How Students without Special Needs Perceive Social Inclusion of Children with Physical Impairments in Mainstream Schools: A Scoping Review

ABSTRACT

Despite the importance of students without special needs’ perspectives in promoting successful social inclusion strategies in the classroom, their perspectives are not well represented in the literature. The purpose of this scoping review was to summarise the perspectives of students without special needs around the social inclusion of students with physical impairments in mainstream classrooms, describe factors impacting these perspectives and identify research gaps. Five databases were searched and 6229 articles were screened for eligibility. Ten articles met the inclusion criteria and were included in this review. The findings suggest that students without special needs avoid interacting with students with physical impairments, and are less accepting and less willing to befriend a student with a physical impairment. Combined, there were 13 individual, interpersonal and contextual factors influencing these perspectives, which should be considered to inform future inclusion practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Acceptance
• disability
• friendship
• inclusive education
• peer interaction
• social integration
• students with special needs
• typically developing peers

Disclosure statement

There is no conflict of interest to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Holland Bloorview Foundation Graduate Student Scholarship Award Program.