ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Dev. Psychol.
Sec. Social and Emotional Development
Volume 3 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fdpys.2025.1380004
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Importance of Peers: Making the Most of Peer Relationships in Childhood and AdolescenceView all 8 articles
Predicting peer acceptance among students with and without special educational needs in secondary educational settings
Provisionally accepted
- University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
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Peer acceptance is an important positive educational and social outcome for all students in inclusive secondary education, whether students have a disability or not. Peer acceptance is influenced by the educational setting and the peers educated in this setting. However, not much is known about the predictors of peer acceptance among students in secondary educational settings. The aim of this study was to examine predictors for peer acceptance on two levels, predictors on the individual level (i.e., behavioural problems and social skills reported by teachers) and the peer level (i.e., prosocial and aggressive behaviour, popularity and academic achievement reported by peers). Four groups of students (N = 344) educated in different secondary schools were included in the study. Two groups of typically developing students in secondary education (n = 248) and two groups of students in special secondary education with either an intellectual disability (n = 68) or students with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (n = 28). Using peer nominations in the data collection and multilevel analyses, the results showed no evidence for individual level predictors for peer acceptance for all four groups of students. On the peer level, popularity and aggression were found to predict peer acceptance among students in secondary education. The results of this study emphasize the essential role of peer perceptions in acquiring peer acceptance and the importance of fostering prosocial behaviour to promote peer acceptance in educational practises.
Keywords: Peer acceptance, Inclusive secondary education, intellectual disabililties, Social-emotional behavioral difficulties, Peer nominations
Received: 31 Jan 2024; Accepted: 18 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Douma, Warrens, Boer and Minnaert. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ivonne Douma, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
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