The Preamble to the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities underlines the importance of equal access to education for all. To this end, according to Articles 8b and 24, states should encourage respect for the rights of children with disabilities, because of their right to equal opportunities in education without discrimination (United Nations, 2008). The education systems in Europe then should be inclusive at all levels and all the time. This means that children with learning difficulties should not be excluded because of having difficulties to learn in the same way or at the same pace as children without learning difficulties (Charitaki, Marasidi & Soulis, 2018). In contrast, they should be supported to learn on an equal basis together with their peers. To this end, there should be provision of reasonable accommodation and individualized support, which should be ensured by the state (Damianidou & Phtiaka, 2018). The promotion of inclusive education is also one of the priority areas set up by the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020, which is supported by the Academic Network of European Disability experts (ANED) (European Commission, 2020).
However, despite the growing interest of European countries regarding the promotion of inclusive education as the hope for a better future in the era of uncertainty, the implementation of international conventions and national legislation at the school level does not always guarantee inclusion (Symeonidou & Mavrou, 2020). For example, the support classes that function in many European schools (e.g. in Greece and Cyprus) and the assessment process with which children are classified as students needing special provision in such classes may actually reproduce discrimination and raise barriers to inclusion (Charitaki, Marasidi & Soulis, 2018). According to Bourdieu (1984), social action takes place in a field, which represents the dominating system of power relations. Social positions in the field are not randomly allocated; in contrast their availability depends on constraints and rules imposed by the most powerful. To this end, the displacement of students with learning difficulties, as not fitting the prevalent ‘normality’ may be easily achieved through the misinterpretations, delays and malpractices that are often observed in the function of support classes (Lindner & Schwab, 2020).
In Greece, for example, the apparent aim of support classes is to promote inclusion by offering personalized support to students that deviate from the norm, such as children with learning difficulties (Charitaki, Marasidi & Soulis, 2018). Since, though, support classes actually represent the two-tier system, by taking students out of their original class, sometimes for the whole day, significant challenges and barriers remain, which may result to the children’s exclusion from social networks of peers and participation in the same learning opportunities as children without learning difficulties (Pappas, Papoutsi & Drigas, 2018). Based on the above, the aim of this study was to explore the system of assessment of children with learning difficulties, the implementation of the support class and the consequences on equal learning opportunities and inclusion of children with learning difficulties. Moreover, the study aimed to formulate recommendations to overcome the barriers to inclusion, offering a useful guide for practitioners and parents.
The main research questions were the following: a) What is the apparent and the underlying purposes of the assessment process regarding children with learning difficulties? b) What is the impact of support classes on learning and inclusion of children with learning difficulties? c) How the displacement of children with learning difficulties that are enrolled in support classes may be prevented? 

Since this research aimed to explore the personal experience and interpretations of prevalent education practices, we decided to employ a qualitative methodology. Our aim was to gain in-depth insights from key informants in order to develop grounded theory. We interpreted our findings within the framework of the medical and social model of disability, which postulate that the restrictions that disabled people have to confront are not a consequence of disability but represent the barriers constructed by the powerful society that values and promotes ‘normality’ on the one hand and condemns deviance on the other, considering it as illness and a source of misery (Oliver, 1996). Hence disability is not a real situation that stems from inside the person, as the medical model postulates, but an externally imposed plasmatic category that serves the reproduction of existing power relationships and the positioning of disabled people in social hierarchy. Our main research tool was the semi-structured interview. Our questions focused on how children with learning difficulties are affected by the assessment process and their enrolment in support classes. Each interview lasted between one to two hours and was based on the informed consent of the participants. A grounded theory method was employed; thus, the interviews were driven by the participants’ perceptions. We started by asking the participants to tell us their stories of the assessment process of children with learning difficulties and the consequences of the children’s enrolment in support classes, regarding their development and learning opportunities. Then we used prompts and probes to steer the conversation through the following topics: the meaning and the experience of assessment, the effectiveness of the teaching methods used, feelings of being part of a support class, learning opportunities and barriers to inclusion. The interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim. In total, our sample comprised of 15 primary education teachers teaching in support classes and 10 parents with children with learning difficulties that are enrolled in support classes. Brinkmann and Kvale (2015) suggest that five to 25 people represent an adequate sample for qualitative studies. Even though we cannot postulate that we selected a representative sample that reflects the enormous range of the experiences and perspectives of persons involved in the education of children with learning difficulties, we tried to recruit a diverse group of participants with different backgrounds. To this end, we employed a combination of purposive and snowball sampling methods.

