School statistics show that the primary aim of an inclusive school system to reduce the number of students attending special needs schools throughout Germany was not achieved. The development shows that an increasing number of students with special educational needs (SEN) attend a regular school (mainstreaming), whereas the share of students attending a special needs school remains the same. Consequently the expansion of mainstreaming SEN students into regular schools goes together with an increasing number of students diagnosed with special educational needs which can not only be shown for Germany in total but also can be confirmed for the German Federal State of Rhineland-Palatinate where our study is located. This tendency especially becomes apparent for the increasement of diagnosed SEN in the fields of learning difficulties and behavioural disorders.

Furthermore in the field of learning difficulties the actual state of research shows better school achievements of students with SEN who are attending mainstreaming schools than of those who are attending special needs schools which can be confirmed by secondary analysis of a nationwide test (Kocaj, Kuhl, Kroth, Pant & Stanat, 2014) and of the results from PISA (Gebhardt, Sälzer, Mang, Müller & Prenzel, 2015). The results from PISA indicate this finding also for the field of behavioural disorders. The limitation of those findings is that they cannot control sufficiently for relevant background variables.

Some evidence is indicated for differences in socioeconomic status, intelligence between mainstreamed SEN students and SEN students at special needs schools (Gebhardt et al., 2015; Kocaj et al., 2014). Between students with SEN in the field of learning difficulties and in the field of behavioural disorders, differences in socioeconomic state can be found in a nationwide data analysis (Gebhardt et al., 2015). A study by Vrban and Hintermair (2015) with 72 SEN students (36 with learning difficulties and 36 with behavioural disorders) indicates differences in intelligence, the BRIEF-scales (Gioia, Isquith, Guy & Kenworthy, 2000) inhibition, emotional control and monitor and the SDQ-scores (Goodman, 1999; Klasen, Woerner, Rothenberger & Goodman, 2003) emotional symptoms, conduct problems and total difficulties score.

In summary one can state that currently there are no representative research findings on relevant background variables to compare SEN students with learning difficulties and SEN students with behavioural disorders in mainstreaming schools and special needs schools.

Since detailed insights into the composition of the students with regard to their life situation and their learning requirements are essential for the development of an inclusive school system, our study has to consider the composition of students with special educational needs in learning development and also students with special educational needs in social emotional development in terms of literacy, numeracy, cognitive and metacognitive learning conditions (executive functions), socio-demographic data and behavioural problems. Within the school-focused research, it will not only be evaluated how SEN students with learning difficulties differ from those with behavioural disorders, but also how those attending mainstreaming schools differ from those attending special needs schools.

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