In order to guarantee the human right to education in the sense of non-discriminatory and equal participation of all people in an inclusive education system, the assessment of appropriate individual support is necessary. Although European states have committed to developing an inclusive school system, they often maintain a well-established special education system that relies on labeling individual students with having special educational needs (SEN). The identification of Special Education Needs is still followed by a high risk of being excluded from the classroom (European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education, 2020). We argue that in order to change policy and practice in a more inclusive direction it is first necessary to understand the mechanisms of exclusion and its underlying labeling processes. Therefore, we propose to take a closer look at the functionality, the rules and routines of special needs assessment procedures. This paper draws on research results from the interdisciplinary project “InDiVers” which analyses special needs assessment procedures in Germany where school legislation is – like in other European states – a federal issue. Identification rates, as well as segregation rates and rules governing special needs procedures, vary widely at the state level (Klemm 2018). Comparing school laws and regulations in the 16 German states, we counted at least 24 different procedure processes (Gasterstädt, Kistner & Adl-Amini, 2020). In the next step, “InDiVers” focuses on the SEN assessment procedures in four German states using a qualitative multilevel research design based on Grounded Theory (Strauss, 1998) and Situational Analysis (Clarke, Friese & Washburn, 2018) in which different data (expert interviews, documents, statistical data) are triangulated. In this way, we combine a qualitative longitudinal study of procedures in individual cases at the level of the individual school with the examination of the local education landscape these procedures are embedded. Drawing on the concept of institutional discrimination (Dovidio et al., 2010; Gomolla & Radtke, 2009) the project asks how the decision about and legitimation of exclusion and the underlying order of difference (SEN) are produced, how pedagogical “others” are constructed in these processes, how regionally differentiated constellations of actors work together and which positions appear to be particularly powerful. The paper is going to give insights in our initial findings into these regulations and routines of special needs assessment procedures in Germany and we will take a closer look at our strategies of transferring our findings into practice.

Clarke, A. E., Friese, C., & Washburn, R. S. (2018). Situational Analysis: Grounded Theory After the Interpretive Turn. Los Angeles: Sage. Dovidio, J. F., Hewstone, M., Glick, P., & Esses, V. M. (2010). Prejudice, Stereotyping and Discrimination: Theoretical and Empirical Overview. The SAGE Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping and Discrimination, 3–28. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446200919.N1 European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education (2020). European Agency Statistics on Inclusive Education: 2018 Dataset Cross-Country Report. Ramberg, J., Lénárt, A., & Watkins, A. (Eds.). https://www.european-agency.org/data/cross-country-reports Gasterstädt, J., Kistner, A., & Adl-Amini, K. (2020). Die Feststellung sonderpädagogischen Förderbedarfs als institutionelle Diskriminierung? Eine Analyse der schulgesetzlichen Regelungen. Zeitschrift für Inklusion 4. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjL7biLy9z1AhVWRvEDHWlIAo4QFnoECBQQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.inklusion-online.net%2Findex.php%2Finklusion-online%2Farticle%2Fview%2F551&usg=AOvVaw3iCPeN4Amxuum8u-V5KdLj Gomolla, M., & Radtke, F.-O. (2009). Institutionelle Diskriminierung. Die Herstellung ethnischer Differenz in der Schule (3. Ausg.). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Klemm, K. (2018). Unterwegs zur inklusiven Schule. Lagebericht 2018 aus bildungsstatistischer Perspektive. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Stiftung. Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. M. (1990). Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.