Abstract:

The purpose of the present study is to compare the sociometric status of low socioeconomic status elementary school students with and without special needs and investigate the effects of different variables (gender, age, physical appearance, social skills, behavior problems, and academic competence) on students' sociometric status. Elementary school students consisted of 96 with special needs and 1090 without special needs from grades 2, 3, 4, and, 5 participated in this study. Students were administrated peer rating and peer nomination sociometric measures to determine their sociometric status. Data related to the variables which influence students' sociometric status were collected from teachers by a Student Information Form, the Physical Appearance Rating Form and the Social Skills Rating System-Teacher Form. The results of the study showed that students with special needs are less frequently accepted and more rejected than their peers without special needs. For the group with special needs, academic competence, physical appearance, and behavior problems predicted social acceptance, while social rejection was predicted by behavior problems. For the group without special needs, academic competence, social skills, behavior problems, physical appearance, and gender predicted social acceptance. For the same group, social rejection was predicted by behavior problems, academic competence and physical appearance. It is expected that determining the variables that affect the social status of students with and without special needs may facilitate preparing and implementing the educational/intervention programs which are intended to increase social acceptance of students with special needs.

Keywords: