Due to development towards inclusive education, the traditional school system is facing severe changes. One of the core issues is the social integration of children with special educational needs. Several international studies suggest that the initial goal of social integration of children with special educational needs is less satisfactory put into practice than intended (Pijl & Frostad, 2010). In a meta-analysis across 152 studies Kavale & Forness (1996) showed significant differences in peer acceptance (ES = .815) between children with and without special educational needs. Up to now, one of the unresolved questions of the debate on inclusion is how to improve the social integration of children with special educational needs in a comprehensive school system (Huber et al., 2018). This question is the focal point of the submitted presentation.

The study is based on the theory of social comparison processes (Festinger, 1956). The theory forecasts, that persons, that do not fit to social group norms, will be excluded from the group, when they can´t reduce conformity pressure by either a) adapting to the group norms, b) changing the group norms or c) changing to another group. Due to the theory of social comparison processes, we expected that social exclusion processes go along with a lack of norm conformity. In the past 30 years, numerous studies have confirmed that this finding is also applicable to the field of inclusive education.

In this study, we refer to a further development of the theory of social comparison processes by Kron (1988) and Huber et al. (2021). The basic idea of this further development is an ‘exaggeration’ of the initial theory. It is assumed that social exclusion and the deviation from a group norm are no longer linked, if the group heterogeneity is maximized and the formation of a reference norm becomes impossible. Kron (1988) predicts that in this case the deviation from the norm becomes the connecting element between the group members. The theory further predicts that in groups with very high heterogeneity, students with special educational needs no longer have an increased risk of social exclusion. Highly heterogeneous groups occur in everyday school life whenever lessons are organized across age groups and class levels. In Germany, such a class organization is realized in around six percent of the elementary schools. In these learning groups, students of grades 1-4 are taught together in a common class. In the current study we hypothesize that students with special educational needs are more popular and less rejected when they are included in a grade 1-4 learning group. This means that the average social inclusion score for students with special educational needs in these classes should be higher compared to the average social inclusion score of students with special educational needs in homogeneous classes.

The core research question addresses the question of the extent to which the social inclusion of students with learning and behaviour problems is linked to the group heterogeneity in everyday school life. Therefore N= 1352 students of the grades 3 and 4 (45 classes) are investigated in a cross-sectional study with one independent variable (class heterogeneity) and one dependent variable (sociometric status). Group heterogeneity (IV1) is three tiered, so that the whole sample is divided up into three research groups. In sum one third of the sample (15 classes) is educated in (traditional) classes where students of the grades 1-4 are educated separately (research group 1: highly homogenous classes). One third of the sample consists of classes, where only students of the grades 3 and 4 are educated in a common class (research group 2: moderate heterogeneous classes). The last third of the sample consists of classes where students of the grades 1 to 4 are educated in a common class (research group 3: highly heterogeneous classes). It was assumed that the variance of student’s competences is highest in RG3 and lowest in RG1. The dependent variable (social peer acceptance) is measured by the sociometric method (Moreno, 1974). Therefore students were asked, which student they would choose as a seatmate (social choice score) and which student they would not like to have as their seatmate (social rejection score).Furthermore subjective feelings of social integration were measured by a subscale of the FEESS questionnaire for third- and fourth graders (Rauer & Schuck, 2003). Additional information on school performance and special educational needs were collected using a teachers` questionnaire. Because social inclusion of students with special educational needs may also be influenced by teacher feedback (Huber et al., 2018) and the use of cooperative learning methods (Putnam et al., 1996; Pettigrew, 1998), both variables are measured as further control variables. The teacher´s feedback behaviour is measured by peer-nominations (who is the one in the class that is most praised / blamed by the teacher). The use of cooperative learning methods is measured by a self-developed teacher questionnaire (Schulze and Huber, in preparation).

For data analysis it must be considered that students individual data (social acceptance, learning problems, behaviour problems on level 1) are nested in data on class level (group heterogeneity on level 2). Due to this data structure, data was evaluated by a multi level analysis. We expected that group heterogeneity on L2 is moderating the link between social acceptance and behaviour and learning problems on L1 (cross level effect). Similar to former studies, this study found a heavily increased risk of social rejection for students with learning and behaviour problems (learning problems and social choices: β=-1.85, behaviour problems and social choices β =-2.74; learning problems and social rejections : β=2.75; behaviour problems and social rejections: β=5.29) . Around 50 % of the students with severe learning or behaviour problems were rejected in their classes. The risk increased to around 75 % if the students had severe learning and behaviour problems at the same time. The multi-level analysis showed a significant cross level effect from group heterogeneity on the link between learning problems and both, students´ social choice score (β=2.06) and social rejection score (β=-2.43). For RG3 (highly heterogeneous classes) this result means, that learning problems were neither associated with social choices nor social rejections, while the link in RG1 was significant and strong. However, these findings were not transferable to behavioural problems. At the same time, the highly heterogeneous learning groups showed an overall increased risk of rejection for all students regardless of their educational needs. In the paper presentation both, the theoretical fundament and the results will be discussed in the light of the inclusion debate. Further, limitations of a cross sectional study design will be worked out. Finally, the relevance of group heterogeneity for the facilitation of social integration of children with special educational needs will be discussed.

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