Primary School Students' Perspectives to Promote Social Participation in Inclusive Education

• In Event: 31.082 - Escúchame! Listen to Me! Exploring Underserved Students' Voice Through Innovative and Participatory Research Designs

Abstract

While inclusive education can be forced by law and is growing all over Europe (e.g., European Agency Statistics on Inclusive Education, 2014) and other areas, the beneficial effects on the social and emotional development of students with SEN (and also their peers) cannot be legally enforced given that social relations are voluntary (see e.g. Felder, 2015). One of the major arguments to foster inclusive education is to avoid a social exclusion of students with special educational needs (SEN) from their peers without SEN. However, it cannot be expected that the special placement of students with and without SEN into the same classes automatically lead to positive peer-relations between those groups of students. Previous research pointed out that students with SEN attending inclusive classes are at a high risk of low social participation (e.g., Koster, Nakken, Pijl, & van Houten, 2009). According to the systematic literature, review of Adair, Ullenhag, Keen, Granlund and Imms (2015) there are only a few studies available which primarily focus on the intervention of social participation. As social participation is a complex issue, there exists no ‘simply’ intervention concept which can easily been implemented. For example, Pijl, Frostad, and Flem (2008) empathized the fact that it is still unknown which specific intervention is most effective. The present study aims to listen to students’ voices to find out what students, teachers and parents can do to promote social participation of all students in the class. Semi-structured interviews with twelve primary school students without SEN and twelve primary school students with SEN were conducted. The data were analyzed using Mayring’s (2014) qualitative content analysis guidelines in an inductive way. Results show that the students themselves assess social participation of students (especially the contact between students with and without SEN) and the possibilities for social interactions as an important advantage of inclusive schooling. On the other hand, students indicate that it is a complex question who could support to improve social participation. From their perspectives students themselves play a key role in the social participation of peers. In particular, students indicated that they themselves are the most important factor to improve their own social participation. For instance, students with SEN could try to be improve their social behavior. Next to themselves, their best friends could foster their social contacts. For example, one students with SEN mentioned that “children should simply become friends by themselves”. Moreover, the peers should try to be friendly to peers with SEN and to avoid annoying students with SEN. Interestingly, they do not indicate that professionals (e.g., their teachers) or their parents support them to become friends with their peers. The overall results of the students indicate that especially supporting students’ social behavior might increase the social participation of all students. Findings of the present study will be discussed in the line with their relevance for further research and practice.

Authors

• Susanne Schwab, University of Vienna

• Cornelia Gerdenitsch, Austrian Institue of Technology