Following the legal requirements at international (UN-BRK, 2006) and national level in Switzerland (BehiG, 2004), learners with special educational needs are increasingly being taught in mainstream classes. In most educational systems, special measures exist with intend to support inclusion of students with special educational needs in mainstream schools. In Switzerland, the most common inclusive school measure for learners with mild disabilities is “inclusive support” to develop or improve knowledge, skills, behaviours, cognitions, or emotions. Inclusive support is given by a special education teacher for one or several hours per week and either within the mainstream classes (e.g., team teaching) or outside the classroom in individual or group setting.

Due to the federal system in Switzerland, the education system and the implementation of integrative measures is to a large extent in the responsibility of the cantons (i.e., the states). Nonetheless, the work of the cantons is not entirely separate but coordinated by the special education concordat (EDK, 2017). However, due to lack of binding guidelines in terms of the concrete implementation, there are considerable disparities in the implementation, designation, allocation, and funding of integrative measures across cantons (Sahli Lozano et al., 2021a). Further disparities may also exist within cantons, as school districts and even teachers have some degrees of freedom when it comes to the implementation and allocation of integrative school measures.

These disparities can have consequences in two broad areas. Firstly, disparities may lead to educational inequalities. It is possible that comparable learners benefit from inclusive support to a very different extent depending on their canton of residence, or that the distribution of resources influences whether "comparable learners" are integrated into a regular class or attend a special class (Luder, 2021; Sahli Lozano et al., 2021a). Secondly, the disparities complicate research on inclusive support, as findings may not directly be comparable across cantons and even within a canton the implementation of inclusive support and its target population can be heterogeneous.

In this presentation, we will explore the extent to which inclusive support is allocated and implemented throughout Switzerland and within one single canton (using the example of the canton of Bern).

The overview of the disparities of inclusive support across the cantons in Switzerland is mostly based on existing publications (Sahli Lozano et al., 2021a, b) and grey literature. It is aimed at the international audience to give a brief introduction concerning inclusive support and other inclusive school measures in Switzerland. To take a closer look at disparities within a canton and the heterogeneity population of students who receive inclusive support, data from a longitudinal study on the opportunities and risks of inclusive school measures in the canton of Bern were used (Sahli Lozano, 2018). The baseline assessment was performed during fifth or sixth grade of primary school (mean age: 12.4 years) and the follow-up during the second or third year of lower secondary school (mean age: 15.3 years). Data was available for 1018 students in the baseline study and for 2053 students at the follow-up (491 students participated in both waves of the study). At baseline and follow-up teachers were asked to indicate for each student, whether they received inclusive support or another inclusive school measure. Amongst others, teachers also indicated the reasons why students received inclusive support, how many hours of inclusive support were used per week or how inclusive support was specifically implemented in their class. Also, at both waves of data assessment, students participated in standardized tests (Stellwerk) on the academic performance in maths and language (German) and their intelligence was assessed using a cultural fair intelligence test (CFT-20R). Descriptive analyses were used as the research questions were mostly explorative and the sample sizes were often too small, to have enough test-power to find significant differences.

At primary school level 6.5% (n=66) of students received inclusive support, at secondary level it was 3.2% (n=65). The implementation of inclusive support in the Canton of Bern was very heterogeneous (e.g., combination with other special education measures, number of available lessons, form of teaching). It was also found that the learners receiving inclusive support differed greatly in terms of cognitive and academic performance characteristics. When looking at the group of learners with IS, it became apparent that the measure is implemented very differently in terms of resources and the combination with other measures. Furthermore, the group of learners with IS is very heterogeneous in terms of performance characteristics and does not receive IS consistently over time. These differences within the canton of Bern can be explained by the high degree of autonomy of the schools in designing their offers and relatively open cantonal guidelines (Hangartner & Heinzer, 2016). In particular, the allocation of resources by a pool funding model and the associated possibility of using part of the resources for inclusive support for the running of special classes influences the implementation of IF in the canton of Bern. Furthermore, the identified disparities can lead to inclusive support in different extent, form and quality for comparable learners depending on their school location and thus to educational inequalities. Research in this topic area must consider the differences within the learner group with inclusive support as well as the different implementation of inclusive support.

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