Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing * E-mail: J.Vyrastekova@fm.ru.nl Affiliation Institute for Management Research, Nijmegen Center for Economics, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
How does the participation of students with special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream education affect their social inclusion? We introduce a single-item pictorial measure, the Inclusion of Other in the Self (IOS), to compare the social inclusion of SEN students attending mainstream regular schools to social inclusion of SEN students attending special schools. We collected responses from 138 parents of SEN students aged 4–20, to obtain data on the loneliness, friendships and social inclusion of SEN students. The parents of SEN students attending regular schools did not perceive their children to be less included than parents of SEN students attending special schools. School context decreased SEN students’ perceived loneliness independent of the school type. And while most SEN students’ friendships were formed at school, SEN students attending regular schools had more friends, and these were more likely to live in the same neighborhood. Overall, the social inclusion of SEN students across school types was not affected by the school type, only by the school’s inclusive characteristics.
Citation: Vyrastekova J (2021) Social inclusion of students with special educational needs assessed by the Inclusion of Other in the Self scale. PLoS ONE 16(4): e0250070. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250070
Editor: Vitomir Kovanovic, University of South Australia, AUSTRALIA
Received: January 20, 2020; Accepted: March 30, 2021; Published: April 28, 2021
Copyright: © 2021 Jana Vyrastekova. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.
Funding: The author received no specific funding for this work.
Competing interests: The author has declared that no competing interests exist.
The participation of students with special educational needs (SEN) in regular schools is frequently disputed on the grounds that their social inclusion is failing. SEN students in regular schools were identified as being more lonely than their non-SEN classmates [1–3], having fewer friends and interactions with peers [4–6], and being more likely to be bullied [7]. These concerns arise from studies comparing SEN students to non-SEN students, using measures of social inclusion that are based on sociometric methods and observational data. Social inclusion is defined in these studies as the presence of reciprocal friendships, interactions between SEN and non-SEN students, the social status of SEN students as perceived by non-SEN students, and the acceptance of SEN students by their classmates [8].
We propose that comparing the social inclusion of SEN students across educational contexts is a relevant but missing piece of evidence in the current discussion. To evaluate the impact of including SEN students in regular schools as an alternative to their schooling in segregated context of special schools, we have to compare their social inclusion across the school contexts, rather than to compare the social inclusion of SEN students to that of non-SEN students. We offer such a comparison across school contexts, and introduce a new approach to assessing social inclusion based on a subjective perspective of social inclusion. Indeed, recent research shows that although SEN and non-SEN students achieve different outcomes on sociometric measures in regular schools, their perceptions of quality of friendships do not differ [9]. This suggests that the currently used sociometric methods for assessing social inclusion might underestimate the sense of belonging and social inclusion that SEN students experience in regular schools. Therefore, we also offer a new measure of social inclusion, and respond to the call to create new methods of evaluation of social inclusion [8].
Our approach is inspired by the literature on subjective well-being [10–12], which has contributed significantly to our understanding how the ultimate goal of economic progress—human well-being–is linked to its traditionally frequently used economic indicators, like income. If the ultimate goal is to achieve the highest possible well-being for an individual, why not assess this well-being directly? Using this approach, it has become apparent that an increase in income does not necessarily translate into an increase in all aspects of well-being [13]. Furthermore, by directly measuring well-being, the researchers have been able to study factors that underlie well-being (e.g., social relationships) and the impact well-being has on individual’s health or labor market outcomes. The challenge of working with subjective measures of social inclusion is comparable to the challenge that the researchers have faced when introducing subjective well-being measures in economics [14]. However, there are likely benefits from accepting such a challenge. The new insights that we have gained thanks to the measures of subjective well-being put forth in the literature have resulted in contributions to the formulation of economic policy goals [15] and have motivated policy-makers to consider subjective well-being complementary to the income measures of economic success.
