Får jag vara med? : En studie om barns och vårdnadshavares upplevelser rörande inkluderingen i skolan av barn med ADHD

Sammanfattning: This thesis is based on questionnaire survey conducted with 223 respondents, whereof 120 are parents and 103 are children. The purpose of the study was to investigate these respondents’ point of view on inclusive education for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The first three research questions target the opinions of children with ADHD and their parents concerning inclusive education, and which aspects they consider the schools could develop in this area. The aim of the fourth and final research question was to investigate whether there are any differences regarding how the inclusive education is perceived depending on the geographic location of a school. The theory used in the study is Claes Nilholm’s four perspectives of inclusion, which are (1) placement, (2) inclusion of children in need of special support or functional disabilities, (3) inclusion of all children and (4) inclusion as feeling like you have a sense of belonging. The results show that only a few of the respondents perceive that the schools’ work reached the standards of the third and fourth perspectives on inclusive education. There were even some difficulties with identifying examples where the respondents perceived all the requirements for the second perspective to have been met. The experiences expressed by a small group of students did not even count as inclusion, in relation to the criteria of the first perspective. Most of the respondents were unhappy with the way inclusive education looked in their schools, especially in relation to the teachers’ competence regarding the diagnosis ADHD and how to work with children with this diagnosis. Also, the results show that there might be a slight correlation between the form of inclusive education and the geographic location of the school, in regards to benefits in form of economic resources being higher in the countryside, while other benefits in form of teacher competence being higher in schools in a larger city. The conclusions are that Swedish schools must work harder if to accomplish a more universal form of inclusive education, and that teachers need further education in how to work inclusively with children with an ADHD-diagnosis. In addition it becomes clear that the schools need to be given more financial support in order to be able to get the equipment needed for such a change.