Practices to support students experiencing social-emotional-behavioural difficulties inside mainstream primary classrooms: a systematic review of the literature

Abstract

The rise of inclusion, following the Salamanca Statement (1994), marked the beginning of an era where there is a considerable effort for all students to be educated in the mainstream classroom based on a human rights approach. Students previously allocated to separate educational contexts due to some of their characteristics, such as disabilities, have started now to be included in the mainstream classroom. However, teachers struggle to cope with the growing diversity and heterogeneity of their classrooms, especially regarding the inclusion of students labelled as experiencing social-emotional-behavioural difficulties (SEBD). Although there is a substantial body of literature on the best practices to support students experiencing SEBD, the inclusion of these students inside mainstream classrooms remains a significant challenge that baffles everyone involved in education. For this reason, this study’s rationale is to explore this issue and provide some implications on how the inclusion of students experiencing SEBD inside mainstream classrooms could be facilitated. The research question was, “Are the recommended in the literature practices to support students experiencing SEBD inside mainstream classrooms aligned to principles of inclusive pedagogy? A systematic literature review was conducted in four databases using strict protocols with explicit criteria to identify the most relevant to the research question articles. This review is important because it bears an informative, multidimensional character attempting to provide a more nuanced understanding of the recommended literature practices. Following the inductive thematic analysis of 11 primary empirical research papers, the results indicate that despite a high degree of ambiguity in the literature, there is a positive trend towards inclusion by focusing on practices proactively empowering all students’ social-emotional development. On the other hand, practices indicating a deficit approach trying to “fix” students’ behaviour, strictly focusing on controlling behaviour and imposing discipline, are still evident. Although the results should be interpreted with caution, further research is needed to build upon the inclusive orientation of practices.