The proliferating percentage of children with learning difficulties in contemporary European schools and their right to equal opportunities in education highlight the necessity to implement policies that may dismantle the barriers to inclusion and ensure the participation of all children in schooling and social life (Buchner et al., 2021). To this end, as the participants stated, there are assessment processes in Greece, with which children with learning difficulties may be identified and educated in support classes, according to their needs. However, as the participants revealed, the assessment process does not seem to promote inclusion or facilitate learning, since the delays that are usually observed and the placement of children according to the availability of support classes, and not their needs, seem to indicate an underlying intention to reproduce the social hierarchy instead of satisfying the children’s needs. On the other hand, both the participating teachers and parents highlighted the importance of home-school partnership to maximize the children’s potential and enhance learning. The participating teachers though expressed their disappointment because of the lack of co-operation with the general teachers, which seem to raise barriers to the inclusion of children with learning difficulties, when they attend lessons at the general class. Ironically, both parents and teachers observed children’s decreased confidence and lack of self-efficiency. However, they did not attribute the latter to the shortcomings of the assessment system and the services provided, but on the children, reproducing the medical model of disability and facilitating the placement of children with learning difficulties in the lowest levels of social hierarchy, as not fitting the prevalent ideal of the confident and self-efficient student. It seems then that it is essential to realize the oppression of students with learning difficulties to render the support system a hope for the future (Damianidou, 2021).

Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. London, UK: Routledge. Brinkmann, S., & Kvale, S. (2015). InterViews: Learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing (Vol. 3). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Buchner, T., Shevlin, M., Donovan, M. A., Gercke, M., Goll, H., Šiška, J., & Corby, D. (2021). Same progress for all? Inclusive education, the United Nations Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities and students with intellectual disability in European countries. Journal of Policy and Practice in Intellectual Disabilities, 18(1), 7-22. Charitaki, G., Marasidi, Y., & Soulis, S. G. (2018). School adjustment: A case of an adolescent diagnosed with specific learning disabilities. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 6(04), 15-23. Damianidou, E. (2021). Curriculum and the power to ex(in)clude disabled students. International Journal of Inclusive Education, DOI: 10.1080/13603116.2021.1994034. Damianidou, E., & Phtiaka, H. (2018). Implementing inclusion in disabling settings: The role of teachers’ attitudes and practices. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 22(10), 1078-1092. European Commission. (2020). European Disability Strategy 2010-2020 helped to remove barriers. Available from https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=89&furtherNews=yes&newsId=9835&langId=en Lindner, K. T., & Schwab, S. (2020). Differentiation and individualisation in inclusive education: a systematic review and narrative synthesis. International Journal of Inclusive Education, DOI: 10.1080/13603116.2020.1813450. Oliver, M. (1996). Understanding disability: From theory to practice. New York, NY, US: St Martin's Press. Pappas, M. A., Papoutsi, C., & Drigas, A. S. (2018). Policies, practices, and attitudes toward inclusive education: The case of Greece. Social sciences, 7(6), 90-109. Symeonidou, S., & Mavrou, K. (2020). Problematising disabling discourses on the assessment and placement of learners with disabilities: can interdependence inform an alternative narrative for inclusion?. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 35(1), 70-84. United Nations. (2008). Convention On The Rights Of Persons With Disabilities (CRPD). Availabe from https://social.desa.un.org/issues/disability/crpd/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities-crpd