Social inclusion is one of the major arguments to educate students with disabilities in inclusive settings. Nevertheless, research shows that even in inclusive settings students with disabilities are less socially integrated than their peers without disabilities (e.g., Schwab, 2015a). One reason for the lower social participation of students with SEN might be the attitudes of peers towards students with SEN (de Boer, Pijl, Post, & Minnaert, 2012). In the context of inclusive education, it has been shown that attitudes play an important role (e.g., de Boer, Pijl, & Minnaert, 2011). Recent research used a restrained definition of inclusion and only focused on students with disabilities, while other minority groups (e.g. migration background, gifted students) were not investigated. Beiser, Puente-Duran, and Hou (2015) showed that for students the cultural distance plays an important role for perceiving discrimination. Therefore, the present study investigated students’ attitudes towards peers with a migration background. The study consisted of 431 students from the 8th grade, 60 of them having a migration background. Students’ attitudes towards peers with different migration backgrounds were measured using an adaptation of the German short version of the CATCH scale (Schwab, 2015b). To this extent, the vignettes were modified to present children with three different ethnical backgrounds (France, India, and Iran). Furthermore, the children were presented to either well speak the German language and to be dressed in a European fashion, or to not speak German very well and being dressed more traditionally according to their originating country. The results indicated that, in general, students’ attitudes towards peers with a migration background were neutral to slightly negative. The results of a within-subjects analysis of variance showed that the ethnic background (F2,428 = 58.24, p<.05) as well as the additional information about language proficiency/clothing style showed a significant effect (F2,429 = 193.99, p<.05). The attitudes were more positive towards peers from France compared to the other countries and towards students with a high language proficiency and European clothing style. Female students (F6,421 = 4.01, p<.05) and students with migration background (F6,421 = 6.90, p<.05) showed a more positive attitude.

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