ABSTRACT

Pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are disproportionately over-represented in official statistics on exclusion suggesting that mainstream schools are failing to meet their needs. We argue for the importance of looking at the cultures of schooling. School belonging (or connectedness) has been widely associated with a raft of positive outcomes although there is relatively little research that has focused on pupils with SEND. This paper contributes to that gap presenting questionnaire data collected on the barriers and supports to inclusion and girls’ feelings of belonging in school. The needs of girls who identify as having SEND can be more difficult to discern, their strategies for coping effectively masking their difficulties. Our data reveal that the girls in the study with SEND feel less connected to school than other girls. Their scores for their sense of belonging were significantly associated with the barriers and supports they encounter across a range of school contexts. It was the relational aspects of schooling that were most important for girls with SEND. Feeling you belong means that you feel safe to be yourself, that you don’t need to hide your “quirky bits,” with the attendant demands on mental health.

摘要

有特殊教育需要和残疾的学生（SEND）在官方的排斥统计数据中比例过高，这表明主流学校无法满足他们的需求。我们主张看待学校文化的重要性。尽管很少有针对SEND学生的研究，但学校归属感（或联系性）与大量积极成果有​​着广泛的联系。本文通过提供有关障碍的问卷数据来弥补这一差距，并支持包容性和女孩在学校的归属感。识别出患有SEND的女孩的需求可能更难辨别，她们的应对策略有效地掩盖了她们的困难。我们的数据表明，参加SEND研究的女孩比其他女孩感觉与学校的联系更少。他们的归属感得分与他们在各种学校环境中遇到的障碍和支持显着相关。对于SEND女孩来说，最重要的是学校教育的关系方面。感到自己属于自己意味着您感到自己很安全，不需要隐瞒自己“怪异的事情”，而随之而来的是对心理健康的要求。