The social representations that parents of “ordinary conventional children” have regarding integration at school

Abstract

This research has studied the Social Representation that parents of “ordinary/conventional children” have regarding Disability and Integration at school. For comparative purposes, a time line has been taken into account when analyzing parent’s Social Representations in three stages: before, during, and after Integration.To carry out this study a qualitative-researchapproach has been applied. The sampling has been of a deliberate/heterogenuous type in which parents of “ordinary/conventional children” have been selected. Those children, with different social and educational backgrounds, all attend State Schools in which experiences of School Integration have been performed with children with a variety of handicaps and educational needs.Understanding Disability as a social construct, the results show that the Social Representations of parents of “ordinary/conventional children” about School Integration and Disability, are modified during the integration experience. The aim of this research is to make a contribution to teachers, headmasters, external support professionals, and families, all of whom are necessary participants of the School Integration of students with Special Educational Needs, and responsible for enabling or restricting Strategies of School Integration at the moment of stating or supporting the process, paying attention to the context and all the different elements that go with it.