Abstract

There have been many instances when parents have been advised by educational professionals against bilingualism or immersion education for their child with special educational needs (SEN). Some parents follow the advice given and decide to use only one language with their child, mainly the majority language of the community. This study investigated the reasons why students with SEN transferred from Irish immersion primary education in the Republic of Ireland. The data presented contains information from a questionnaire completed by a random stratified sample of Irish immersion primary schools (20%, N = 29). It also contains data from semi-structured interviews with the parents of six students with a range of SEN who transferred from this form of education due to their learning difficulties. Questionnaires were analysed using SPSS and the interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. The findings of this study are particularly important, as internationally, the reasons why students with SEN transfer from immersion education is under researched. Furthermore, having an understanding of why these transfers occur will enable Irish immersion education and other forms of immersion education to gain an insight as to how they can adjust their practices in order to better meet the needs of all their students and subsequently, improve their student achievement and retention rates.

摘要

在许多情况下，教育专业人士建议父母不要对有特殊教育需要的孩子（SEN）进行双语或沉浸式教育。一些父母听从给出的建议，决定只对孩子使用一种语言，主要是社区的主流语言。本研究调查了爱尔兰共和国有特殊教育需要的学生从爱尔兰沉浸式小学教育转学的原因。提供的数据包含来自爱尔兰沉浸式小学的随机分层样本（20%，N = 29）完成的问卷调查的信息。它还包含对六名具有一系列特殊教育需要的学生的家长的半结构化访谈数据，这些学生由于学习困难而从这种教育形式转学。问卷使用SPSS进行分析，访谈使用主题分析进行分析。这项研究的结果特别重要，因为国际上正在研究从沉浸式教育中转移 SEN 的学生的原因。此外，了解这些转移发生的原因将使爱尔兰沉浸式教育和其他形式的沉浸式教育能够深入了解他们如何调整实践，以更好地满足所有学生的需求，从而提高他们的学生成就和保留率。