Moral Outrage and the Fight for the Reputation of Children with Intellectual Disabilities. Qualitative Content Analysis of Posts Below an Interview with Parents of a Woman with Down Syndrome

The aim of the paper is to identify the causes of moral outrage expressed in the comments published below the interview with parents of an adult woman with Down syndrome who are also co-founders and co-runners of a “Bardziej Kochani” [“Loved more”] Association for parents of persons with Down syndrome. A qualitative analysis of the content of posts was carried out due to the status of the author of the comment (person related to the environment of people with disabilities or not). The article analyses status of emotions in sociology and discusses the perceived roles of the interviewees, especially their assumed responsibility as role models. Main causes of moral outrage emerging from the comments are presented: the way of talking about disability and people with disabilities, issues related to integration in education. Linguistic differences resulting from the status of comments’ authors were also indicated.