The study includes a sample of children in 5th-10th grade with a formal diagnosis of physical disability (N=248). The population is characterized by a high risk of school dropout and low rates of social participation (Finnvold, 2018). About half of the target population have special educational needs (SEN), and display an extensive diversity in terms of parental background, school placement, need for assistance and functional ability. We examine the consequences of this variety on three outcome variables designed to capture the children’s own perceptions: i) overall school-wellbeing/emotional inclusion, ii) social inclusion, and iii) academic self-concept. The outcome measures are based on a Norwegian translation of the Perception of Inclusion Questionnarie (Zurbriggen et al., 2019, Venetz et al. 2015). The associations between background variables and outcomes was relatively weak regarding emotional well-being, moderate for social inclusion and relatively strong for academic inclusion. Preliminary findings from multivariate analyses includes that children attending regular schools but spending more than half the time outside of ordinary classroom education, had markedly lower scores on both social inclusion and academic self-concept. Further, that children with an immigrant background was less likely to feel emotionally and socially included, and that girls had relatively low scores on social inclusion. Children of mothers with high scores on social capital (Ellison et al., 2007) tended to report more positive experiences. Our findings highlight a significantly lower risk of negative academic self-concept among children of mothers that had completed university level education, suggesting that the social gradients in educational attainment previously observed in Norway (Andersen & Hansen, 2012) may have their origins early in children’s lives. Although several factors influenced the children’s self-perception of inclusion, the degree of placement in ordinary school settings was the most significant. The negative influence must be acknowledged and weighted against the benefits when discussing further continuation of segregation practices.

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