TY  - JOUR
A1  - Hoffmann, Lisa
A1  - Wilbert, Jürgen
A1  - Lehofer, Mike
A1  - Schwab, Susanne
T1  - Are we good friends?
BT  - Friendship preferences and the quantity and quality of mutual friendships
JF  - European Journal of Special Needs Education
N2  - Empirical studies already examined various facets of the friendship construct. Building on this, the present study examines the questions of how the number of friendships and their quality differ between students with and without SEN and whether a homophily-effect can be identified. The sample consists of 455 fourth-graders from 28 inclusive classes in Austria. The results indicate that students with SEN have fewer friends than students without SEN. Furthermore, students without SEN preferred peers without SEN as a friend. This homophily-effect was shown for students with SEN, too. However, students with and without SEN rated the quality of their friendships similarly and no interactions between the SEN status of oneself or of the friend was found for the quality of the friendship. The results show that, in the context of inclusion, the issue of friendship needs to be increasingly addressed to improve the situation of students with SEN.
KW  - social participation
KW  - friendship
KW  - quality of friendship
KW  - homophily
KW  - sociometric nomination
Y1  - 2019
VL  - 36
IS  - 4
PB  - Taylor & Francis
CY  - London
ER  -