Students’ voices about the extra educational support they receive in regular education

Abstract

There has been an increased focus on listening to students’ voices in inclusive education in the last decade. To ensure the right of students to be heard and educational needs can be met in the Dutch education system, we set up a qualitative study to gain more insight into: 1) the problems that students experience at school, 2) how and from whom they can receive support for their problems, 3) how students evaluate the received extra educational support and 4) how they evaluate its impact. We interviewed 72 students who were assessed for learning problems or social-emotional and/or behavioural problems in secondary education (n = 33) or vocational education (n = 39). The interviews focused on both learning problems and social participation problems. The results show that students do not only experience learning problems or social-emotional and/or behavioural problems, but other problems too, such as concentration and motivation problems. A considerable number of students also experience social participation problems. Students mainly receive individual or group support, which is given outside the classroom. In general, students are positive about the received support, due to the extra time, attention and opportunity to discuss problems that this gives them.