Abstract:

Although the children’s rights to education are consolidated in the normative documents of Latvia the practice reveals that there are problems with executing these rights for children with learning difficulties in the mainstream school. The paper analyses the basis of normative documents of Latvia evaluating the rights of children with learning difficulties to education as well as analyses the case study about girl with learning difficulties Maya (name is changed to ensure privacy), presenting the range of problems that teachers and a student with learning difficulties face in the mainstream school.

The integration and inclusion of children with special needs in the mainstream school started in Latvia already in the beginning of 90s of the 20th century when individual education institutions admitted children with special needs. Twenty years have passed since then, the normative basis has been straightened out and the long-term planning documents of Latvia incorporate the concept inclusive education which is being explained as “the process which ensures the respective diverse needs of learners increasing every learner’s participation possibilities in the teaching/learning process, culture and different communities and decreasing the exclusion possibilities from the process of acquiring education.” Unfortunately, the practice reveals that not always the children’s rights are executed in cases when the child has some learning difficulties.

Methodology:
The research is based on the case-study method, analysing Maya's situation in the particular school in the discourse of Latvia’s legislation which allows researching profoundly and diversely one social phenomenon applying qualitative research methods. Different data pertaining to the Maya were collected in everyday pedagogical work in the particular school which were then analysed in the aspect of ensuring full rights to education. The study summarised the assessment of academic achievement in tests, the student’s involvement in everyday learning activities as well as cooperation between the school and family.

In order to perform the legislation discourse of this case, documents were analysed using the hermeneutic approach in text analysis.

Keywords:

A child with learning difficulties, mainstream school, child’s rights.