What is more, the foundation for applying a subjective perspective on all aspects of well-being of SEN students, including social inclusion, is found in the Article 7.3 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities [16] stating that: “States Parties shall ensure that children with disabilities have the right to express their views freely on all matters affecting them, their views being given due weight in accordance with their age and maturity, on an equal basis with other children, and to be provided with disability and age-appropriate assistance to realize that right.” We therefore propose to further the understanding of factors promoting social inclusion in education by adopting a well-validated, simple and easy to administer pictorial measure Inclusion of Other in the Self Scale (IOS) [17] as a subjective measure of social inclusion. In this study, we use this measure to address how including of SEN students in regular schools affects their social inclusion compared to SEN students in segregated special schools.
This research contributes to the vibrant ongoing normative and empirical discussions about the impact of inclusion in education [18–20]. Inclusion means more than integration of the SEN students in the mainstream system, by placing SEN students in the mainstream schools without a transformation of the education system. The UN Convention on the Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Article 24 [21] recognizes the right of inclusive education for all learners, calling for an education system adapted to the needs of all learners. This legal foundation of inclusion in education has driven efforts to include SEN students in schools with all learners worldwide. However, the success of social inclusion of SEN students, with its goal: "to facilitate true social inclusion a person needs to be both connected and have a sense of belonging” [22] remains disputed, although there is a range of positive findings in support of inclusive education.
Early inclusion in education has, for example, been found to increase mutual understanding [23, 24]. In addition, the academic achievements of SEN students are higher in regular schools than in special segregated schools [25–27] and the academic achievements of non-SEN students are not negatively affected by inclusion; on the contrary, non-SEN students perform slightly better in inclusive settings with SEN classmates [28–30]. There is also a measurable positive impact on the number of reciprocal friendships and peer acceptance [31] for non-SEN students attending inclusive classrooms. Despite this evidence on the positive impact of inclusion in education, however, it remains unclear whether including SEN students in regular schools promotes or harms their social inclusion.
Our study is based in the Netherlands which ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities in 2016. Although formally, this awards the right of inclusive education to all learners, the education of SEN students in the Netherlands at the time of our study still took place in two parallel systems: in special schools, with access restricted by eligibility (i.e. by proof of special educational needs), and in regular schools, which occasionally integrate SEN students. We use the existence of this dual system of education for SEN students in the Netherlands, to assess whether their social inclusion varies with the school type.
The contribution of our study is twofold. First, we propose a simple pictorial measure of relationship with others, the IOS Scale [17], to assess the social inclusion of SEN students. This novel approach to social inclusion focuses on the perception of being included, rather than on demonstrations of inclusion and evaluations via interactions with others. Second, we use this measure of social inclusion to address our research question. How does the social inclusion of SEN students differ across school types, when comparing SEN students attending regular schools to SEN students attending special schools? Data on friendships arising in school and outside of school, together with a short measure of loneliness at home and at school further clarify the impact of including SEN students in regular schools on their social inclusion. This approach offers a new perspective on the impact of including SEN students in the regular schools.
Inclusive education stands high on the international education policy agenda [32]. Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities [16] states that the States Parties must guarantee that: “[p]ersons with disabilities can access an inclusive, quality and free primary education and secondary education on an equal basis with others in the communities in which they live.” Inclusive education is further described in the Convention as a way to achieve the social inclusion of persons with disabilities [33].
The country where we performed our study, the Netherlands, ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2016 but has maintained a dual system of special and mainstream regular schools [34]. The primary phase in the Dutch education system comprises children 4–12 years of age, and is followed by obligatory secondary education [35]. Since 2014, when the Appropriate Education Act (Wet Passend Onderwijs) was introduced in the Netherlands, local school consortia have been made responsible for offering an adequate education to every student with the hope of promoting inclusive education. Contrary to the expectations, the inclusion of SEN students in regular schools due to this act has not generally increased [34], although there were significant regional variations associated with varying models of financing the support of SEN students [36]. In 2016/17, about 2% of primary school students in the Netherlands attended special schools [37]. When the special educational needs of a student are established by a committee of the regional school consortium, a SEN student can be placed either at a special school or, conditional upon approval by the school, at a regular school, in which case regionally varying financing models are used to finance the placement. This coexistence of regular and special school placement of SEN students in the Dutch system allowed us to address the impact of the alternative student placement on their social inclusion. Since the placement is not random, and may depend on the school and student characteristics, we account for both these factors in our analysis.
