Special Education in Comprehensive Schools: Extent, Forms and Effects

The present study aims to describe the extent and forms (integrated versus segregated) of special education support offered to pupils in comprehensive schools in Sweden over a period of 29 years and to study relations between support, background variables and goal attainment in Grade 9. The study is based on about 35,000 children born in 1972, 1977, 1982, and 1987, participating in the ongoing longitudinal project “Evaluation Through Follow‐Up”. The findings reveal that boys and pupils from lower educational home‐backgrounds and with non‐Swedish backgrounds are over‐represented among the groups that have received special education support. The findings also suggest that pupils who have received support, in general, tend to achieve educational goals in core curriculum subjects to a lesser extent than those who have never had any kind of support.