A Small Special Needs Class or a Smaller Class at the Beginning of the Educational Path?
Valli, R., & Jokinen, K. (2016). A Small Special Needs Class or a Smaller Class at the Beginning of the Educational Path?. Journal of Studies in Education, 16 (2), 40-55. doi:10.5296/jse.v6i2. 9236
Published in
Journal of Studies in EducationDate
2016Discipline
KasvatustiedeCopyright
© the Authors, 2016. This is an open access article published by Macrothink Institute, Inc.
This article is based on the case study which focuses on the small class (in this article used to
describe a small special needs class) operation of one medium-sized Finnish town. In the study
an attempt was made to clarify what kind of alternative the small class is to the first grade of
general education at the beginning of the child's educational path, what kind of experiences the
teachers had of the pupils of the small class, of multi-vocational cooperation and of pupils'
integration and success in general education. The results of the study showed that a large part
of the pupils who come to the small classes had learning difficulties, and attention and
behavioural disorders. If the children in need of support would receive it already during
pre-school education, most of them could start their school directly in the first grade in general
education.