Attitudes of superintendents of institutions for the mentally retarded towards deinstitutionalization: a cross-cultural perspective.

A cross-cultural study was conducted on the attitudes of superintendents of institutions regarding deinstitutionalization in the United States and in Israel. The attitudes of 29 superintendents from Israel were compared with the attitudes of 181 American superintendents. The most general finding was that in spite of important legislative and demographic differences, in both countries the attitudes were neither highly in favor nor strongly against deinstitutionalization. Most respondents in both countries believed that the parents of the mentally retarded do not generally support deinstitutionalization.