Позитивные изменения. Том 2, № 1 (2022). Positive changes. Volume 2, Issue 1 (2022)

Sociologist, expert of the project "Development of the model for socio-economic impact assessment of NGO projects" by the GLADWAY Foundation

ABOUT THE “INTERACTION PROJECT"

An inclusive film and theater project "InterAction Project” — is a series of performances, films and communication training sessions involving people with Down syndrome aimed at a wide audience.

Performances take place at the Nations Theater, the "Sovremennik” Theater, the UN Palais des Nations in Geneva, the ZIL Cultural Centre, Artplay, and the Swiss Embassy in the Russian Federation. The main roles in the productions are played by professional actors with Down syndrome. Most often, the themes of the productions are about personal dreams and self-belief, childhood and growing up, the need to make one's own decisions and the ability to take responsibility for them.

In 2020, a film about the "Eating an Elephant” project directed by Yulia Saponova, was shown on Russian federal television. In the same year, it won in the "Media Effectiveness” category of the All-Russian competition of social advertising for non-profit projects, NGOs and social enterprises "Advertising the Future” and was nominated for the TEFI Kids Prize.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

How the perception of people with Down syndrome changes after trainings, films and performances of the” InterAction Project”, whether such projects motivate viewers to some kind of action, what effect they have in general — these are the questions the study answers.

The methodology was as follows. Before watching a film or a performance the audience answered questions: what is their experience of interacting with people with Down syndrome, how do they perceive such people. After the events, the audience was asked again what they thought about what they had seen and how their attitude towards people with Down syndrome had changed. A special focus group was also formed as part of the study. Its participants took part in a discussion immediately after the performance and discussed their impressions while they were as fresh as possible.

In order to study the effect of the training, two groups were compared: participants in the training and those who had not received the training. Respondents were asked about their perceptions and perceptions of people with Down syndrome, what they had learned after the training and whether they intended to put what they had learned into practice.

The semantic differential method, introduced by Charles Osgood in 1952, was used to quantitatively study perceptions. It represents the construction of individual or group semantic spaces[4]. The coordinates of an object in the semantic space are its scores on a set of bipolar graded semantic scales. In this case, a seven-point scale was used. The opposite poles of this scale were given by antonyms. In simple terms, participants gave their assessment from -3 to 3 to the opposite poles: "passive — active”, "kind — angry”, "unsociable — sociable”, "successful — unsuccessful”, "stupid — smart”, "peaceful — aggressive”, "sick — healthy”, "determined — undecided”, "talentless — talented”, "warm — cold”. This method was applied at all events, except for the performance.

It should be noted that the research participants were recruited from the regular audience of the” InterAction Project”, i.e. They were initially loyal to charity, NGOs and people with disabilities.

CHANGING PERCEPTIONS

Viewers of the film and performance prior to the study gave people with Down syndrome the following ratings: «active», "kind", «sociable», "warm", «peaceful» and “talented”. Respondents were also more frequently inclined to believe that people with Down syndrome are «sickly», "indecisive" and "not very intelligent". After the performance the parameter «indecisive» became less pronounced and the parameter «stupid» became more pronounced. In addition to the previously expressed qualities of «kind», "warm" and «peaceful», people with Down syndrome became more strongly associated with success. Respondents also started referring to people with Down syndrome as healthy more often and as sick less often.

Training participants strongly associated people with Down syndrome with all positive qualities. Associations with negative qualities were very weak or not expressed at all. For those who have not undergone training, the associations with negative qualities are stronger, especially often respondents characterized people with Down syndrome as "indecisive".

ATTITUDES TOWARDS PEOPLE WITH DOWN SYNDROME: BEFORE AND AFTER PARTICIPATION IN THE PROJECT