The paradigms concerning the education and care of children with special educational needs have been experiencing an evolution. In fact, if in the segregation paradigm the focus of disability was located in the individual, within the inclusion paradigm the focus shifts to the environment, to the extent that it must be organized and prepared to respond to all individuals – including those with disabilities. Therefore, the environment must be assumed as a facilitator to the participation of all children.

Such an assumption presents challenges for teachers and educators, who must identify the pressures of exclusion that inhibit the full participation of all students in all activities related to the school environment and trigger the necessary supports to prevent it.

With this study we intended to know the representations of teachers about the right of students with different types of disability to participate in various activities and school contexts, identifying barriers and facilitators to the participation and analyzing possible personal contributions of teachers to increase the level of participation of students with disabilities in activities related to the school environment.

Taking into consideration this theoretical-conceptual framework, we outlined the following research question: what are the representations of teachers about the right of pupils with special educational needs to participate in different school activities?

In accordance with the above-mentioned research question, we formulated the following research issues: (i) which right of participation in various school activities do teachers recognize to students with disability; (ii) which student and teacher variables seem to relate to the representations about the possibility to participate in various school activities?; (iii) which barriers or exclusion pressures are presented to students with disability in activities inherent in the school environment?; and, to conclude, (iv) which supports or facilitators do teachers consider more appropriate to increase the participation of students with disability in school activities?

The study was operationalized by the application of a questionnaire. The questionnaire was divided in two different sections: the first section provided information on personal data and demographic variables; and the second focused on teachers' representations about the participation of pupils with special educational needs in different activities inherent in the school environment and about possible contributions from teachers to raise levels of participation of these same students. The second section of the questionnaire consisted of three parts, of identical content, but applied to three different profiles of students. The profiles were built in order to cover different types of disability, namely a low-intensity and high-frequency problem (profile consistent with learning difficulties), a high-intensity and low frequency problem (profile corresponding to a child with profound disabilities) and a problem intended to constitute a "middle ground" (profile corresponding to autism spectrum disorder). Subsequently brief descriptions about students (essential to understanding their functionality) were drawn and distributed by three distinct vignettes. After a brief explanation of the concept of participation, several items were included. These items took the form of multiple response questions and assessed whether the student participates, doesn’t participate or participates only under precise conditions in various activities inherent to the school environment, both in the current situation (i.e., at the school where the professor is teaching) and in an ideal situation (i.e., in a school with inclusive policy, practices, and culture). School activities listed in the questionnaire were adapted from a list of activities designed by Simeonsson et al. (2001). The conditions of participation set out in the questionnaire were cited in studies started by Simeonsson et al. (2001) and developed by Granlund and Simeonsson, which describe the five environmental dimensions governing the opportunity of participation. Lastly, teachers were asked to rate possible contributions to increase the participation of those students, in ten levels of agreement/disagreement. The items were adapted from the Index for Inclusion, namely from the dimension Creating inclusive cultures, sections A1 – Building community and A2 – Establishing inclusive values, and the dimension Evolving inclusive practices, sections C1 – Orchestrating learning and C2 – Mobilizing resources. At present interviews are being conducted with selected teachers in order to clarify the responses given in the questionnaire and to contribute to a better understanding of the factors that led to their positions/points of view

We observed that higher levels of participation were recognized to the profile consistent with learning difficulties, either by the group of regular education teachers or by the group of special education needs teachers, in the current scenario. In an ideal scenario, we verified that the group of regular school teachers acknowledged a greater right to participate to the profile of learning difficulties. Nevertheless, the special education needs teachers acknowledged a greater right to participate to the profile associated with autism spectrum disorder. In what concerns to the item "doesn't participate", and considering the current situation, we observed that regular school teachers highlighted the profile of autism spectrum disorder as the one with lower levels of participation in school activities. However, in an ideal setting, this right of non-participation is distributed by both the profile of the autism spectrum disorder and the profile of learning difficulties. In turn, we noticed that the special education teachers admitted lower levels of participation to the profile of profound disabilities, both in the current and in an ideal situation. The item of conditional participation has been more punctuated in the case of the profile with profound disabilities, by both groups of teachers and in the two scenarios that constituted the experimental conditions of the study. With regard to the environmental dimensions that constitute participation opportunities for students with some type of disability we verified that in the case of the profiles of learning difficulties and autism spectrum disorder the conditions of availability, accommodability and acceptability were highlighted. On the other hand, in the case of profound disabilities profile, we found that the facilitators referred to availability, accessibility and accommodability.