Relationships and psychosocial aspects in inclusive secondary schools in Germany

ABSTRACT This study examines how the proportion of students with special educational needs (SEN) in class and their individual victimisation experiences may affect student-student and student-teacher relationships, social inclusion, and emotional well-being in school. The interaction of students’ SEN status and their victimisation experiences is also investigated. The convenience sample consists of 248 students (114 female, 134 male students) from the ages of 9 to 16 years (M = 11.53, SD = 1.43) enrolled in seven secondary schools in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Results of hierarchical regression analyses revealed that a higher proportion of SEN in class was associated with lower ratings for student-teacher relationships, and that victimisation experiences were a significant predictor for student-student relationships and for social inclusion. Individual SEN status was related to lower ratings of social inclusion. Probing the interaction of SEN status and victimisation experiences on emotional well-being revealed non-significant simple slopes irrespective of SEN status. The corresponding statistical models yielded low to moderate variance explanations, indicating that the proportion of SEN in class, victimisation experiences, and individual SEN status may play a role in mental health related psychosocial outcome variables.