No.204 Does Learning the Social Model Improve Behavior towards Persons with Disabilities? A Randomized Experiment for Taxi Drivers in South Africa

This study examines the impacts of a training program related to the social model of disability, called Disability Equality Training (DET), using the method of randomized control trials. The targets of the study were taxi drivers in South Africa. This study collected the data on their understanding of disability and actual services toward passengers with disabilities through questionnaire and mystery shopper surveys.

The main findings are that DET significantly encouraged taxi drivers to understand the social model, and that the combination of DET and practical support training had a significant impact on the time spent by drivers to support passengers with disabilities. These imply that learning the social model could lead to an improvement in the understanding of disability and, in part, actual behavior towards persons with disabilities.

Keywords: Disability equality training, Impact evaluation, Randomized control trials, Mystery shopper survey, South Africa