This symposium highlights selected theoretical and cross-European perspectives on institutional impact on current efforts to re-assess procedures leading to classification and labelling of children and youth with disabilities in schools. We argue that inclusive education and medically-oriented classification do not go together but remain in place throughout Europe (Meijer & Watkins, 2019). This is due to the fact that resources remain related to clearly cut-out biological causes and effects/needs. This symposium questions institutional frameworks, efforts and hindrances related to a re-assessment of diagnoses and associated labels and resource-allocation also in reference to participation. 

Therefore we draw on a theorised, localised and comparative perspective on the assessment of special educational needs in Europe. While a larger number of international comparative studies focuses on the development of inclusive education, only a few studies question the practises and process of assessing special educational needs (Cline, 2018; Lebeer et al. 2012; Rix et al. 2013). This is especially interesting as although aiming to establish eligibility to accommodations and to civil rights protection (Ho, 2004) these processes are a focal point of stigmatisation (Green et al., 2006) and exclusion of students from regular classrooms, provide an “excuse for school officials and legislators to adopt a medical model of learning disabilities and ignore other problems in the educational and social systems” (Ho, 2004, p. 86) and are historically linked to racism, classism, sexism, and ableism (Reid & Knight, 2006, p. 21). 

Drawing from experiences in other countries where updated approaches such as the ICF have been used to infuse given practises and question measurement applied, this symposium sketches current assesment practises in Germany, participatory developments efforts in Austria, Austria, Germany, Portugal, Norway, Sweden and Belgium. In doing so it reintroduces and refines questions related to the dilemma of difference, measurement and allocation. 

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