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Abstract: The self-concept and quality of friendship of 40 adolescents with visual impairments (20 in public schools and 20 in a residential school) were compared to those of 41 sighted adolescents. The findings indicate a similar self-concept profile for sighted adolescents and adolescents with visual impairments, although the scores of the participants with visual impairments were higher in all domains except their fathers' concept of them. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Of the approximately 2,000 students with visual impairments in Israel, 183 attend high school. Of this number, 80% (143) attend public school-74% with low vision and 26% with blindness-and 20% (40) attend residential school. The Jewish Institute for the Blind is the only residential special education school for students with visual impairments (and no other disability) in Israel. The Israeli Special Education Law (1988) favors mainstreaming or placing students with visual impairments in regular education classrooms, although it has not been established whether placements in public schools are preferable to special schools for these students (Hatlen, 2004).
The objectives of the study reported here were to compare the personal (self-concept and adjustment to blindness) and social (quality of friendship and social-emotional adjustment as assessed by teachers) adjustment of students with visual impairments and their sighted peers and to examine differences in these measures according to the educational setting and type of disability. Personal adjustment is defined as the structural organization of the self, the personality and the behavior unique to this personality. Social adjustment is defined as the structure and relations between an individual and his or her social environment (Dodds et al., 1994). Studies of adolescents with visual impairments have focused on components of social adjustment (Huurre, Komulainen, & Aro, 1999) or personal adjustment (Lopez-Justicia, Pichardo, Amezcua, & Fernandez, 2001).
Theoretical background
Self-concept is a system of beliefs and attitudes that individuals have about themselves (Francis, 1996). The extrospective approach (Festinger, 1954; Sullivan, 1953) views self-concept as a product of a person's social interactions and society's reactions to that person. The introspective approach (Fitts, 1965; Rogers, 1951) focuses on the consciousness that underlies the self-image, and is defined as a consistent cognitive model of a person's perception of his or her attributes, values, and interpersonal relations.
Some studies (Beaty,...