc., and there was a remarkable uniformity in the preferential order which would reflect a wide spread cultural value on the assessment of physical disabilities in U.S. children. In 1963, they studied more deeply on the acquisition of value from the various aspects. In 1966, Chigier, E. in Israel, studied on this theme in his country with the identical technique to Richardson et al. and found that the preferential order was quite different from that of U.S. children. Recent study by Alessi, D. F. et al. (1969 U.S.) got almost the same result as Richardson et al., but they did not support the theory "cultural unformity in preference". This report is concerned with Japanese children and adults. The drawings used were almost identical with Richardson et al., which were placed in ramdom order in front of each subject, who was then asked to point a drawing he liked most, next most,…until all six drawings were ranked. The data analysis was carried out by mean rank method. The subjects were: Children with no physical handicap (aged 9-12) 277 Children with physical handicaps (aged 9-18) 77 Adults (aged 19-23, Students) 215 total 569 The results were as follows, 1) More than 90 percent of the subjects ranked a child with no physical handicaps as the first choice in the normative group. The mean rank ranged from 1.05 in the normative girl group to 1.38 in the physically handicapped girl group. Japanese subjects in comparison with U. S. subjects liked the children with no physical handicaps more. This finding would suggest that Japanese people put stronger emphasis on the value of normal healthy body than U. S. people. From the rehabilitation point of view, this might become a factor to hamper more the social integration of the disabled. 2) Across all subgroups except the physicapped girl group, Japanese subjects liked more, so calld children with social handicap (obesity, facial disfigurement) than with functional handicap (with wheelchair, with brace, hand missing). This should be a distinct difference from U. S. data in which social handicap ranked lower than functional handicap. In this respect, the data obtained in Japan is common to that of Israeli children by Chigier. 3) Those who are functionally most impaired have not been liked least. From the common-sense explanation, a child with wheelchair had been supposed most disliked, but the result has not coincided with such expectation. 4) The rank of a child with hand missing was consistently the lowest across all non-handicapped subgroups. The reason why Japanese poeple dislike most the child with hand missing is not obvious, in contrast to U.S. and Israeli people. 5) The preference patterns in the children with physical handicaps were slightly different from those of the non-handicapped subgroups. This result, however, does not contradict the cultural uniformity in preference. Because among the subjects with physical handicaps, low IQ cerebral palsied children who lacked ability in acquiring the specific norm underlying in their culture were contained. 6) A Kruskall-Wallis analysis of variance has not rejected the null hypothesis of no differerence between subgroups of the subjects. In this respect, the result was consistent with Richardson et al. Hence, the cultural uniformity in preference pattern could be supported despite the negative suggestion by Alessi et al. Coefficients of concordance in Japan were greater than in U.S. and all were significant.
