The social participation of students in all school activities is a crucial condition for the success of inclusive primary education. Unfortunately, students with special educational needs (SEN) have significantly less opportunities to participate in social and academic activities inside and outside the classroom compared to their peers without SEN. Thus, students with SEN have fewer social interactions with their classmates, less and more unstable friendships, and they experience more social exclusion in the inclusive classroom (Avramidis, Avgeri, & Strogilos, 2018). In recent years, primary school students’ attitudes towards peers with SEN have been identified as a main determinant for the social participation of students with SEN (de Boer, Pijl, & Minnaert, 2012; Rademaker, de Boer, Kupers, & Minnaert, 2020). Therefore, students’ attitudes towards peers with SEN indicate a promising initial point to sustainably promote the social participation of students with SEN in the inclusive classroom (Schwab, 2017). According to Eagly and Chaiken (1993), an attitude is defined as “a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor” (p. 1). Empirical studies (e.g., Schwab, 2015) have already shown that primary school students hold neutral to moderately positive attitudes towards peers with SEN in general. However, significant differences in students’ attitudes towards peers with SEN have been found regarding the type of SEN they were confronted with (e.g., Freer, 2021). Accordingly, primary school students expressed lower attitudes towards peers with difficulties in their social, emotional, and behavioural development (e.g., non-compliant classroom behaviour) than towards peers with learning difficulties or physical needs. Further, it has been shown that girls have significantly more positive attitudes towards peers with SEN than boys. Nevertheless, the reasons for students’ lower pronounced attitudes – especially towards peers with non-compliant classroom behaviour – are currently vague. Some theoretical and empirical approaches give hints on the important role of students’ contact experiences with peers with non-compliant behaviour (Armstrong, Morris, Abraham, & Tarrant, 2017) and their own experiences of having behavioural difficulties or formally assessed SEN themselves for the formation of positive attitudes towards peers with non-compliant classroom behaviour (Chen, Lin, Justice, & Sawyer, 2019; Mamas, Bjorklund, Daly, & Moukarzel, 2020). According to the “intergroup contact theory” (Allport, 1954), it can be assumed that contact between members of different social groups can reduce prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination. In the context of inclusive education, the results from empirical studies indicate that students’ contact experiences with peers with SEN are positively related to their attitudes towards peers with SEN (Armstrong et al., 2017). But until now, there is only few empirical evidence for the positive relationship between students’ contact experiences and their attitudes towards peers with non-compliant classroom behaviour (e.g., Schwab, 2017). Furthermore, investigations proved a significant relationship between students’ experiences of having behavioural difficulties or formally assessed SEN themselves and their attitudes towards peers with SEN. Thus, students with similar SEN-status are more likely to support and play with each other than students with dissimilar SEN-status (Chen et al., 2019; Mamas et al., 2020). The rationale behind this relationship is the concept of “homophily” (McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Cook, 2001). According to McPherson et al. (2001), “contact between similar people occurs at a higher rate than among dissimilar people“ (p. 416). Based on these theoretical and empirical considerations, we assume the following research hypotheses: Students’ attitudes towards peers with non-compliant classroom behaviour can be significantly explained by (1) their contact experiences with them, (2) their experiences of having behavioural difficulties or formally assessed SEN themselves, and (3) their gender – as girls have significantly more positive attitudes towards peers with non-compliant behaviour than boys.

A total of N = 589 primary school students without SEN (292 girls and 297 boys) and N = 71 students with SEN (26 girls and 45 boys) from third and fourth grades completed a “paper and pencil”-questionnaire concerning their attitudes towards peers with non-compliant classroom behaviour and their contact experiences with peers with non-compliant classroom behaviour. To assess primary school students’ attitudes, we used a gender-specific case vignette with the description of a child showing non-compliant behaviour in the classroom: “Julia/Julian has just moved to your town and attends your class. Julia/Julian is often restless, noisy, and unfocused. She/He does not follow the teachers’ instructions” (adapted from de Boer, Pijl, Minnaert, & Post, 2014). Some students also received a vignette with an additional explanation for the non-compliant behaviour of the described child: “Leonie/Leon has just moved to your town and attends your class. Leonie/Leon is often restless, noisy, and unfocused. She/He does not follow the teachers’ instructions. Leonie’s/Leon’s parents do not care much about her/him. To attract attention, she/he is often restless, noisy, and unfocussed. Because Leonie/Leon is home alone very often, she/he knows only a few rules. That is why Leonie/Leon does not follow the teachers’ instructions”. According to the case vignettes, the students have rated their attitudes towards the presented child with non-compliant classroom behaviour (4 items; e.g., “I would feel good about working on a school project with Julia/Julian”; M = 2.80; SD = 0.93; alpha = .89) and their prior contact experiences with peers with non-compliant classroom behaviour (3 items; e.g., “I have often played with someone like Julia/Julian”; M = 2.35; SD = 1.03; alpha = .82) by the means of an adapted version of the “Chedoke-McMaster Attitudes towards Children with Handicaps (CATCH)” scale (Rosenbaum, Armstrong, & King, 1986) with a four-point answer format. Additionally, we asked the teachers to provide information about the prosocial behaviour (“Often volunteers to help others.”; M = 2.64; SD = 0.43; alpha = .85) and the behavioural difficulties (e.g., emotional symptoms: “Often unhappy, downhearted.”; M = 1.34; SD = 0.41; alpha = .77) of their students based on the SDQ-scale (Goodman, 2001) as an indication for students’ own behavioural difficulties.

The results of a multilevel regression analysis indicate that on the individual level students’ attitudes towards peers with non-compliant classroom behaviour can be significantly explained by their contact experiences (beta = .54; p ≤ .001) and their gender (beta = .24; p ≤ .001). Thus, hypothesis (1) and (3) can be confirmed. The results are also consistent with the findings from previous empirical studies (e.g., Armstrong et al., 2017) that have proved a positive relationship between students’ attitudes and their contact experiences. Unfortunately, neither students’ experiences of having behavioural difficulties or formally assessed SEN themselves, nor their prosocial behaviour are significant predictors for their attitudes towards peers with non-compliant classroom behaviour. Thus, research hypothesis (2) must be rejected. On this matter, our findings differ from the current state of research (Chen et al., 2019; Mamas et al., 2020). In contrast to the results from Chen et al. (2019) and Mamas et al. (2020), we did not find effects of homophily on the individual level of our data. At least, on the class level students’ attitudes towards peers with non-compliant behaviour are related to the overall emotional climate in the class. This finding is a small hint for the rationale of homophily in inclusive primary education. Overall, our results emphasise the importance of students’ contact experiences with peers with non-compliant classroom behaviour for the formation of positive attitudes towards them. Therefore, our findings serve as an important starting point for the implementation of interventions that allow positive contact experiences between different students in the inclusive classroom and to promote the social participation of students with non-compliant classroom behaviour. In further studies, the quality of contact experiences between students with and without non-compliant classroom behaviour should be investigated in more depth to fully explore their mechanisms in the formation of students’ attitudes.

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