Inclusive education is about equal opportunities in education for all children, regardless of ability (European Commission, 2010; Gallagher et al., 2003). Within this framework, a trend towards enrollment of disabled children in mainstream schools has been observed during the last few years; this is underpinned by international conventions, such as the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (United Nations, 2006; UNESCO, 2004), and initiatives, such as the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education, that aim to inspire national legislation towards equal access to quality education (European Commission, 2010). In Cyprus most disabled children are entitled to enroll in mainstream schools, as the law 113(I)/1999 mandates (Cyprus Parliament, 1999). However, children labeled as children with severe disabilities are segregated either in special schools or special units, where they still have a fragmented curriculum, which, according to the Ministry of Education and Culture (MoEC, 2016), emphasizes socialization rather than learning (Pieridou, 2010; Phtiaka, 2006; Symeonidou, 2009).

Yet, segregation, coupled with a curriculum that does not aim to enable disabled children maximize their potential, seem to violate the children’s right to receive quality education alongside their peers. Moreover, when children are educated separately, they are less likely to develop partnerships and friendships (Barton & Slee, 1999; Richards & Armstrong, 2011). Therefore, special units seem to function within a contradiction: on the one hand their alleged purpose is to prompt disabled and non-disabled children integrate and intermingle; however, the inevitable segregated setting seems to create a restrictive environment and encourage separation and alienation (Ferguson, 2008; Muuya, 2002). Ironically though, in Cyprus, special education units have proliferated recently, albeit the obvious negative implications for the implementation of inclusive education and the distribution of social justice (Angelides & Michailidou, 2007; Phtiaka, 2007).

Thus, during the academic year 2016-17 a special unit was installed at a secondary education school in Cyprus, where one of us is currently working as an assistant head-teacher and four of us are school students. Five disabled boys aged 16-19 were enrolled at the particular special unit, each one with a different disabling condition, i.e. autism, Asperger syndrome, severe and mild mental retardation and schizophrenia. According to the law 113(1)/1999, disabled children in Cyprus special units attend a special educational program that is decided by the school head-teacher and the special education committee. The latter decide also the duration of their stay in the special unit. By the end of each academic year, disabled children in special units get a certificate of attendance which is not equal to a high-school degree. Therefore graduates from a special unit are not allowed to continue with tertiary education. Besides attending fundamental lessons such as Language, Mathematics, Music and Art, children are transferred from special units to particular workplaces twice a week to gain work experience. They are also entitled to attend lessons in mainstream classes without being graded, given that the teacher agrees (Angelides & Michailidou, 2007; Cyprus Parliament, 1999).

Despite some efforts of the aforementioned school to create an environment, where the above disabled children would feel welcomed and happy, the function of the particular special unit did not seem smooth. In particular, the five disabled children seemed marginalized and isolated, while some of them developed anger bursts and expressed a strong desire to leave the special unit. Based on the above observations, we tried to answer the following research questions: a) Which factors are related to the decreased well-being of the children in the special unit?  b) What changes and improvements can be done so as to facilitate inclusion?

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