No abstract

The idea of inclusion in the sense of participatory access to educational opportunities is widely acknowledged and implemented within the pedagogical discourse. Nevertheless, ensuring social participation of students with and without special education needs in learning situations continues to be challenging. The present study examines promoting and hindering factors for social inclusion with a focus on students with special educational needs. Therefore, semi-structured interviews regarding students’ (n = 12 students with SEN, 12 students without SEN), parents’ (n = 24), and teachers’ (n = 6 regular teachers, 6 special need teachers) perceptions of promoting educational characteristics that might influence students’ inclusion in everyday school life are analyzed through thematic analysis. The findings provide a wide range of pedagogical interventions that have the potential to promote inclusive education processes on educational, intrapersonal, and interpersonal levels as well as regarding different actors who are involved.

In the last decades, social-emotional learning interventions have been implemented in schools with the aim of fostering students’ non-academic competences. Evaluations of these interventions are essential to assess their potential effects. However, effects may vary depending on students’ variables. Therefore, the current systematic review had three main objectives: 1) to identify the effectiveness of social-emotional learning interventions with students with special educational needs, 2) to assess and evaluate those intervention conditions leading to effective outcomes in social-emotional competences for this population, and 3) to draw specific conclusions for the population of students with special educational needs. For this purpose, studies were retrieved from the databases Scopus, ERIC, EBSCO and JSTOR, past meta-analysis and (systematic) reviews, as well as from journal hand searches including the years 1994–2020. By applying different inclusion criteria, such as implementation site, students’ age and study design, a total of eleven studies were eligible for the current systematic review. The primary findings indicate that most of the intervention studies were conducted in the United States and confirm some positive, but primarily small, effects for social-emotional learning interventions for students with special educational needs. Suggestions for future research and practice are made to contribute to the improvement of upcoming intervention studies.

This research synthesis investigates studies that evaluated a wellknown intervention, the Circle of Friends (CoF) -which seeks to promote the inclusion of socially neglected students. The aim of the review is two-fold; first, to identify the intervention's variant applications and, second, to record what evidence-based outcomes have been reported. A systematic literature search including seven databases was conducted and based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of nine articles were identified. The primary outcomes indicated that the intervention was mainly used with younger students (primary education) and only rarely used in secondary schools. Additionally, the results show that the intervention was set up significantly less often for girls. The quality of the majority of evaluations was lacking which leads to recommendations for further research on this intervention to include the utilisation of more rigorous and more rounded research designs and proper trialling. Critical issues surrounding the implementation of the intervention are also outlined.