Die Selbsteinschätzung der sozialen Partizipation von Schüler*innen in der Sekundarstufe I – Welche Rolle spielen sonderpädagogische Förderbedarfe der Schüler*innen und Merkmale der Lehrkräfte?

Social participation of all students is an important goal of school inclusion. According to the framework concept on heterogeneity in the classroom, individual student characteristics on the one hand and those of their teachers on the other are central to this. However, the majority of students with special educational needs (SEN) participate less socially than their peers. Although there is some evidence that, this difference is smaller when teachers have a positive attitude towards inclusion, teacher characteristics are rarely used to explain social participation. Moreover, the construct is usually operationalized differently and a comprehensive picture of different dimensions of social participation is rarely collected. This paper therefore considers how students with and without SEN in inclusive classes assess their social participation across the dimensions of “contacts/interactions”, “acceptance/support”, “friendship/relationship”, and “self-perception of participation”, and what role characteristics of their teachers play in this. It is expected, that (1) students with SEN participate less socially than those without SEN, (2) teachers’ positive attitudes towards inclusion, high sense of responsibility towards their students, and high inclusion-related self-efficacy are associated with more social participation, and (3) these simultaneously reduce the difference between students with and without SEN. The analysis is based on data from students with and without SEN in the 7th grade of the INSIDE project (n = 1506, of which n = 170 with SPU from 331 classes). Multilevel analyses show, that students with SEN rate their social participation lower than those without SEN on almost all dimensions. Teacher characteristics do not explain these effects. Moreover, only teacher attitudes have a differential effect: hypothesis-contrary, students with SEN report less contact/interactions with peers when teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion are higher. The results are discussed and interpreted.