Nowadays learning includes the ability to work in a group, make individual and group decisions, and know how orient in the social reality. The best way to meet the challenges of the change is education and learning. However, various foreign scientific resources cite a lot of researches that reveal increasing social insularity and analyse the problematic concept of social withdrawal (Rubin, 1982; Colpan, Rubin, Fox, Calkins, & Stewart, 1994; Harrist, Zaia, Bates, Dodge, & Pettit, 1997; Coplan & Rubin, 1998; Nelson, Hart, Robinson, Olsen, & Rubin, 2000; Hart et al., 2000; Rubin & Coplan, 2004). 

The problem of the research is defined by the query what kind of learning environment augurs active participation of all schoolchildren, including the socially withdrawn, in class activities while learning and making decisions significant for the whole class and how schoolchildren who tend to socially withdraw comprehend socially integral teaching/learning environment in the classroom from the point of view of its value and provided possibilities to be an active participant?

Some researches conducted by scientists correlation between schoolchildren’s social withdrawal and ostracism or welcome of their contemporaries (Martin Gerhold, Manfred Laucht, Christiane Texdorf, Martin H.Schmidt, Günter Esser, 2002; Nelson, Rubin, Fox, 2005; Burgess, Wojslawowicz, Rubin, Rose-Krasnor, Booth-LaForce, 2006; Ladd, 2003 2005; Ladd, Herald & Andrews, 2006). Researchers also deal with the opportunities that might allow socially withdrawn schoolchildren to actively involve themselves into the activities of children of their age in pre-school period (Moroz; Jones, 2002; Fantuzo, Manz, Atkins, Meyers, 2005; Fantuzzo, Perry, & Childs, 2006; Fantuzzo, Perlman, 2007). 

In the scientific papers of Lithuanian psychologists and education scientists a lot of attention is being paid to the problems of schoolchildren’s behaviour and motivation (Valickas, 1997; Dereškevičius, 2000; Targamadzė, 2000; Rupšienė, 2000; Rimkevičienė, 2000, 2004; Indrašienė, 2004; Barkauskaitė, 2004) and  preconditions of individual’s psychological adaptation (Žukauskienė, 1999, 2001; Petrauskienė, 2000; Kvieskienė, 2003; Prakapas, 2002; Martišauskienė, 2003; Juodraitis, 2004). Work with schoolchildren’s family while dealing with the problems of their education and the ways of strengthening cooperation between their parents and the school staff are discussed in M. Barkauskaitė’s (1999, 2001), Z. Bajoriūnas’s (1993, 1997), and B. Bitinas’s (1997, 2004) papers. However, no investigations about the ways of creating socially integral teaching/learning environment that helps schoolchildren overcome social withdrawal in the process of learning were found.

The object matter of the research is the efficiency of the constructed theoretical model of socially integral teaching/learning environment (SITLE) in the classroom.

The aim of the research is to test the efficiency of the constructed theoretical model of socially integral teaching/learning environment in the classroom.

The objectives of the research are as follows:

1.      Reveal the model of socially integral teaching/learning environment.

2.      Assess the changes in socially withdrawn learners’ behaviour in the classroom (5 case studies)

3.      Reveal how the socially withdrawn children comprehend socially integral teaching/learning environment from the point view of its value and provided possibilities for active participation.

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