Discovering factors influencing study success of students with disabilities and learning difficulties in an interview study

Abstract

The focus of our research is on students with disabilities defined by the current National Higher Education Act in Hungary. The actuality of the topic is that after the millennium, due to the expansion of higher education, the above-mentioned students appeared at universities, but regulations dealing with their presence in Hungary were laid down as late as 2007. Earlier researches have studied the accessibility and inclusive practices of the institutions internationally and in Hungary, but only little attention has been paid to these students’ chances of acquisition and retention to higher education. Equal opportunities in higher education appear to be an important supporting factor in our research however, the overall social context of the individual has a great influence on successful entry and graduation. A further research opportunity, a deeper, more extensive quantitative study of the institutional presence of students with disabilities and the factors contributing to their learning success is emerging.

How Can Social Capital Become a Facilitator of Inclusion?

“…This was expected since we are examining a group for whom learning is problematic for various reasons. We can also see that the socioeconomic background of the families is lower in the group of students with special educational needs, which corresponds to the patterns of the international and Hungarian literature [68,91,92].…”

“…Research on learners (who do not have special educational needs) highlighted long ago that low parental involvement, the quality of parent-child interactions, family lifestyle and values, and the socioeconomic characteristics of the family have an impact on early school leaving and academic success [62][63][64][65][66]. However, research on students with special educational needs has shown that families of children with special educational needs have lower social status, higher divorce rates, and poorer quantitative and qualitative indicators of parent-child interaction than the general population [67,68]. Research on families raising children with special educational needs has often focused on the lack of family relationships as a negative consequence of raising children who have special educational needs [69,70].…”

“…Research on families raising children with special educational needs has often focused on the lack of family relationships as a negative consequence of raising children who have special educational needs [69,70]. It has been shown that the development of internal and external family relationships is largely determined by the extent of the child's special needs, the circumstances in which the difficulties are recognised and accepted, and the social support and financial situation of the families [41,68]. In addition to the family's quality of life, the quality of their relationships will also be affected.…”

“…In addition to the family's quality of life, the quality of their relationships will also be affected. This affects the relationship between mother and father, between child and parents, between parents and siblings, and the closer and wider social context [41,68,71]. Therefore, students with special educational needs are in a less favourable, or at least more vulnerable situation, in terms of social capital, both within and outside the family.…”