Negative peer influence in special needs classes – a risk for students with problem behaviour?

Abstract

Children and adolescents with aggressive and delinquent behaviours are often educated in special needs classes with others who exhibit the same kind of challenging behaviour. Beside the opportunities provided by this approach there are also risks, as several studies point to the problem of negative peer influence among this student population. Hence, in this article, potential risks of aggregating youth with behavioural difficulties in special needs classes are discussed and implications of the findings for practice and research are presented.

Keywords:

• problem behaviour
• conduct disorder
• peer influence
• integration
• inclusion

Acknowledgements

I thank Dr Andrea Samson from Stanford University, Dr Patrick Bonvin from the University of Fribourg and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the text.