Students´ social inclusion in school is a basic psychological need (Ryan & Deci, 2001) and is considered a precondition for academic learning and an appropriate social-emotional development. On the other hand social exclusion is associated with a variety of relevant risk factors such as aggressiveness, anxiety disorders, depressive symptoms and poor school performance or truancy (Newcomb, Bukowski & Pattee, 1993; Flook et al., 2005). Depending on the study, children with behavioural problems are up to three times more likely to experience social exclusion in inclusive classrooms compared to their classmates without special educational needs (Huber, Nicolay & Schulze, 2021).

So far, only a small number of studies address the question of how to influence social inclusion in school in an evidence-based way. Four main approaches are currently discussed (Feinman, 1992) Here we refer to two of them.

The social skills deficit model (Asher, Renshaw & Hymel, 1982) assumes that social inclusion is influenced by students’ socials skills. Up to now there is a large body of evidence, that students with social skills deficits have a higher risk to be rejected in their classes (Newcomb et al., 1993). On the other side there is just a handful of studies that were able to improve students social inclusion just by social skills trainings  (Garrote et al., 2017; Zaragoza et al., 1991).

The social referencing theory (Feinman, 1992) assumes that public teacher feedback is another important factor for the students´ social inclusion. According to studies from Huber et al. (2018) or McAuliffe et al. (2009) the core assumption of the model is that teachers´ feedback and peer acceptance of children are intimately connected. The model predicts that students receiving much positive feedback from their teacher have a higher chance for an appropriate social inclusion. On the other hand the model predicts that negative teacher feedback is connected to poor social acceptance.  A considerable number of studies have been able to support this hypothesis in recent years, both in experimental studies (e.g. Huber et al., 2018; White & Jones, 2000) and in field studies (e.g. McAuliffe et al., 2009; Spilles et al., accepted).

With reference to both theoretical approaches, students with behaviour problems are in a double risk situation: they have social skills deficits and so there are at risk to receive more negative feedback from their teachers.

We assume, that classroom management is able to influence both, behavior problems and teacher feedback, positively. From this we derive hat classroom management should also have a positive effect on the social inclusion of children with behavior problems. It is predicted that the link between social inclusion and behavioural problems is strong when teacher have a weak classroom management performance. On the other hand, this link is believed to be weak when teachers have perform in classroom management.

Our research question was investigated in a sub-project of a cross-sectional study with n=1112 school children (grades 3-4) from 61 classes in Germany. Social inclusion (dependend variable, DV) was measured by the sociometric method (Moreno, 1974), from which a social choice score (CS) and a rejection score (RS) can be calculated. As independent variables, students´ bahavior problems and teachers classroom management competences were assessed – both from the teacher´s perspective. Bahavior problems were assessed by the German version of integrated teacher report form (Casale et al., 2019) and by a five-point Likert scale (IV1). Classroom Management was assessed by three CRM scales (IV2: routines; IV3: rules; IV4: extent of disturbances) by Depaepe & König (2018). Data were analysed by two multilevel regression analyses. Therefore, a random-intercept model was calculated for each DV. Individual student characteristics were located at level 1 (DV1-2, IV1) and the three teacher-related classroom management competencies (UV2-4) were located at level 2. In each case, a cross-level interaction of classroom management competencies on the link between behavioural problems and social inclusion was expected. The results showed a negative significant effect (b = -16.58) of behaviour problems on CS and a positive effect (β = 13.68) of behaviour problems on RC – both effects are already known from the literature. For the CS, a cross-level interaction was only significant for the CRM - routines (b = 6.15), but opposite to the predicted direction. For the RS, the cross-level interactions were significant for all three CRM scales - two of them (routines, disorders) opposite to the predicted direction. Only the cross-level interaction between CRM rules and the RS has been found in the predicted direction (b = -2.33).

The results are interpreted to mean that different classroom management dimensions influence the link between behaviour problems and social inclusion differently. Classroom management with numerous routines and few classroom disruptions strengthens the link between behavioural problems and social exclusion - possibly because classroom routines make teaching more susceptible to disruption and teachers have to verbally regulate the affected children. On the other hand, CRM with a strong rule-based and preventive orientation had a weakening effect on the link between behavioural problems and social exclusion - possibly because it reduces classroom disruptions and teachers are less forced to regulate them verbally.

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