Inclusive education is widely considered as the most preferred form of education for students accredited with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) around the world. One of the arguments for implementing inclusive educational policies concerns the social benefits that students with SEND gain through their interaction with their peers in regular education classes. However, such benefits might not always be achieved since students with SEN are often found to face significant difficulties in their interactions with peers (Bossaert et al., 2015). Indeed, the literature portrays students with SEND as less accepted, having fewer friendships and experiencing more loneliness in the classroom than their typically developing peers (Pijl & Frostad, 2010; Schwab et al, 2015). Moreover, the available studies also suggest that students with SEND develop a lower sense of belongingness to the school community (Dimitrellou & Hurry, 2018; Nepi, Facondini, Nucci, & Peru, 2013). This is especially alarming since developing a sense of belonging to the school is associated with both affective and academic outcomes (Osterman, 2000). For example, Anderman (2003) found that school belonging was associated with personal interest and intrinsic motivation for accomplishing school tasks, while Irvin et al. (2011) concluded that school belonging represented a strong predictive factor for academic success.

Although different theoretical models of school belonging can be found in the literature, the model proposed by Goodenow (1993) has received most research attention. According to this model, school belonging is a multifaceted construct defined as the feeling of being accepted, respected, included and supported by both teachers and peers, combined with a sense of participating in school activities and being valued within this community. Accordingly, school belonging is based on supportive and caring relationships with teachers, reciprocal and close friendships with peers, and meaningful participation in extracurricular and school-based activities (Bouchard & Berg, 2017).

Along similar lines, some researchers have focused on the examination of “school climate” which is considered to be a more holistic concept, which incorporates the notion of school belonging. According to Cohen, Mccabe, Michelli, and Pickeral (2009) school climate “…refers to the quality and characters of school life. School climate is based on patterns of people's experiences of school life and reflects norms, goals, values, interpersonal relationships, teaching and learning practices, and organizational structures” (p. 180). Based on this theorizing, Schwab, Sharma and Loreman (2018) coined the term “inclusive school climate”, which incorporates all aspects of school climate mentioned in the relevant literature. To this end, they developed a scale eliciting students’ perceptions of their school climate with a view of evaluating the quality of existing inclusive arrangements.

The present study builds on this line of work by examining secondary education students’ perceptions of the climate in their classrooms with reference to inclusive education through the administration of a revised version of the Inclusion Climate Scale (ICS). In so doing, the perceptions of students identified as experiencing SEND were contrasted to those held by their typically achieving peers. We were also interested in determining the extent to which perceptions of school climate predict the students’ motivation for academic engagement.

The research represents a quantitative survey design. Participants were drawn from four mainstream secondary schools in central Greece. All students registered at Grades 7, 8 and 9 were invited to participate in the study. The sample consisted of 626 students with a mean age of 14.42 (sd=.58), of which 100 were diagnosed as having learning disabilities and participated in pull-out learning support programs delivered by special teachers in resource bases within their mainstream schools. In Greece, students labelled as having learning disabilities (LD) typically experience difficulties in their academic performance in areas such as reading, spelling, or arithmetic despite the availability of learning support. Moreover, in the Greek context these difficulties are in most cases accompanied with various types of behavioural difficulties such as disruptive overt behaviour and/or internalized emotional difficulties. All students with LD participating in the present study had also been diagnosed by educational psychologists in public diagnostic centres as experiencing LD and received additional learning support by special teachers in resource rooms within their mainstream schools. Fieldwork involved administering two psychometric instruments: the reduced version of the Inclusion Climate Scale (ICS) developed by Schwab et al. (2018) to assess perceptions of school climate and the Μotivation and Engagement Scale - High School (MES-HS) developed by Martin (2010) to assess participants’ perceptions of school climate and their motivation for engagement at school. The reduced version of the ICS is a four-point Likert scale which consists of 18 items representing three hypothesized factors. To complete the scale students had to choose among the following options: Not at all true (1), Mostly False (2), Mostly True (3) True (4). The higher the score in the subscales, the more positive student perceptions are implied. The MES-HS instrument consists of 44 items representing multiple hypothesized factors relating to students’ motivation for engagement. These items could be answered on a seven-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7). Higher composite scores indicate higher motivation for engagement. As anticipated, the Principal Components Analysis conducted on the participants’ responses to the ICS yielded a three-factor solution. These factors were named “Teacher Practices of Support and Care”, “Emotional Experience” and “Peer Relations” respectively. No such analysis was performed on the students’ responses to the MES-HS scale; instead, in the present study, an overall motivation score was extracted by summing all questions of the MES-HS having first reversed those with a negative content.

The comparisons performed between groups of participants determined by their academic status revealed some mixed results. Specifically, students with LD reported more positive perceptions on the “teacher practices of support and care” and the “emotional experience” factors and, at the same time, less positive perceptions of their peer relations compared to their typically achieving classmates. With regard to the participants’ motivation for engagement no difference was detected between the two groups. Moreover, no gender differences were detected on all assessed variables. As expected, all dimensions of inclusive school climate were found to be linked with the students’ motivation for school engagement. However, the regression analysis performed showed that the dimension of ‘teacher support and care’ and the provision of individualized learning support in resource rooms were the most important predictors of student motivation for engagement. These findings are in line with previous studies which have shown that the availability of learning support in general schools results not only in academic benefits but also lead to improved relationships with teachers (Rose & Shevlin, 2017). It could be suggested that the deployment of special teachers in Greek general schools has been effective in terms of differentiating the curriculum and offering individualized support to students with LD, thus promoting both the development of positive perceptions of school climate and enhanced motivation for engagement. The rather negative perceptions of relations with peers were again largely anticipated as the literature contains numerous studies that have found integrated students with LD experiencing significant difficulties in their interactions with peers (Schwab, et al., 2015). The study concludes with highlighting the importance of implementing school-based interventions to mitigate the difficulties faced by students with LD and, at the same time, foster the development of a positive school climate leading to multiple benefits for all students.

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