Since the description of the ʻdilemma of differenceʼ (e.g. Artiles, 1998; Minow, 2016) a difficulty balancing between the establishment of a general equal education system and the guarantee for adequate individual support has been documented. This dilemma is also evident in the UN CRPD and particular topical in those states still having a well developed special education system. The question of how equal access to the general education system can be ensured for all children while simultaneously providing adequate individual support for those requiring it is a key point in charting the way forward to a sustainable inclusive society. Internationally, individual education plans (IEPs) are used as road maps (Özdemir et al., 2020) to plan and implement individual support and are also discussed as an alternative to SEN assessment procedures. Thus they are attributed a central role as a tool to accompany the learning process in inclusive education (e.g., Moser Opitz, 2019; Özdemir, 2020; Paccaud Luder, 2017; Räthy et al., 2019). In some European countries, IEPs serve as a mandatory document for children having special educational needs and are thus considered an instrumental prerequisite to an inclusive education system (Koßmann, 2022).

Existing studies analyzing IEPs in terms of document analysis suggest deficiencies in the quality of IEPs. These deficiencies refer to missing information (Özdemir et al., 2020; Koßmann, 2022; Rakap et al., 2019; similarly, Hauer & Feyerer, 2006), unclear goal descriptions (Paccaud & Luder, 2017; Räty et al., 2019; Sanches-Ferreira et al., 2013), and missing details on evaluation (Koßmann and Eilinghoff, 2021). Isaksson et al. (2007) identify that the difficulties described in IEPs are predominately deficit-based and attributed to the pupils. The school situation and teaching are scarcely taken into account.

In many of the German federal states, individual support based on IEPs must be provided by the mainstream school before special educational needs (SEN) assessment procedures are initiated. This study focuses on the tool of IEPs in the context of SEN assessment procedures in the area of 'learning difficulties' in primary schools.

The central questions of this presentation are what role IEPs play in the context of SEN assessment procedures, how the children are addressed, and what pedagogical strategies and practices can be analyzed.

We will present findings from the research project “InDiVers” (Gasterstädt et al., 2024), which analyzes SEN assessment procedures in primary schools in four German states using a qualitative multi-level design. The empirical data consists of a total of 14 IEPs (up to 6 per pupil), which were written before and after the completion of the SEN assessment procedures. The data was collected in the federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse. Both states share similar educational regulations which aim to prevent the child being identified as having an SEN through preventive measures supported and documented by IEPs. Only after proven failure of these measures can SEN assessment procedures be initiated. The study takes up research from the perspective of institutional discrimination (Feagin & Feagin, 1986; Gomolla & Radtke, 2009; Gomolla, 2023), which views discrimination both as a social process and as something embedded in societal structures and institutions. As a methodological approach, the study follows situational analysis (Clarke et al., 2018) based in the grounded theory tradition (GTM, Strauss, 1998). The research approach allows the analysis of complex situations (like SEN assessment procedures) and includes relational power analytics (Foucault, 1974; 1977) as well as the significance of non-human elements (Latour, 1987; Haraway, 1989; 2003). Therefore, IEPs can be seen as non-human agents, which means that they are not only analyzed as containers of 'true' statements/contents, but their own agency is also emphasized (Prior, 2008). In this sense, IEPs are seen as actively involved in interactions and as co-defining them. Four aspects that emerge from the methodological framework are highlighted here: 1. The analytical focus is directed at the materialities as part of the SEN assessment procedures, so that they refer to both aspects of the documents, the form and the completion of the plans by the educational professionals. 2. In terms of the agency of documents, we focus on the power relations which can be showed by analyzing how the children are addressed in the IEPs. 3. The coding and categorization, following the premises of situational analysis and GTM, allows us to go beyond content analysis to provide an understanding and explanation of IEPs in the context of SEN assessment procedures. 4. Constant comparisons between codes allow for the identification of similarities and differences both inter- and intra-individually (over time), thus incorporating the time dimension of SEN assessment procedures, which take generally several months in Germany.

The findings show that in the IEPs deficits are attributed as individual characteristics of the child from the very beginning. This so called ‘problem’ is reinforced and sometimes dramatized throughout the process so that it is also portrayed as inherently unsolvable. The deficit perspective remains, even when abilities are attributed over time. Regarding pedagogical strategies, three forms can be distinguished: "leaving them to themselves," "delegating" and "engaging with them". While "leaving them to themselves" refers to a lack of educational intervention, the subcategory "delegating" means that the responsibility for addressing the issue is left to the parents or external institutions. "Engaging with them" refers to pedagogical support strategies. The latter can be mainly identified after the assessment procedures. In this sense the data shows that by writing IEPs the labeling process of SEN is supported and even shown as inevitable: The supposed preventive work with individual education plans as a tool for support is reversed to become evidence of the need to identify SEN. We will discuss this gap, referring to the paradoxical requirement to develop inclusive education in segregative structures that continue to exist in various European countries.

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