Disability and disabled social perception: Kütahya case

Individuals with disabilities are faced with certain problems in the public life, such as education, employment, health, transportation, and so on. At the core of these problems are exclusion, othering, contempt, and underestimation. Because of these reasons, disabled people can not integrate with the collective and they have integration problems with the society. The inadequacy of the policies developed for the disabled individuals and the lack of studies are further reinforcing the problem of the integration of disabled people into the society. There are effects of social environment on negative social perception, attitudes and behaviors towards individuals with disabilities. As a result of negative social perceptions, attitudes and behaviors, individuals with disabilities go away from social life and become isolated from the society. It is necessary to prevent disabled people from getting social life and social integration problems. At this point there are a number of duties to the state, civil society organizations and researchers. The work to be done should remove the set in front of integrating disabled people into society. With this in mind, it is emphasized that disabled people living in Kütahya are dealing with the problems they have experienced in integrating with society and that these problems should be avoided. Keywords: Disability, Exclusion, Social Perception, Social Integration