The establishment of a new Finnish basic education system meant for all in the late 1960`s was a major structural change from a parallel system to a comprehensive one. The structural change as such, however, was not enough to meet the goals set for the new system. The new system also provided some fresh pedagogical and didactical approaches and solutions in order to succeed in teaching the entire age group in the same settings. The main vechile in this process was the introduction of part-time special education. Based on various international statistics, it can be concluded that Finland has the world record in terms of the quantity of special education given to basic education students (OECD 2000; Armstrong 1999: Vislie 2003). Concretely, this means that more student studying in the basic education will be calissified as special needs students in Finland than in other country in the world (Vislie 2003, 24, 31). From the same statistical sources it can be asscertained that the main explanatory factor in the high number of special education students is not the students in special schools and special education classes, but rather the volume of part-time special students (Vislie 2003, 28; OECD 2000, 194). Finland and two other Nordic countries head the list as "leading special educators" (Kivirauma & Ruoho 2007, 289). These three also differ from other coutries in another respect: the amount of segregated special education is quite low. In many other countries, the proportion of segregated special education consists of one-half or more the entire special education field.The main focus in this research is: What is the status of minority students in finnish comprehensive school ? The amount of minority students in Finland is very low, but in some big cities the amount of minority students is over 10 %. How many of them are in special education ? We have some evidence, that they are overrepresented in some special schools (Kivirauma et. al. 2006). The overrepresentation of minority students in special education is fundamental and one key element in 1960`s human right discource (Artiles 2003).

Survey of more than 1000 students in one big city in western part of Finland. In this city the amount of minority people are the third biggest in Finland. The likert-scale questonnaires was filled students from the grades 5, 8 and 9. The questonnaires was translated to five languages. Because the questonnaires was filled during the school days, practically every pupil ansvered to that questonnaire.(Teachers was not involved in this situation, so pupils was "free" to answer as they liked).

The questonnaires is not yet analysed. The last questonnaires was collected in january. We assumed, that minority students are overrepresented in some special education gategories (mentally retarded and learning difficulties) but not in ADHD or Autism-gategories. It is also very interesting to know, what they think about special education ? Do they actually know what means to be in special education an why they think they are in special education ?