Social inclusion is a complex concept, broadly understood as an interaction between interpersonal relationships and community participation [38]. Assessing the achievement of such a broad concept is difficult, and it is therefore useful to operationalize social inclusion via its relational aspects, namely the feeling of connectedness and sense of belonging [39]. Feeling of connectedness and sense of belonging represent basic human motivations [40] and address the extent to which a person identifies as a part of his or her own social context and feels as belonging to it, instead of feeling alone. Feelings of connectedness and a sense of belonging therefore stand central in perceiving social inclusion.
Social inclusion is thus not only about being a part of something as a passive participant or bystander but also about perceiving oneself as connected and emotionally positively affected. To give an example of the difference between social inclusion and participation, a person may be a member of a hobby group or a class at school, perceiving oneself as part of a group, but experience the lack of connection on the emotional level, and feel lonely. Mere participation is not sufficient for being socially included. Higher levels of belonging, and perceived social inclusion, are associated with lower levels of loneliness.
Another aspect that is considered a demonstration of social inclusion is friendships, often defined as reciprocal relationships within a dyad or a group. Friendships fulfill multiple functions in life: they provide support, access to information, safety, entertainment, and health [41, 42]. It has been proposed that children and young adults with disabilities are particularly dependent on friendships arising at school due to the restrictions they might experience in other types of social contacts, such as after-school activities or in joining sports or hobby clubs [43, 44]. Social scientists propose that homophily, associating with others similar to oneself, serves as a strong organizing principle in social relations and forming friendships. In short: “Similarity breeds connection” [45]. SEN students might experience low homophily in regular schools, among a majority of non-SEN students. Additionally, social comparisons could negatively affect SEN students’ self-concept in regular schools, due to exposure to peers with social and cognitive skills unaffected by the SEN student’s characteristics [46].
On the other hand, it is also possible that the selected subgroup of SEN students that is accepted by the regular schools in a dual educational system coincides with the group of the most socially adjusted SEN students. If this selection effect is present, we would expect SEN students attending regular schools to feel less lonely, and be more included than SEN students attending special schools, however not only at school, but also at home. The measure of loneliness at home is a control variable for the selection effect possibly accompanying the admission of SEN students to regular schools due to the characteristics of the SEN students associated with social inclusion.
Based on this exposition, we can identify multiple mechanisms by which including SEN students in regular schools could result in a harsher social environment for them, negatively affect their ability to form friendships, drive feelings of loneliness at school, and result in low social inclusion, when controlling for the possible selection effect via individual student and school characteristic. We test the hypotheses that SEN students attending regular schools achieve lower social inclusion, have fewer friends and feel more lonely at school, compared to SEN students attending special schools, using IOS Scale as a measure of social inclusion.
The data collection took place between December 2016 and March 2017 and was organized via an online questionnaire disseminated by three Dutch organizations representing the interests of citizens with disabilities or chronic disease, or their parents: IederIn (Dutch umbrella organization for people with a physical disability, mental disability or chronic illness), Dutch Patient Association (https://www.patientenfederatie.nl/), and National Platform of Mental Health (http://www.platformggz.nl/lpggz/). This helped to guarantee the credibility of the data collection. The questionnaire was posted on the social media pages of these organizations, meaning that the sample cannot be considered representative of the whole population. This study participants represent a group of parents of SEN students (aged 4–20) seeking information provided by these organizations.
Prior to the data collection, we obtained approval for this study from the Ethical Committee of the Faculty of Management, Radboud University, The Netherlands. Each participant, the parent of a SEN student, gave informed consent for the data provided to be used for this research, by clicking on the approval box before starting the questionnaire. In total, 138 parents of SEN students (aged 4–20) who completed the questionnaire gave informed consent to participate and have their data used for this research. Among them, 68 respondents reported about a SEN student attending a special school, and 70 about a SEN student attending a regular school.
Table 1 contains the characteristics of the SEN students by school type, reported upon by their parents. These SEN students had various types of disability, and the mode was one type of disability. Both genders were represented, though the proportion of boys was somewhat higher (62%). A Mann-Whitney test indicated that age of SEN students did not significantly differ for regular schools (Mdn = 11) and for special schools (Mdn = 12), U(Nregular = 70, Nspecial = 68) = 2020.5, p = 0.124.