The influence of adolescents' self-perception of social relationships on personality functioning in the context of inclusive education.

Introduction: Adolescence is a special phase of life in which fundamentals of psychosocial functioning are formed. The present study investigates how adolescents' self-perception of social relationships in inclusive classes affect personality functioning. Furthermore, we examine whether the association between self-perceived social relationships and personality functioning is stronger for students with special educational needs in the domains of learning (SEN L) and social -emotional development (SED) than for students without SEN.
Methods: At two measurement points questionnaire data was collected from 927 sixth- and seventh-graders from 20 primary and 20 comprehensive inclusive classes in Germany.
Results: Results of longitudinal multilevel analyses show partially different results for sixth- and seventh-graders. Overall, students' perceived social relatedness predicted personality functioning. Students who perceived their social relationships more positively showed healthier personality functioning. Further, SEN SED represents a potential risk factor for personality functioning. But, we observed that differences in personality functioning between seventh-graders with SEN L or SED and those without SEN decreased over time. Furthermore, SEN does not appear to reinforce the association between low self-perception of social relationships and risky personality functioning.
Discussion: The findings are discussed in the context of inclusive education and implications for future research as well as practice are given. Overall, our findings contribute to a better understanding of students' psychosocial development in inclusive learning environments.
Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
(Copyright © 2024 Hartmann, Knigge, Lenkeit, Ehlert, Goth and Spörer.)