Abstract:

Contemporary international society agrees that the new social contract for education "must address the existing web of inequalities that perpetuate educational and social exclusions, while helping to shape environmentally sustainable, and socially just and inclusive shared futures" (UNESCO, 2021, p. 27). However, to address inequalities, they must be recognized first…

In the Czech Republic, the system of support measures provided with the aim to gain equal access to education for students with special educational needs works relatively well for students with disabilities. However, students whose inequalities in education result from social disadvantages, as the cause of educational barriers, often remains unrecognized.

The paper focuses on understanding the phenomenon of students’ social disadvantage. The text draws on research which included more than a hundred counselling professionals from different elementary schools.

The aim of the quantitative part of the research, carried out as a questionnaire survey, was to identify the degree of understanding of the current concept of social disadvantage in education and to verify a new definition of the category "student with social disadvantage". While the current concept of social disadvantage was identified as problematic by more than 80 % of survey participants, the newly proposed definition proved to be understandable and functional for 99 % of respondents.

The aim of the qualitative part of the research, carried out via focus groups with fourteen selected counselling professionals, was to verify a new broader concept of students' social disadvantage - a concept that is based on the identification of: insufficient support for the student in the home environment, language barriers, socially determined challenging behavior, lack of study motivation, insufficient fulfillment of the child's psychological or physical needs and non-cooperation between the student's parents and her/his school. In the focus groups, minor partial changes of the definition reducing the risk of stigmatization of the student's family were proposed, but the overall concept was perceived very positively, as the basis of a potentially very functional assessment tool for educational practice.

In conclusion, it seems that the effort to (re-)define the social disadvantage of students to gain provision of suitable support measures is welcomed as an important and needed step in educational and counselling practice, and has a potential for the further development of inclusion in education.

Keywords:

Social disadvantage, educational inequalities, school counselling, special educational needs.