Will my child ever go to a university? The link between school segregation practices and Norwegian parents’ expectations for their physically disabled child |
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| Authors: | Jon Erik Finnvold |
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| Institution: | Oslo and Akershus University College, Norway |
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| Abstract: | How parents perceive their children's educational prospects can reveal a great deal about how their children will progress in the educational system. The paper examines the consequences of variations in inclusive education practices by investigating determinants of parents’ educational expectations for their child. All parents included in the study had children with physical disabilities in primary school (mainly cerebral palsy and spina bifida). The empirical material includes results from a survey (Net sample = 491), in combination with information merged from a range of official registers. The results showed that the more the child is segregated from ordinary classroom education, the lower parental expectations are for their children's educational attainments. Other factors also significantly influencing parents’ educational expectations include how parents’ view their child's school performance, as well as various measures of the severity of the child's physical disability. However, these secondary factors could not account for the empirically strong association between segregation practices and parental expectations. Parental expectations were also significantly related to parental income and education. The findings indicate that the expectations of parents with higher income and education are less affected by school segregation practices. |
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| Keywords: | School segregation physical disability social inequality |
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